Want maximum 'likes' on your Facebook photo? Post on weekdays

Scientists, including those of Indian-origin, have discovered the secret behind attracting maximum 'likes' on Facebook -- post on weekdays during working hours or between 7 pm and 8 pm.

Researchers from Lithium Technologies in San Francisco first studied user behaviour, including post-to-reaction times.   

They also compared reaction behaviour across different networks, Facebook and Twitter, and for users in different cities, performing an analysis on over one billion posted messages and observed reactions.

Based on this analysis, the researchers then came up with 'personalised posting schedules' to assess if they had an effect on reactions to posts.

The research team which included Nemanja Spasojevic, Zhisheng Li, Adithya Rao and Prantik Bhattacharyya, then analysed their data set, which held timestamps from 144 million posts and 1.1 billion reactions over a 120-day period using Klout, a website and mobile app.

The system was able to come up with personalised posting schedules -- schedules that will allow you to get the most 'like' for your post, Bustle reported.

The researchers found that in general, people are most likely to respond to social media posts during the weekdays -- especially during working hours and from 7 pm to 8 pm -- with a major drop-off in reactions (likes, shares, replies, retweets) on the weekends, according to Quartz.

The study also found that Twitter has twice the chance of eliciting responses than Facebook, and reaction times on Twitter are much faster.

On Facebook it takes up to two hours for the first half of the responses to come in; on Twitter, however, most responses come in within half of an hour.

The researchers also found that Internet habits vary depending on where the user is located.

The US cities of San Francisco and New York exhibit similar shapes, where reactions peak at the beginning of work hours.

For Paris, the reactions peak in the second half of working hours, while for London most reactions are expected towards the end of working hours.

Finally, the pattern for Tokyo is quite different from the rest with two peaks, both occurring off working hours.