How do I find the post types and posting days that work?

PostSnag finds the post types and posting days that work by reading the content mix, posting activity, and best time to post built into every profile's Analytics tab, and into Overview if you want the pattern across everyone you track at once instead of one account. The answer is sitting in data you've already captured; you don't have to eyeball a feed and guess.

Before you start

• PostSnag is installed and pinned to your toolbar.
• You're signed into Facebook and PostSnag.
• You've captured at least one profile, ideally several if you're after a pattern for a whole niche rather than one account. See How do I capture posts from a Facebook profile?

1. Start with one profile's Analytics tab

Open a captured profile and click Analytics. Three sections answer the "what and when" question directly:

• Content mix, the split between reels, photos, albums, links, and text for that profile, so you can see at a glance whether they lean almost entirely on one format.
• Posting activity by day, based on each post's real publish date, not the day you happened to capture it.
• Best time to post, with a plain-language takeaway that spells out when their posts actually land hardest, which isn't always the hour they post most.

For a reel-heavy profile, Analytics also breaks out common reel durations and a long-versus-short reels split, useful if you're deciding how long to make your own. Go-to format calls out whichever type they lean on most, without you having to read the whole content mix chart yourself. See How do I read a profile's Analytics?

[SCREENSHOT: A profile's Analytics tab showing the content mix chart and the best time to post card]

2. Zoom out to your whole library on Overview

One profile tells you what works for that account. If you're after the pattern across a niche, open Overview, the dashboard home screen, instead. It rolls up everyone you track into library-wide numbers: a Most-used format stat tile, a Best day to post tile, a Best time to post tile, Reels share, and Posting cadence, plus the same content mix, engagement composition, posting activity, and durations charts, all calculated across your whole tracked library instead of one account. See What is the Overview dashboard?

3. Put two or three profiles' patterns side by side

Overview tells you the average across everyone. Compare shows you whether that average actually holds creator by creator. Drop up to three profiles into Compare and their content mix, posting activity, common reel durations, long-versus-short split, and best time to post all run in parallel columns, so you can see immediately if one account posts heaviest on a different day than the rest, or leans on long reels while its peers stick to short ones. See How do I compare competitors side by side?

4. Check that the pattern actually correlates with their winners

A format or day being the most common isn't the same as it being the one that performs. Open the global Posts page, filter to Outlier, and narrow with the creator filter to whichever profile you're studying. If their outlier posts (the ones flagged "Nx their typical post") cluster around the same format or day their Analytics tab already flagged as most-used, that's a real signal. If their biggest outliers came from a format they rarely post, that's worth noticing too, it may be an underused format worth doing more of, not less. See What is an outlier post?

5. Put it into practice

Once you've got a format and a day (or a time of day) with real numbers behind it, that's your starting point for your own posting plan, not a guess based on when it feels busy. Re-check Analytics and Overview periodically as you capture more; a pattern built from a handful of posts firms up as more history comes in.

Common questions

Is "best time to post" the same as when a creator posts most often?

No, and that gap is the point. Best time to post shows when posts actually land hardest, which can differ from a creator's busiest posting hour. Both Analytics and Overview call this out with a plain-language takeaway.

Should I look at one profile or my whole library for this?

Both answer different questions. One profile's Analytics tab shows what works for that specific account. Overview shows the average across everyone you track, useful when you're after a general pattern for a niche.

Do I need a lot of captured history before this is reliable?

The more posts and the more time you've captured, the more the pattern firms up. A handful of posts gives you a starting signal; a fuller history makes it more trustworthy.

Can I see format and timing data for Reels specifically?

Yes. Analytics and Overview both break out common reel durations and a long-versus-short split, on top of the general content mix.

Where do I check if a format actually drove outlier results, not just frequent posting?

The Posts page Outlier filter, narrowed with the creator filter to whichever profile you're studying.

Related articles

• How do I read a profile's Analytics?
• What is the Overview dashboard?
• How do I compare competitors side by side?
• What is an outlier post?
• How do I research a niche before I enter it?

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