The beauty of social media is that you may share your thoughts freely whenever the mood strikes you. However, companies should instead focus on long-term strategy.
The perfect day and time to publish on social media are determined by data, and every successful brand has one. Your business will benefit from the most brilliant social media updates if they post them at the right time. Time your publication for peak traffic to increase the likelihood of capturing your audience’s attention.
The good news is that experts have spent the time and effort necessary to identify the optimal times to post on various social media platforms to maximise your content’s exposure and interaction.
The Best Times to Post on Social Media
There is no need to post something if no one looks at it.
The truth is that the vast majority of your intended audience will never see your online posts. The sheer number of posts and the social media platform’s internal workings play a massive role.
The information feeds that users see are selected by algorithms to appear engaging enough for users to keep coming back for more. Algorithms analyse factors like post-engagement and source to determine which updates are most relevant to individual users. Interactions right after posting are a good indicator of how relevant your content is.
Social media postings risk being ignored if published at an inconvenient time.
Does Social Media Have the Best Time?
There is no single answer to the question, “When is the ideal time to share content on your social media platform?” Although there is no “perfect” moment to post, it is essential to remember that there are better times than others.
When you should share, content on social media will vary based on your target demographic and the type of business you run.
1. Perfect Time to Post on Facebook
Your overall organic reach will remain at about 6.4% of the page’s likes regardless of your content’s engagement. That’s quite a significant disparity in numbers.
If you consider its timing, a Facebook post will have far higher audience engagement. Here’s when you should put up that Facebook status update:
When Should You Post on Facebook?
Individuals are typically online and just getting started with their workday around 9 a.m.; this is the optimum time for posting on Fb for greater visibility.
As people head to their lunch breaks in the early afternoon, from 1 to 3 P.M., Fb traffic is at its peak.
You’ll get the most shares and clicks if you publish at 1 PM and 3 PM, respectively.
Best Time for Posting on Fb on Sundays
Sunday’s peak posting hours are 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. After that, activity progressively decreases, staying deficient until 2 p.m. and only picking back up the following day.
Best Time for Posting On Fb On Mondays
Activity on Facebook gradually increases on Monday mornings beginning at 2 a.m. Monday mornings between 9 and 11 a.m. are prime time for Facebook updates. Nevertheless, you should refrain from making posts between 9 PM and 1 AM due to low activity levels.
Best Time for Posting On Fb On Tuesdays
The activities on Facebook are very consistent from Monday to Tuesday, with peak hours lasting from nine in the morning to one in the afternoon.
Best Time for Posting On Fb On Wednesdays
If you want to reach the most people on Facebook on Wednesday, the optimum time to do so is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., when audience activity is at its highest.
Best Time for Posting On Fb On Thursdays
After Wednesday, Thursday is the day that is believed to be the perfect day to post on Facebook, as this is the time of day when the user base of Facebook is the most engaged. Compared to other times of the day, the odds of becoming engaged between the hours of eight in the morning and four in the afternoon are about average.
Best Time for Posting On Fb On Fridays
The spike in Facebook activity on Fridays is almost on par with what was seen on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. On Fridays, activity on Facebook is at its highest between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., while it is best to avoid posting anything between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m.
Best Time for Posting On Facebook On Saturdays
Saturday mornings between 8 and 10 am are ideal for posting because audience engagement is relatively high. During these hours, the likelihood of reaching out to one’s intended audience still needs to improve. As a result, it is best to avoid scheduling a critical product launch or the rollout of an upgrade for Saturday.
Best Days for Posting On Facebook
Doing your Facebook posting on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays is recommended because these days are closest to the weekend and have the most activity.
Worst Day To Post On Facebook
Sunday is the worst day for posting on Fb for a business-to-business brand since interaction rates are low and there are significantly fewer peak hours on that day.
Best Time for Posting On Facebook For Likes
Posts on Facebook that are made between the hours of one and four o’clock in the afternoon on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays have received a more significant number of likes and interactions than at other times of the day.
Best Time for Posting Video On Facebook
If you want to post a video on Facebook, the optimal time to do it is between 12 and 1, when most users are on their lunch break and more likely to connect with their electronic devices. The first hours of the day on Facebook, specifically between nine and eleven in the morning, are the second-best time to publish videos.
