Meta recommended posting times vs timezones

[nzben]

Hi, hopefully someone can help with this one;

I'm scheduling posts on Instagram/Facebook on behalf someone who resides in the USA (the meta accounts belong to them). I'm in a different timezone (ie posting from a different country).

When I am scheduling posts with Meta Business Suite, it will give me recommended times when the audience is most active. It's not clear if those times relate to the country where I am, or American times where the meta account is registered.

Anyone had experience with this?

Thanks

Ben

[not2easy]

Hi nzben and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

I don't use the Meta Business Suite so I can't offer the definitive answer but I would consider the times and see whether they seem off to you as an observer. I mean if the suggested hours of most activity align with your local time I'd set up a way to convert those times to the US zones. NZ is (mostly) 12 hours different than UTC, the US zones are (mostly) 4 -8 hours off of UTC, though Hawaii and Alaska add a few more hours to that.

[engine]

Hi Ben,
That business suite is a bit of a hash, IMHO.

Usually, it works based upon your timezone. What I did was test post at specific intervals and note the actual posting time and date. It gave me a guide. However, FB won't necessarily show a post to you until its also deems it.
Active times: Stick to what you know about the target timezone. For example, if targeting Eastern US timezone you'll already know that a business time varies between 7am through to 6pm. Simply extrapolate to your own time zone.

Therefore, my suggestion is to test, test, test.

[gregl512]

That "recommended times" thing is completely useless these days. Before "Meta" screwed everything up earlier this year with the drop in organic reach, you used to be able to see a mostly accurate bar chart of when your followers were most active for the past week. They got rid of that, and any recommended times they give you since then seem to be random guesses. In my case, for example, they just tell me to post on Facebook every day at 6 PM no matter what day it is, which is no better than posting at any other time I come up with. With Instagram, they'll give me different recommended times, but the reach results are pretty much always the same.

[tangor]

In any 24 hour period a "recommended time" will have come and gone. Post when it is convenient for YOU as you are the creator of that content. 24 hours later it won't make any difference.

That said, if you are posting to a country/nation audience and intend top of the morning display, adjust YOUR time to make such content available.