All social media are not created equal. Each social network has different kinds of users and their daily activities vary. Determining when to post on social media requires that you consider your product or service and the kinds of messages relevant to your customers. A local business, for example, may find that the ideal time to post updates is different from that of a national brand. Always keep track of analytics and try mixing up your social media schedule.

Tools like Hootsuite let you automatically schedule your updates according to your audience’s online habits. SocialBro provides daily reports on when most of the Twitter community is online, not just your followers. Similarly, Timing+ analyzes your historical post data to determine what time of day your posts will have the greatest impact on Google+. Topsy lets you search, measure and analyze from conversations and trends on public social websites like Twitter and Google+

Understanding when to post on each network means considering more than research and statistics. Do not underestimate trial and error when it comes to assessing when your audience is most receptive to your messages. To assist you in scheduling your social media posts and updates, the following infographic by Social Marketing Writing includes the networks Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Tumblr.