During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media grew in popularity as people looked for a way to connect with each other. The pandemic also affected the best times to post on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, as many of us stopped commuting and our schedules changed (and some even joined The Great Resignation).
This means it’s the perfect time to review the best times to post on social media. When audiences pivoted during the pandemic, brands had to as well. The time you post is a key factor in whether or not you have success with your social media marketing campaigns. In this article, we will review the latest data from platforms such as Sprout Social and Hootsuite that they have gathered on social media usage. We will also give you some tips for how to use your own data to find the right time to post for your specific brand. This can help you choose the best time to post on social media to garner the most engagement with your audience.
What Are the Best Times to Post on Social Media?
It’s the million-dollar question: So, what is the best time to post on social media? There are so many different platforms on the internet that you can use for your business: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube and more. You will first need to choose the right social media platform or platforms to use to connect with your audience.
Overall, however, the best time to post on social media is early morning on a weekday. This way, when your audience wakes up in the a.m. and starts scrolling their favorite platform, your post will be one of the top pieces of content in their social media feed. (It’s still pretty much a universal rule that the worst day to post is on Saturdays.)
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This information is the most helpful for brand new social media accounts that are working on building a following. Once you do have an audience, however, there are plenty of tools and services you can use to find out the best days and times to post for your own brand, which might be different.
If you are trying to increase engagement rates for your brand, you might want to consider social media advertising. Attend our upcoming virtual workshop to learn more about how to plan, build and launch successful social media advertising campaigns.
What Is the Best Time to Post on Facebook?
Facebook is a website that allows you to connect with and share updates with your friends, family members and colleagues.
The best times to post on Facebook are Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Skip posting on Saturdays, as it is the day of the week with the lowest engagement, according to Sprout Social’s data.
Facebook remains undefeated as the top social media platform in the world, which means that you really can’t go wrong with when you post. Facebook enjoys 24/7 engagement. However, weekdays, evenings and early mornings show the most consistent engagement and opportunities for brands to get eyes on their content.
What Is the Best Time to Post on Instagram?
Though Instagram started as a simple platform to post photos, it has grown into a full-fledged shopping app full of influencers selling products and services for brands.
The best time to post on Instagram is between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Tuesday, and at 11 a.m. on Monday through Friday.
Many companies have pivoted to Instagram for business purposes. In the last few years, Instagram has updated with several new features, including Reels, Instagram Shopping, an algorithm-based feed, and other fun additions. Instagram is the perfect place for brands to post new content, whether it’s high-quality photos, a fun reel or even infographics. You might consider using professional social media content creation services to help you create Explore page-worthy content for your feed.
What Is the Best Time to Post on Twitter?
Twitter is a key platform for posting up-to-the-minute (or even second!) news updates in small bits of 280 characters or fewer.
The best time to post on Twitter is early in the morning on weekdays: ideally, 8 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, according to Hootsuite’s data. If you need to post on the weekend, still aim for the a.m., but perhaps a little later, when Twitter users are awake.
However, since tweets are so fleeting, don’t be afraid to schedule tweets (or type them up at the moment!) at all hours of the day. You can’t really over-post on Twitter, like you can on other platforms.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest online professional networking website.
The best time to post on LinkedIn is at 9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, according to Hootsuite’s data.
However, LinkedIn uses less recency in its algorithm and factors in more quality, relevance and trending content, so the time you post might not matter as much on LinkedIn as it does on other platforms.
Find Your Own Best Times to Post on Social Media
Though it is helpful to know the best times to post on social media generally, a lot of factors can affect the best time to post for your specific business. The best time to post on social media might vary depending on what industry you are in and your audience. You might have to do some data mining and analysis of your own to find out the best times to post on social media for you. Also, it is sometimes helpful to know the peak times to post, so that you can post at an off time and face less competition for engagement.
Here are some tips for determining the best time for you to post on social media:
Track Where Your Traffic Is Coming From
Are you actually getting traffic to your website from social media? You can’t know if you don’t set up website visitor tracking for your site, which is the first step.
Check When Your Audience Is Most Active Online
When is your ideal customer spending the most time online? Many social media algorithms are prioritizing recency and showing users the most recent posts first. The easiest way to get engagement is to post when your followers are actually online. So, look at your Facebook and Instagram analytics to find out when your followers are online and post then!
Find Your Top-Performing Posts From the Past
You already have some answers as to the best time to post online right in your own data. Go check out your last few top-performing posts. What times were they posted? This can give you an idea of the best time to post going forward. If you use a social media scheduling software such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social or Cloud Campaign, this data is probably already available for you and pretty easy to find.