2. Best Time for Posting On YouTube
The following concisely review the optimal time to upload on YouTube to attract many viewers to your videos.
The Best Time
Monday through Wednesday between 2 and 4 p.m. is the sweet spot for YouTube views.
Similarly, the afternoons are the peak hours for online activity and population. The peak viewing hours for videos on YouTube are between 7 and 10 p.m., so that may be too soon.
However, the video will be ranked by Google exactly like blog posts are when you upload them to YouTube, so early uploads are recommended. That way, when your target demographic relaxes at home in the evening and opens YouTube, your ads will appear in their search results.
On the weekend, though, a large portion of YouTube’s audience shifts to the afternoon. Therefore, Saturday or Sunday at 10 or 11 a.m. is ideal for uploading videos to YouTube.
Best Day for Posting On YouTube
Businesses should schedule their YouTube uploads for Thursdays and Fridays. These days, the optimal time to upload videos to YouTube is between 12 and 3 p.m. You’ll notice the most success from the videos you upload to YouTube during the week on the weekends.
Worst Day for Posting On YouTube
Weekday mornings Avoid uploading videos to YouTube on Mondays through Wednesdays. Once individuals return to work, they have less time to waste on YouTube.
3. Best Time To Post On Instagram
If you’re one of the many who think Instagram can help them make it big, you’re interested in discovering as much as possible about it.
Before you even start to get into the art of crafting captions and tagging the right kinds of individuals, one of the most important aspects of generating traction and critical interactions with the content you share is determining the optimal time of day to publish on Instagram.
This is one of the essential components to gaining momentum and vital engagements with your posts.
The Best Time for Posting On Instagram
Instagram posts do best when published between 10 AM and 3 PM.
However, the day of the week you post also affects the percentage of engagement you receive. Instagram posts do best in the morning, during lunch, and in the evening when most users are online. You should be aware that the graph of user participation changes daily.
Best Time for Posting On Insta On Sundays
Instagram posts do best when published on Sundays between 9 AM and 3 PM. But the rate of involvement could be faster on this day.
Best Time for Posting On Insta On Mondays
Instagram users are most active between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Mondays. On Mondays, the ideal time to upload is between 8 AM and 8 PM. For those 12 hours, the participation rate remained moderate.
Best Time for Posting On Insta On Tuesdays
Instagram posts perform best on Tuesdays. If you’re going to post on Insta on a Tuesday, do it between 11 and 3 p.m. After that, participation drops steadily, reaching a nadir at about 10 p.m.
Best Time for Posting On Instagram On Wednesdays
Instagram users get the most interaction between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, making that day the second best behind Tuesday. Instagram posts perform best between the hours of 11 AM and 1 PM.
Best Time for Posting On Insta On Thursdays
Instagram engagement is highest on Thursday at 7 a.m., peaks from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., and declines steadily afterwards.
Best Time for Posting On Insta On Fridays
Like Mondays and Wednesdays, the best time to post on Insta is between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Fridays. A sufficient number of repeat visitors stay for at least two hours before 11 a.m. and two hours after 1 p.m.
Best Time for Posting On Instagram On Saturdays
Most people prefer to relax and unplug from social media on Saturdays, making that day a poor choice for Instagram posts. Regarding Instagram, Saturdays between 10 AM and 1 PM seem to have the highest levels of user engagement.
Best Day for Posting On Instagram
Instagram users are most likely to be online and interact with the platform between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Tuesdays, making that period ideal for publishing content.
Worst Day To Post On Instagram
Users will most likely have fun on Insta on Sundays, making it the worst day to post. Since most of your audience values Sundays as rest days, you will only have a little luck reaching them or keeping their attention on that day.
Best Time for Posting On Instagram During Covid
Instagram was used more frequently during the workweek after the epidemic than it usually would have been when people regularly reported to their places of employment. During recent outbreaks, weekday and work-hour Instagram use have skyrocketed.
You can make Instagram posts once or twice daily to maintain visibility without becoming annoyingly frequent.
