March 2024 brought fresh insights into how, when, and what to post across various platforms to maximize your social media presence. Whether you’re crafting the next viral post or just trying to connect a bit more with your audience, we’ve got some data on social trends to keep you current.
We took a look into the posts published via Agorapulse in March 2024, and analyzed engagement metrics, posting frequencies, and other key metrics across the major social media platforms.
By comparing this fresh data with historical trends, we aimed to pinpoint any shifts that could spell out new opportunities or challenges. And with hundreds of thousands of posts to dig through, we also hope to gain a bit of insight into algorithmic preferences on each platform.
So, why does this matter to you?
Understanding these dynamics is key to creating content that resonates, engaging with your audience effectively, and making informed and strategic decisions about your marketing strategy.
Whether you’re rethinking your hashtag strategy or finding the best times to post, we’ve got the most recent data to help you make smarter moves on social media. (You can also get quick overviews of social trends weekly via our YouTube channel.)
Let’s get right into social media publishing trends for March, shall we?
Breaking Down the Data: Monthly Insights
Well, turns out that March 2024 was anything but business as usual on social media.
Here’s a quick TL;DR if you’re short on time (and really, who isn’t?).
- On Instagram and Facebook, posts without hashtags actually outperformed those with them in terms of engagement, reach, and impressions.
- TikTok continued to lead the pack in engagement, while YouTube saw a notable boost in engagement for posts accompanied by hashtags.
- While LinkedIn showed a slight preference for hashtagged posts, Twitter/X data suggested stepping away from hashtags could actually benefit your engagement strategy.
- Our analysis revealed that the best times to post vary significantly across platforms, with TikTok showing a clear preference for late-night content engagement. (Don’t worry, we’ve got more details on the best times to post below!)
When to Post on Each Platform for Engagement
One of the most actionable insights from our analysis is identifying the most up to date info on the best times and days to post for maximum engagement. Based on our deep dive into March 2024’s data, here’s the best times and days currently to post on each major social media platform:
Best Day to Post: Saturday
Best Time to Post: 11 PM and 12 AM
Best Day to Post: Sunday
Best Time to Post: 2 AM, 4 AM, 5 AM
Best Day to Post: Friday
Best Time to Post: 6 PM, 9 PM and 10 PM
TikTok
Best Day to Post: Sunday
Best Time to Post: 12 AM and 2 AM
Twitter/X
Best Day to Post: Tuesday
Best Time to Post: 2 AM and 3 AM
YouTube
Best Day to Post: Saturday
Best Time to Post: 8 AM, 6 PM and 10 PM
Here’s a look at what the engagement levels were on social media platforms in March 2024.
Using these specific recommendations for the best times to post can help in planning your content calendar to ensure your publishing schedule is aligned with when your audience is most active and engaged.
You can also dig into the specifics for your brand or agency by using Agorapulse:
In the audience tab under Reporting, you can look deeper at the specific times for your audience’s prime engagement times.
Hashtag Use on Social Media Platforms
Our data on March’s social media landscape also revealed some unexpected truths about hashtags. While they’ve long been touted as engagement boosters, the current data paints a different picture.
On Instagram, hashtag use remains prominent, with 70% of posts published using hashtags. However, on Instagram the posts without hashtags performed significantly better in terms of engagement, reach and impressions.
Similar trends on Facebook as well in March, as posts without hashtags performed better in terms of reach and impressions. However, engagement rate on Facebook was still higher for the posts with hashtags.
YouTube
On YouTube, there was a noticeable shift and decrease in hashtag use. Hashtags were only used for 39% of the posts published to Youtube in March 2024, but yet we found that engagement was nearly double for the posts published with hashtags.
On LinkedIn, hashtag use was similar to YouTube in that just 35% of posts used hashtags. However on LinkedIn, the hashtag use really didn’t seem to have an impact on metrics one way or another, so not a super effective strategy to use for LinkedIn (but not a harmful one either).
TikTok
Lastly, on TikTok the hashtag use was the highest of all the platforms, sitting at 81% of posts being published with hashtags. Surprisingly though, the engagement rate and reach were both slightly higher for the posts published without hashtags in March 2024.
But even with all this information the question remains: How can you easily incorporate these insights and put them into action?
Putting Insights Into Action: How to Adjust Your Strategy
Reevaluate Hashtag Use
Based on our data, our suggestion is to closely evaluate your hashtag strategy and performance, as effectiveness varies quite a bit based on the social platform. Experiment with and without them to see what resonates with your audience to find a hashtag strategy that works for your brand.
Use a tool like Agorapulse to help you monitor specific hashtags, and brand or competitor mentions across social platforms in real time. You can also view the sentiment of monitored keywords, which will help you get a pulse on the public perception of your brand.
This not only helps in understanding the impact of hashtags on your engagement but also in catching new trends as they arise. By staying informed, you can adapt your content strategy on the fly, ensuring your content remains relevant and engaging.
Time Your Posts
We also suggest using the identified peak times as a guide to schedule your content when your audience is most active. You can also try posting a few minutes before or after the optimal times, so your post has a better chance of being seen in the feed. But simply knowing when to post isn’t enough, as often things get in the way of posting (like, you know, sleep.)
So the best way to ensure you hit these optimal posting times consistently is to automate your process with a scheduling tool.
For example, Agorapulse allows you to schedule individual posts in advance, or you can even set up content queues. That way, you can have your posts published automatically according to a predetermined schedule. And to make your life easier, you can even bulk upload the posts for your content queues using a CSV file.
You can bulk upload up to 200 posts using a CSV file with Agorapulse.
Don’t Forget to Use Data
With the amount of data that we have access to these days, it’s difficult to find the patterns and trends that really matter and will help you improve your strategy. And it’s even harder to do this when there is an overwhelming amount of data, all found in different places, and scattered across multiple Excel spreadsheets.
In regard to actually making sense of the data, Agorapulse’s reporting features can help you focus on the metrics that matter the most, and provide your team and stakeholders with clear insights to inform your strategy. Our customizable Power Reports allow you to easily compare metrics like engagement rate and reach in a way that makes sense, making it easier to spot any trends and patterns over time.
Another option is to use a free tool like Social Trends to know and compare social media performance and stats for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. This tool allows you to see trends by region and industry, along with most-used hashtags, and the best performing types of content. You can even use this tool to identify benchmarks for your industry, so you can get a better understanding of the competitive landscape on social media.
Social Trends by Agorapulse allows you to see monthly metrics like the most shared content and most engaging content on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X.
If you subscribe to the Agorapulse YouTube channel, you’ll get fresh social media trends information every week via our YouTube shorts.
Trends Are Only Half the Battle
But at the end of the day, your social media success in 2024 isn’t just about following trends—it’s about identifying those trends to better engage with your potential and existing audience thoughtfully and strategically. By tuning into the optimal times for posting and rethinking traditional tactics like hashtag use, you can elevate your social media strategy and connect with your audience in meaningful ways.
Ready to take your social media strategy to the next level? Start a free trial of Agorapulse today – no strings attached.
