Keep reading for more information about the new best time to post on Instagram (Sep 2021)
How to Find Your Specific Best Time to Publish Instagram Posts
Here are two features that you use to find your personal best times to post on Instagram:
- Instagram Insights can be used to find when most of your followers are located and when they are most likely online on Instagram.
- Manually track when you publish Instagram posts and how your posts perform during the time you use this spreadsheet.
#1: Understand Your Audience by Using Instagram’s Analytics
You can use Instagram’s native insights to understand where most of your audience is located and when they are most online.
These data points can be super valuable indicators for when your most perfect times to post might be.
For instance, if most of your audience is in New York — you might need to schedule your posts for 6 AM EST.
To access Insights, you have to turn your account into an Instagram business profile or an Instagram creator profile.
#2: Manually Track Your Best Times to Share Instagram Posts with Spreadsheet
If you’d rather crunch the numbers yourself, you should make a spreadsheet to track the engagement rate you get when you post at different times on different days.
Start by choosing five different times across the week.
In your spreadsheet, note down the number of likes and comments each post gets, along with the date and time that you shared them.
The next week, switch the publishing time of your posts for each day. For instance, if you shared a post at 5 PM on Monday in week 1, post at 6 PM during week 2.
It might take you a couple of weeks, but you can use this data to help you pick the best days to share to specific networks based on your own audience, along with the times that work effectively for getting traffic on those specific days.
When you understand deeply about the perfect times and days to post on your Instagram, you can schedule your posts at those times.
How to Take Advantage of Your Best Time to Post on Instagram
Right when you’ve found your unique best time to post, you can change your content strategy to capitalize on it.
Here are our top tips to remember:
Tip #1: Schedule Your Posts in Advance
Scheduling your posts to be aligned with either our global best times to post data, or your customized best times to post is your best bet for boosting your posts’ engagement and reach.
Moreover, Instagram engagement has a compounding impact.
When a post gets many likes, comments, and saves, that engagement will lead to Instagram bumping your post higher up on users’ feeds and potentially appearing on the Instagram Explore page, which, in turn, could lead to even more engagement on your post.
It’s a cyclical process: higher engagement rate results in more visibility, which leads to higher engagement, then your account will be more visibility. However, it all starts with when you publish your Instagram post.
Tip #2: Prioritize Your Posts
Right when you know your perfect times to post on Instagram in September, you can set up your posting strategy with them in mind.
For instance, you might notice that you have a lower engagement rate during the weekend.
You’ll still want to show up and share content with your community, but you could save your most important content for a different day.
For the best results, save your most meaningful messages for the top engagement slots.
Tip #3: Remember Reels and IGTV Videos
We’ve just concentrated on posts on the Instagram feed in this blog so far, but the same rules are used for Instagram Reels and IGTV videos.
Post all your content to tap into peak activity zones to give it the greatest opportunities to be successful.
The only slight exception to this rule is Instagram Stories, which will disappear after 24 hours. However, it still helps to publish them when your audience is active and engaged.
How to Schedule to Post on Instagram
Now that you know when your Instagram audience is most likely online, and how to drive the most engagement based on your audience’s activity, the last step is to schedule your Instagram posts for your customized effective times to publish Instagram posts.
There are tons of reasons why you should scheduling Instagram posts in Sep 2021, but the most important?
Consistency. Scheduling content in advance makes sure that you’re posting on Instagram at the most effective times.
Instagram is an incredible channel for businesses to reach their marketing goals, but in 2021, it isn’t enough to just publish content whenever you feel like it.
By leveraging your best time to post on Instagram this Sep 2021 and scheduling your content, you can gain engagement, get new followers, and drive more traffic!