Best Time for Posting Reels On Instagram
In 2023, brands and influencers will rely heavily on Insta reels as part of their content strategy. Getting the attention of Instagram’s users requires a weekly posting frequency of four to seven Reels. Maintaining a steady stream of Reels for your Instagram feed can get you higher profile placement and more likes and comments.
But if you want more people to see your account, posting four to seven Clips at random times of the week will take a lot of work. The timeliness of posting Reels is rewarded by Instagram’s algorithm just as highly as consistency. Because of this, optimal posting times for Instagram reels must be carefully considered.
Timestamps with an asterisk (*) indicate exceptionally high-interaction levels from the target demographic.
4. Best Times for Posting On IGTV
Wednesdays at 8 p.m. are the sweet spot for IGTV uploads. The second best period is between 8 and 10 p.m., Monday to Thursday, when people have finished their workday and are looking for a way to unwind by browsing social media.
Best Times for Posting Insta Stories
The following are some considerations that you should take into account.
- Since Instagram stories only exist for 24 hours, you shouldn’t limit your posting to the “best times.”
- It doesn’t matter what time of day it is; you may publish a tale, even in the early morning. In any case, the next day, your followers will see your stories in their feeds.
- Keep your best work prominent even after a day has passed by archiving and pinning it to your Highlights page.
- Across the board, Instagram users are most active between 9 AM and 4 PM, Monday through Friday. Participation drops daily between 6 AM and 9 PM. The ideal number of stories to post is between one and seven.
Best Time for Going Live On Instagram
From Monday through Friday, noon to 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. are optimal times for going live on Instagram. Go live around lunchtime or after work, when viewers are more likely to relax with a quick look through their feed.
Use Statusbrew to Determine the Best Time for Posting on Instagram
Statusbrew provides detailed information about your audience, including their demographics, sentiments, and the optimal posting time for likes, followers’ engagement, and comments.
There are eleven distinct ways that charts can be displayed. This will allow you to accurately tailor your Instagram advertising strategies to our target demographic.
As a bonus, Statusbrew allows you to easily schedule posts for your best times rather than having to guess when those times will happen.
5. Best Time To Post On TikTok
You will see a significant rise in the number of people following you on TikTok once you understand the optimal times to post on the platform and structure your posting schedule accordingly.
When To Post On TikTok?
TikTok users are most active in the morning, right after they wake up and before they begin to prepare for the day.
The best times each week to upload to TikTok to engage your current audience and attract new ones are detailed below.
Best Time for Posting On TikTok On Mondays
The perfect times for posting on TikTok Mondays are between 6 and 10 am and 10 pm (before bedtime). Knowing that people stay up later on Monday evenings and into Tuesday mornings helps you choose the best time to publish that day.
Best Time for Posting On TikTok On Tuesdays
The best moment to upload a TikTok on Tuesday is before 9 am. Tuesdays are mainly considered high-engagement days to publish, so do that.
Tuesday night between 2 and 4 a.m. also sees an average engagement rate. Night owls have a great chance of success because of the low competition and high interest.
Best Time for Posting On TikTok On Wednesdays
The optimal times to upload videos to TikTok on Wednesdays are early morning (between 7 and 8 a.m.) and late at night (about 11 p.m.).
Best Time for Posting On TikTok On Thursdays
Most TikTok users typically end their days early on Thursdays, and they rise earlier than they do on any other day of the week because they are thinking ahead to Friday. If you want your TikTok video to get the most views, you should upload it on Thursday at midnight. Upload your content from 9 a.m. to 9 a.m.
Best Time to Post On TikTok On Friday
For your TikTok video to have a wider reach on Fridays, post it at 5 AM. You should get the best engagement rates if you post between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Friday afternoons.
Best Time to Post On TikTok On Saturday
Even on the weekends, TikTok is still a popular social media network for its subscribers. Saturday, 11 AM, is prime posting time. Saturday nights between 7 and 8 o’clock are prime time for uploading to TikTok.
Best Time for Posting On TikTok On Sundays
TikTok users are most likely to see your Sunday morning posts between 7:00 and 8:00 AM and again between 2:00 and 3:00 PM. On Sundays, TikTokkers have slightly different routines than Saturdays, as they are winding down the weekend and getting ready for the workweek.
