Riding the Carpool Whale - A Very Useful Tip on Timing Social Media

One advantage Social Media Managers in a school district have going for them is that we are a local operation. We do not have to worry about a global market. Our audience goes to sleep. You can see from the graphic below that our audience on social media is active from about 7:00 am until about 10:00 pm. I call this riding the whale because of the unique shape of the graph.

When you study your social media analytics, you must look for patterns and trends. We got our graph of active times of our followers from Facebook Insights, the company’s free analytic data for page users. Facebook gives you a wealth of free information that is very valuable.

Here is a great, yet simple tip for deciding on times to post messages on Facebook and Twitter.
Utilize your carpool drop-off and pick-up times for posting important messages for your elementary school parents. Why would carpool times impact your social media schedule? Think about what America’s new favorite pastime is… Interacting with their smartphone, especially while in the car. Sitting in the carpool lane waiting for the bell to ring is a perfect time for parents to check their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Capitalize on this.

Our elementary schools start at 7:40 am and get out at 2:55 pm, so we usually post a elementary school social media message at 7:30 am and 2:30 pm depending on the message. That way we can target the parents who get to the carpool lane early and have nothing better to do but check their social media accounts.

Think about this the next time you are going to post about Meet the Teacher or about the canned food drive at your elementary schools. Take advantage of bored parents. They might just enjoy it.