Been posting at 6pm for years, switched to 8am on accident and doubled my reach in 3 days

I used to think posting in the evening made sense since people are off work. Had a busy morning last Tuesday and accidentally hit publish at 8am instead. That post got 2,300 views in the first hour, my usual numbers for a whole day. Tested it again Wednesday and Thursday, same result every time. My audience is apparently early risers checking feeds before work. Anyone else find their posting time assumptions were totally wrong?

3 comments

3 Comments

patricia_schmidt147d agoTop Commenter

Track your analytics for a full week before making the switch, @brown.gavin is right that one day doesn't prove a pattern.

riley_schmidt8d ago

Did you compare the actual content quality between the two times?

brown.gavin8d ago

Whoa, hold up. I really doubt it's the time that made the difference. You probably just got lucky with the algorithm that day, or your 6pm posts were weak and the 8am ones actually had good hooks. One accidental hit doesn't prove a pattern. I've tested morning vs evening across two different accounts with thousands of followers and the difference was never more than 10%, not double. People say the same thing about posting on Tuesday vs Thursday - it's usually just confirmation bias from one good result.