Understanding the best time to upload on TikTok will help you make better content if you keep these variations in mind.
Best Day for Posting On TikTok
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays are the days of the week users engage with content on TikTok the most.
Worst Day To Post On TikTok
People participate in activities related to the network all seven days of the week since TikTok has such a broad user base. However, Sunday continues to be the worst day for posting on TikTok because audience members are more likely to be relaxed after the weekend.
The Perfect Time for Posting On TikTok?
The best times to post on TikTok are Tuesday at 8 a.m., Thursday at 11 p.m., and Friday at 4 a.m.
If you want to get ahead of rivals and find the best time to post on TikTok, follow these steps.
When is the best time to post on TikTok to reach your desired demographic? In any case, here are three approaches:
- Try different times of day to post
- TikTok’s analytics can be used by upgrading to a paid account.
- Find the optimal time to post on TikTok for your sector.
6. Best Time To Post On LinkedIn
Because of their packed schedules, this is the most fantastic time to post on LinkedIn and impress the LinkedIn population with your material. This will help you keep up with their work lives.
The Best Time for Posting On LinkedIn
The optimal time for posting on LinkedIn is between 9 A.M and 5 pm when most users are just starting their workday.
LinkedIn is aimed at working professionals, so you should regularly update during business hours. Therefore, individuals may be looking for interesting topics to discuss that day.
Best Day for Posting On LinkedIn
If you want to reach people working, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the perfect days to post on LinkedIn. Average user activity occurs on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays.
The optimum time to post these days is first thing in the morning or throughout regular business hours.
Worst Day To Post On LinkedIn
Sunday is the worst day to make a LinkedIn post because it gets the least interaction from other users. If you can help, try not to release anything on LinkedIn during the weekend. During people’s free time, they are less likely to be interested in your content.
7. Best Time for Posting On Twitter
Finding the perfect moment to post on Twitter will allow you to reach the broadest possible audience with your tweets.
The Best Time for Posting On Twitter
If you want your tweets to get the most attention possible, send them out at 9 a.m. every day of the week.
Extremely high levels of user engagement are recorded on Twitter from Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Thursday and Friday from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., Monday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., and Wednesday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. If you want your Tweets to reach the largest possible audience, publish them at noon on weekdays.
You can also achieve high engagement by tweeting between 5 and 6 p.m. when many individuals have finished work for the day and are checking their feeds.
Best Day for Posting On Twitter
Wednesdays are the most engaging day for posting on Twitter, with seven hours of max activity. After that, participation levels stay high up until 9 p.m.
The optimal time to publish on Twitter is as important as the time of day. Many individuals on Twitter check the platform daily, making it difficult to determine the optimal day to publish. However, most studies have shown that interaction is highest on weekdays.
Worst Day for Posting On Twitter
Fridays after 3 p.m. and weekends continue to be the worst times to post on Twitter since people begin getting ready for the long weekend on Friday afternoon and continue throughout the weekend.
8. Best Time To Post On Pinterest
When people who already follow you see new pins and tap or download them, Pinterest learns that the pins are great and deserving of being seen by others. You’ll attract more attention on Pinterest this way.
Learn when on Pinterest you should be making your pins.
The Best Time for Posting On Pinterest
On Fridays and Saturdays, the ideal times to post on Pinterest are the late evening hours, specifically between 8 and 11 p.m., with the peak at 9 p.m.
You can also increase your chances of having pins found between 2 and 4 in the morning.
Best Day for Posting On Pinterest
Fridays and Saturdays are the best days to make and share pins on Pinterest. This makes sense, given that the weekend is a standard time for people to utilise Pinterest.
Worst Time To Post On Pinterest
Since many pins will take the user away from Pinterest between 5 and 7 p.m., when many people are on their way home from work, this is one of the worst times to publish a pin.
9. Best Time for Posting On Reddit
Post quality information on Reddit at the correct time, and you’ll see your brand’s visibility soar. Knowing when to post on Reddit is crucial to attracting a large audience.
The Best Time
Monday mornings between 6 and 8 a.m. and Saturday mornings between 7 and 9 a.m. are prime times for posting to Reddit.