Scope Out Your Competition’s Posts
It’s always a good idea to check out your direct competitors’ feeds and see what they are up to on social media. Just like you do with your own, check out when their top-performing posts were posted (or even complete a full competitive analysis). You might notice some patterns, or you can reverse-engineer their strategies.
Double-Check the Time Zone
This one sounds simple, but is oftentimes overlooked: Make sure you are posting in your audience’s time zone and not your own (if they differ). If the majority of your audience is American, you will do fine posting in the morning or early afternoon. But if your audience is in, say, the United Kingdom, you will want to post at the correct time in Central European Time. If you have a major segment of your audience in a different region, you might even consider creating a separate account or handle specifically for that audience. Or, if you have a global reach, you might want to consider posting around the clock.
Test and Optimize
Once you have done all your research, it’s time to test your data by either scheduling or publishing your posts and see if posting when you think will get you high engagement. You can also try some other ways to test content, like A/B testing, which is when you post the same content at different times to see which time gets the best engagement.
Best Times to Post on Social Media
Though we have certainly done our best to answer this question for you, unfortunately, there is no one universal optimal time to post on social media. But by using our guide and mining your own data, you can optimize your posting schedule, improve engagement, and hopefully increase your social marketing strategy ROI. It is also a good idea to keep in mind that social media trends and the best times to post are always changing.
To learn more about the benefits of posting on social media for your business, consider becoming a member of the American Marketing Association, or AMA. Becoming an AMA member offers you several advantages, like training and certifications, chances to network, and many more. Join the American Marketing Association today!
Social Media
Katie Powers
Katie Powers is editorial content intern at the American Marketing Association.
It is generally recommended to post 1-2 times per day, and no more than 3-5 times per day. Bonus: Download our free, customizable social media calendar template to easily plan and schedule all your content in advance. Get the template now!
The top 5 best hours to post on Facebook are 9:00 AM, 7:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 8:00 AM, and 11:00 AM. The worst 5 hours to post on Facebook are 12:00 AM, 5:00 AM, 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM, and 4:00 AM. The top 3 best days to post to Facebook are Fridays, Wednesdays, and Mondays.
These posting times can work as a good starting point for your own research if you have no idea where to even begin, but again, they should only act as a starting point. Retail: Wednesday (3 p.m.) and Friday (11 a.m.–12 p.m.)Media and entertainment: Friday (9 a.m.)Tech: Wednesday (6 a.m. and 9 a.m.)
We analyzed over 30,000 social media posts to see if certain days and times universally get more engagement than others. Here's a quick summary of what we found: The best times to post on social media overall is 10:00 AM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
The overall best day is Wednesday. You will get the most consistent engagement on weekdays from 9 am–3 pm. The worst day is Sunday, which sees the least amount of engagement. You will find the lowest engagement during early mornings and evenings before 7 am and after 5 pm each day.
Fill in the details of your ad by setting things like Goal (what results you'd like from this ad), Audience (who you want to reach), Budget (how much you want to spend daily) and Duration (how long you want your ad to run).
According to our 2021 survey of 300+ marketers, the best times to post on social media – across all industries and platforms – are 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.. The best days to post are typically on weekends, specifically Saturdays.
✅ The early morning hours starting right from 9 A.M. and afternoon hours until 5 P.M. are the best time to post on LinkedIn. ... Best Time To Post Reels On Instagram.
Short-form videos are valued more. With the rise in popularity of TikTok and Instagram's own proclamation of valuing video, it comes as no surprise that short-form video is a social media trend in 2022. The video format of Stories now exists in some form in all the major social media platforms.
More than 74% of businesses indicated in Hootsuite's 2022 Social Media Trends survey that they're planning to invest in audio-only content in the next year. The same survey revealed that hosting an audio live stream as a thought leader was the most popular strategy.
Your post's reach depends on its engagement rate. Engagement means how many people like, react, comment, or share your post. The more engaging a post is, the higher is the reach.
1-Minute video views: The number of times your videos were played for at least 1 minute. During a single instance of a video playing, we'll count video views separately and exclude any time spent replaying the video.
The best times to post on Facebook are Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Skip posting on Saturdays, as it is the day of the week with the lowest engagement, according to Sprout Social's data.
The best time to post to Facebook is between 1pm – 3pm on during the week and Saturdays. However, other studies uncovered that the best time to post to Facebook is: Thursdays and Fridays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. are the best times to post on Facebook [Hubspot] Thursday at 8 p.m. [TrackMaven]
Here are some possible reasons why your content isn't getting as much reach as you'd like. Your content isn't engaging enough. Facebook's algorithm prioritizes content that gets more engagement. A lack of interaction signals that your content isn't interesting enough to display in the news feed. Your audience is small.
