When is the best time to post on your Instagram feed for the most engagement?
Of course, the answer relies on several factors, like your region, time of the year, audience and fan persona, and your content. But eventually, you can calculate the average engagement rate of all audiences at specific hours of the day, just like what our friends at Planoly did.
Best times to post on Instagram during the Holidays
These hours are calculated according to the average engagement rate of Instagram users within each time zone throughout the day, and your strategy might be subjective to these times. Use this information accordingly.
Instagram engagement in 2020
To build a large number of followings, you need to create content your audience actually craves. But even if you create the optimal content yet fail to post it at the right time of the day, you would virtually guarantee most of your audience will never even see the post. That’s why you need to schedule your content publishing.
Source: Sprout Social.
So how do you figure out the optimal post time based on your audience and region?
The tried-and-tested method is to test your post time at different intervals to see which post generates the most user engagement.
But if you don’t have the time and resources to conduct the tests yourself, Sprout Social, a social media management platform with over 24K customers, has you covered. They conducted complex analyses with their customer data to see what time and day of the week generated more user engagement. They also sectioned the data by social network and industry.
You could see that according to Sprout Social’s data analysis, the average best time to post on Instagram is between 2 PM and 3 PM CDT. However, this time can drastically change based on the day of the week and where you live, although it’s still a safe option to consider. Based on the stats as mentioned above, the best day of the week to post on Instagram is also considered Thursday, not only at 3 PM, but at 5 PM, 11 PM, and 4 PM.
Why is the best posting time different on different weekdays?
Think about it. Our routines are mainly repeating every week. We plan daily routines based on days of the week, and every bullet journaler knows the most effective period to track is the current week, rather than a daily log or a monthly calendar.
Here are some additional insights we gained from the data by Sprout Social:
- The best time to post from Tuesday to Friday to generate the most engagement is 5:00 AM CDT – people usually check their phones right when they wake up.
- Posting from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM on weekdays also generates more engagement as people usually check their phones during lunch break or run out of mental energy towards the end of their workday.
- If you’re planning on posting on weekends, post on Saturday around 11:00 AM CDT when people are having brunch or hanging out with their friends.
But when you’re posting, don’t go by these tips alone. Consider your audience, region, and the day of the week as well.
Best posting time by industry on Instagram
The optimal posting time also differs by industry and the purpose of the content – namely, your page’s context. Tech companies are a different industry than, say, beauty bloggers. Hence, they face a different audience, different post content, and act accordingly.
Here is an estimation depicting the best posting time for each content category on Instagram. Some of these industries might share a plan, and some others might be entirely different every week.
Best time to post on Instagram for Tech companies:
- Best time: Wednesday at 10:00 AM CDT
- Most Consistent Engagement: Wednesday to Friday from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM CDT
- Best Day: Thursday
- Worst Day: Sunday
Best time to post on Instagram for B2C companies:
- Best Time: Friday at 11:00 AM & 1:00 PM CDT
- Most Consistent Engagement: Everyday from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM CDT
- Best Day: Wednesday
- Worst Day: Sunday
Best time to post on Instagram for Educational organizations:
- Best Time: Monday at 8:00 PM CDT
- Most Consistent Engagement: Weekdays from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM CDT
- Best Day: Monday
- Worst Day: Sunday
Best time to post on Instagram for Healthcare Companies:
- Best Time: Tuesday at 1:00 PM CDT
- Most Consistent Engagement: Tuesday to Friday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM CDT
- Best Day: Tuesday
- Worst Day: Saturday & Sunday
Best time to post on Instagram for Non-Profit Organizations:
- Best Times: Tuesday at 3:00 PM & 9:00 PM, Wednesday at 3:00 PM & 4:00 PM, Thursday at 2:00 PM & 3:00 PM, and Friday at 10:00 AM & 2:00 PM,
- Most Consistent Engagement: Weekdays from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM
- Best Day: Tuesday
- Worst Day: Saturday
Wrapping up
Every kind of brand has a different kind of audience. To develop a sizable and fully engaged Instagram community around your brand, you need to get to know your followers better; and one of the best ways to do so is to capture their attention by knowing exactly when they like to surf the app and plan for it.