What’s the best time to post to each social med platform?
The answer, of course, is relative, with various factors coming into play, including the specifics of your business, your target audience, regional considerations, the content that you’re actually posting, etc.
There’s a heap to consider, so it’s not as easy as saying “x time is the best.”
But by looking at averages, and assessing common trends in engagement, we can get some idea of when users are more likely to be active throughout the day, and that could be a good starting point for your strategic planning as you map out a content schedule.
Which is where this new research from Hootsuite comes in. Hootsuite has analyzed over a million posts to ascertain the best posting times across the major social apps.
Again, before you say it, no, this is not universal, and yes, there are provisos within this. These won’t be the exact best posting times for every business, but the information could still provide you with some additional guidance for your approach.
First off, on Instagram:
As you can see, according to Hootsuite’s research, the best times to post to IG are:
- Between 3pm and 9pm on Monday
- Between 5am to 8am Tuesday
- Between 3pm and 7pm Tuesday
- Between 5pm and 7pm on Thursdays
So a bit of variance there, with the most reaction seemingly coming outside of work hours.
Which makes sense, as this is when people are commuting and looking for something to do. That could be something to consider in your outreach planning, in order to reach the widest active audience in the app.
On Facebook, the best posting times are all early in the morning on weekdays:
As you can see, between 4am and 6am, Tue to Fri, seems like your best bet, which could again relate to commuters, or potentially, lower competition in the feed.
Which is a complication in itself. If there’s better reach and engagement at these times because fewer people are posting, meaning less competition for attention, then advising more people to post within these segments will then render them less effective. Right?
I don’t know, but it seems like pushing people to post at a given time will increase competition, and ultimately make some other time the best one to go for as a result.
Either way: Experiments, testing, see what you get.
On LinkedIn, Tuesday morning, Thursday evening, and early Friday morning seem like your best bets:
Still posting to X?
Probably best to pay for X Premium for that engagement boost, huh?
TikTok, meanwhile, sees more afternoon engagement:
Hootsuite also notes that the best time to post to Threads is 8:00 AM (PST) on Tuesdays, while Pins get more engagement when posted at 12:00 PM (PST) on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Make of that what you will.
And while, again, not all of this will be relative to your unique audience, these types of overviews can be helpful in guiding alternate posting practices, and assessing more impactful times to share your updates to maximize engagement.
You can check out Hootsuite’s full posting times report, which includes industry-specific breakdowns, here.
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