When’s the best time to post on Instagram to ensure a post gets seen?
And what about the most effective day of the week to get the most engagement? The most comments?
Keep reading to search out the universal greatest time to post on Instagram that seems to work across the board — and the way to find your brand’s very own, unique perfect times to post (because all businesses and audiences are different from others).
…Or! If you don’t really feel like reading you’ll be able to watch our video for the answer and the tips
Is there a best time to publish Instagram posts?
Every brand may need a different sweet spot for publishing posts on Instagram — because every brand caters to unique viewers, with unique behavior patterns on social media. However, that said, there are specific best practices you’ll be able to follow that tend to yield great results across the board.
In general, posting when your followers are online is essential, because the Instagram algorithm prioritizes recency. This means that, if all else is equal, the latest post will show up higher on the newsfeed than an older one.
Recency is truthfully one of the quickest, easiest wins when it comes to optimizing a post for success. (Though we have a lot more tips on getting free Instagram likes if you’re ).
However, beyond that, it’s also essential to know what, exactly, your goals are for your Instagram marketing strategy. Do you have specific targets around building awareness, greater engagement, or driving traffic? What does success look like to you, and when have your posts achieved that success in the past? Your past successes are a key guideline for when you need to be posting, overall.
Overall best time to post on Instagram
Based on observations and experiments of experts, the common best time to post on Instagram is…
11 am on Wednesdays.
We found that Instagram users are the most likely to be active and interact with content mid-day and mid-week. And that makes sense. It is a great time to take a break from work or school and do some scrolling. (And liking, commenting.)
So, if you’re just beginning on Instagram and don’t have lots of past data or viewers’ insights to work with, try posting around this time. And see the way it works for you. As your account grows, you might need to tweak your posting schedule to better fit your specific viewers’ Instagram activity patterns. Here’s how Hootsuit finds their perfect times to post to our Instagram account.
Brayden Cohen, Hootsuite’s Social Marketing and Employee Advocacy Strategist said that:
“We tend to post early in the morning and mid-afternoon. For Instagram, that means we try to publish anytime between 8 AM-12 PM PST, or else 4-5 PM PST on weekdays.”
Cohen revealed that—a minimum of for Hootsuite’s North American B2B audience—our Instagram posts do best when we hit the wake-up or lunch-time hours for our Pacific time zone audience, and the sitting-down-to-work or logging-off hours in the Eastern time zone.
Using the activity heatmap provided in Hootsuite Analytics, it’s simple to see when Hootsuite’s Instagram audience is online:
Source: Hootsuite Analytics
Cohen and the social team also use the tools in Hootsuite Impact to check the post and campaign performance. “The data there shows us if we should always continue focusing on the same strategy or pivot anything going forward.”
General, Cohen says that deciding when to publish on Instagram goes something like this:
“We use the previous performance as the guiding star. And then review when the viewers are online as a second opinion. If our content isn’t performing well after that, we’ll check different times to post to see if that changes the post-performance.“
All in all, an Instagram content calendar must be as data-driven as the rest of the marketing technique.
And since the huge picture matters, too, here are some key Instagram statistics, benchmarks, and demographics to help improve your strategy:
- Businesses publish posts to their feeds an average of 1x every day
- The engagement rate for a post from a business account is 0.96%
- People spent 30 minutes on Instagram every day in 2020 (more 26 minutes per day than in 2019)
- Each visit to the platform stays about 6 minutes 35 seconds
- 63% of American users check Instagram at least once a day, and 42% of American users check Instagram several times per day