Reddit users are more social in the early morning, between 6 and 9 a.m. Users begin flocking to Reddit on Sundays around 8 a.m. and leave at noon.
Since most Redditors reside in the United States, the optimal time to make a post is when they are online and available to read it. You can publish at your residence when you expect to see the most readers.
Best Day for Posting On Reddit
The weekdays between Monday and Thursday are the most productive for posting material to Reddit. Most users are sitting in front of their desktop computers or laptops at work or home on such days, which results in the most significant volume of traffic on Reddit.
Worst Day To Post On Reddit
Before posting to Reddit, users should carefully consider the impact of their words. As a result, most Redditors only log on to the thread after work since they’re too tired to pay attention to the ongoing discussions.
Social Media Posting Times: Key Considerations
Here are some of the most important things to consider when deciding when to make a social media post to get the most likes, shares, and comments. So, shall we?
1. Social Media Posting Goals
The goals you have for your publication should inform the timeline you choose. Posting to gain the most pageviews, expand your brand’s exposure, boost your follower count, earn more sales, or stimulate discussion in the comments area are all valid objectives.
2. Posting Frequency
Suppose the social media algorithm determines you’re a spammer because you post too frequently. In that case, it may cease favouring you altogether, meaning that your content will only be seen by the people most likely to find it useful.
But you must also update your feed frequently so it doesn’t look stale. The optimal balance between the two extremes is now in your hands.
3. Weekly Schedule
The days you post your content play a role in the audience’s typical social media usage routine. It’s best to contact business-to-business clients during regular business hours on weekdays. If business-to-consumer sales are your goal, you should focus on reaching them over weekends or during other non-work times.
4. Time Zones
Considering time zones becomes crucial when your intended audience is in a different time zone than yours. In such cases, your posting routine should reflect the time and frequency your target audience typically engages with social media.
5. Industry
Your intended audience, updating frequency, and social media content format (videos or photographs) will all be influenced by the sector in which you work because you cannot deliver all information in every form.
6. Demographics of the Audience
Time zone considerations are compassionate when tailoring content to a specific audience. You could also look into your audience’s jobs and social media habits to determine the best time to add content online.
7. Competitors
One strategy for maximising exposure is scheduling posts for when your target audience is most likely online. But keep in mind that your rivals are also vying for the attention of your target demographic. Make a point to publish when your target demographic is online, but your competitors are less likely to be active.
8. Algorithm
The design of social media sites compels users to return for additional content. When it comes to how they order content for users, each platform has its unique formula. Some may use only the date and time of the post to determine their order, while others may consider the number of interactions. To succeed on the site, you must adjust to its algorithm.
Finding The Best Time for Posting On Social Media
In addition to the research offered here, the following steps will help you determine the optimal time to publish on social networks for your target market and industry down to the millisecond.
1. Monitor when your followers are most active online
Some social media algorithms give more weight to recent posts than older ones. Simply put, people are interested in what’s new, especially considering how often people check their feeds today.
One of the simplest ways to cooperate with (rather than fight) both algorithms is to post whenever your target audience is online. Increase the likelihood that your material will reach and resonate with your followers if you anticipate when they will be scrolling through their feeds. (Plus, expert findings show that posting at different times on Instagram does increase interaction.)
Eileen suggests basing your posting schedule on your audience’s preferences rather than your industry’s. To increase your views, research your target audience’s social media habits and determine when they will most likely be online.
On TikTok, the #financial hashtag has amassed an estimated 60 billion views. TikTok is helping brands engage a younger audience in discussions about money, but brands should only publish at times relevant to that audience.
Looking at your statistics is a quick and easy way to determine when your ideal customers are online. For example, Hootsuite’s Ideal Time to Post feature displays a heatmap of when your followers are most engaged.
2. Study your best-performing posts
You’ve already begun tailoring your content to achieve your desired results on social media. Experts suggest using the same data-driven strategy when deciding when to publish such information.
The initial phase is to analyse your social media statistics or analytics software to determine which posts performed well in a specific measure. Top-performing posts in terms of:
- Awareness (highly-impressed posts, for example)
- Interaction (posts with high engagement rates, for example)
- Sales or Traffic (i.e., postings with a high click-through rate)
- Next, examine when you posted outstanding material and what days of the week it was, and search for any patterns.