Search online for services that offer fake Instagram followers. These services have databases of fake Instagram accounts designed to look real and active, and will use these accounts to follow your Instagram account.
With most monetization products, you will be paid once you've earned at least $100. Payments will be sent to the bank or PayPal account you linked to your payout account. Note: If you're a US creator earning with Subscriptions or badges, you'll receive your payment once you've earned at least $25.
With recency being a major factor in ranking a post on Instagram, choosing the right time to post becomes more prominent. If more active people see the post, the engagement rate is higher within the first hour of posting.
Make sure the content you are putting out there is relevant, eye-catching, and engaging, and be sure you are posting at the right times so you are reaching the right audience. The more likes and engagement you get, the more likely Instagram will show your posts to others!
There are several reasons why you aren't getting as many likes on Instagram as you used to. It could be something out of your control, such as bots being banned. It could be something you have influence over, too, however, like using the wrong hashtags or posting at an inconstant rate.
Over the last few years, I've noticed a significant drop in my impressions, engagement, and number of new followers. The reason: Instagram's 2022 Algorithm. Thanks to the last few updates, only 10% of your followers are able to see your post.
The peak times are 8 PM and 9 PM with both of these times having an average engagement rate of 6.60%, closely followed by 7 AM with 6.41%. Additionally, Wednesday mornings from 5 AM to 12 PM provide the poorest engagement rate, and then it progressively goes up.
By posting earlier in the day, accounts benefit from less competition, while also tapping into traffic from users during their first scroll of the day — even if that's a few hours after the post was shared.
As a general rule, posting on Instagram at night is unlikely to get you your biggest audience. Most studies show the best time to post on Instagram as being mid-morning to early afternoon.
Generally speaking, posting during the morning hours tends to generate some of the highest engagement; however, posting after 9:00 a.m. may see a drop in engagement due to work and school hours. Whereas posting at night may receive less engagement due to users being asleep.
According to a scientific research published by the Journal of Consumer Research, time really matters when it comes to the type of content you post. To start, it's true that the first hour of your post is when you get around 50% of the engagement—so you better work to catch people's attention as soon as possible.
So, around 7-8 a.m. can be a great time to post in the morning. Another time when people are often on their phones is when they take their lunch break. Posting around 11-1 p.m., when people are likely to be breaking for lunch, can help ensure that your post will make it closer to the top of their feed.
According to research from Hubspot, the median cadence of feed postsa across Instagram users was four per week. However this is higher for business accounts, which posted an average of 1.56 times per day to their main feed.
For accounts with 1K-250K followers*: posting 14 or 20 times per week delivers the highest reach rate per post, while posting once per week delivers the highest engagement rate per post. For accounts with 250K+ followers: posting only once per week delivers the highest reach rate and engagement rates per post.
So if you'd been wondering whether how much you're posting every day affects the reach of your creative assets, the answer is yes. The more you publish to your Instagram feed, the less reach your individual posts receive. With that said, the more you post, the higher your overall reach will be.
How much time do people spend on social media? As of 2022, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 147 minutes per day, up from 145 minutes in the previous year.
Fill in the details of your ad by setting things like Goal (what results you'd like from this ad), Audience (who you want to reach), Budget (how much you want to spend daily) and Duration (how long you want your ad to run).
So, in general, you have these three sections of the day to send out posts: when people start their day, around lunchtime, and in the evening or before people go to sleep. But a caveat here is that posting times can depend on your target audience's age, demographic, and industry.
Over the last few years, I've noticed a significant drop in my impressions, engagement, and number of new followers. The reason: Instagram's 2022 Algorithm. Thanks to the last few updates, only 10% of your followers are able to see your post.
So what happens when you reach 10k followers on Instagram? You now have access to the Swipe Up Link in Stories tool and can upload longer videos on IGTV.
The peak traffic on Facebook is observed the highest in the early afternoon between 1 P.M. and 3 P.M. as folks turn to their lunch break. Posting at 1 P.M. will get you the most shares, and publishing at 3 P.M. will give you the most clicks.
However, the data suggests that the best time to reach users is the afternoon, between noon and 9 p.m. 27% of marketers surveyed say 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. is the best time to post on the platform, followed by 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., then noon to 3 p.m. Unlike Instagram and Facebook, Friday is the best day to post on the platform.
Introduction: My name is Lakeisha Bayer VM, I am a brainy, kind, enchanting, healthy, lovely, clean, witty person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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Katie Powers