Pro Tip: With no manual data-crunching required, Hootsuite Analytics’ Ideal Time for Publishing feature will retrieve your posting history and recommend times to post that will yield the most return on investment.
Most tools offer impressions, but you can also view the ideal times for sharing based on interactions and clicks.
In Planner and Composer, you’ll see recommended times to post depending on your specific social media performance records (most programs simply suggest based on worldwide best times for posting), which is helpful when scheduling content for the coming week.
3. Post in Your Target Audience’s Time Zone, Not Yours
Posting at 6:00 AM is a great time to catch folks groggily scrolling the web in bed after waking up. Schedule the piece for 6:00 AM CET (Central European Time) if your intended readers are European innovation executives. You can also post earlier to get Eastern Europe, as well.
Hootsuite times their channel posts at the beginning of the day or early afternoon PST to reach a broad audience throughout North America. When broadcasting to the United Kingdom, the sooner in the morning, the better for the channels.
At the same time, businesses with a sizable following in a given region may want to explore establishing a distinct handle for that following. (This may also allow you to post in your target language.)
Also, consider producing material around the clock if you have a global clientele. (In that scenario, you should use a social media planner.)
4. Check Out the Competition
Study the streams of those who are in direct competition with you. Analyse the commonalities among their most successful posts (or conduct a comprehensive social competitive analysis) to see how they achieved such high engagement.
For example, Hootsuite has realised that many businesses post simultaneously every hour; therefore, they try to refrain from doing so. Instead, they space out their posts at the 15- and 45-second marks.
Having an ear to the ground in your sector is vital to understand strategies worth adopting or avoiding common problems. (Your continuing social listening efforts could benefit from the addition of posting schedules.)
Comparative analysis of technologies, profiles of audiences, and rates of interaction in the industry
The Analytics section of Hootsuite includes a benchmarking tool that allows you to see how you compare to others in your field. It will even provide tailored advice to help you compete with market leaders.
5. Test, Optimise, and Adjust Post Times
After you’ve done everything you can, it’s time to hit “publish” (or “schedule”) and watch what occurs. But what if the outcome isn’t what you expected?
Systematic A/B testing (in which identical content is published multiple times to see which time yields the most outstanding results) might yield valuable insights.
The people who use social media and how they use it are continually evolving. For instance, the widespread adoption of telecommuting has corresponded with increased social media usage.
The lunchtime ritual of checking feeds has been replaced by the time between Zoom conferences. If your target demographic shifts, you may need to readjust your approach.
The Hootsuite social media team suggests posting at different times of the day regularly. Post it another time next week if anything you thought would work well doesn’t. Keep trying new things as the seasons change, cultures, and user preferences evolve.
In Conclusion
It seems that social media is a place where you can say whatever you want, whenever you want. But companies need to be more thoughtful about how they do things.
Every brand that does well on social media has a plan based on data that tells them when and what to post. Even if your social media posts are great, they will only help the company if you fail to update them appropriately. Publishing during busy times gives you the best chance of getting your audience’s focus.
Now that you know the answers, you can figure out the best times to plan your content on social media to get more exposure and interaction.
Frequently Asked Questions
The following are some questions that are commonly posed concerning the optimal time to publish on social media:
What is the best time for posting on Insta today?
Instagram posts fare best between 10 AM and 3 PM (GMT) on weekdays. This is because, upon arriving at work in the morning, a social networking manager’s first order of business is to monitor their accounts’ recent activity. Lunchtime is also a popular time for people to check in on Instagram.
When is the perfect time for posting on social media?
When you consider everything, the optimum time to publish on social networks depends on the social network in question, your audience’s time zone, the habits that they exhibit when using social media, the sector you work in, and the online goals that you intend to achieve.
Generally, posting on social media at ten in the morning on Tuesdays through to Thursdays is the optimum time.
Is it better to post at night or day?
Unless you have specific goals for your social media accounts, you should not expect to receive the level of interaction on your posts late at night. According to most studies, the optimal time to publish on social networking sites is between the middle of the morning and early evening.