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This guide reveals what is the best time to post on Instagram to reach and engage the audience. Keep on reading to learn how to identify when you should be posting on Instagram.
Instagram has seen huge growth over the past couple of years. With app updates coming out what seems like every few weeks, you’re now treated to endless ways to create content for your business. And with every piece of content comes a calculated strategy, decisions and hours of dedication to providing value for your audience.
With hours of work spent creating content, there’s nothing more disappointing when a post doesn’t get the engagement you’d hoped for. So, we’ve searched high and low through countless studies and articles to present you with the best times to post on Instagram so that you reach more people and boost your engagement rates.
In this article, we’ll look at the best and worst days to post, the most successful times to share content on social media, and why finding your personalized posting times may be easier than you once thought.
Ready to skyrocket your success with the best times to post on Instagram in 2022? Here’s everything you need to know.
Is There a Best Posting Time for Instagram?
Yes! You’re in luck. There is the best time to post on Instagram, and not only that, you can find your very own personalized posting times. This ensures that your content has the best chance of reaching your audience and beyond.
In a nutshell, every account has its own set of unique best posting times on Instagram. Instagram uses the activity and behaviour of your own followers to set these best posting times, and they are regularly updated to align with your audience’s changing app usage.
While we don’t know exactly how the Instagram algorithm makes its decisions, we know this: Instagram provided businesses and content creators with a curated selection of best posting times. These times show when your audience is scrolling and using the platform (a.k.a. when your potential customers are most active!).
By learning what times your audience is most active, you can optimize your social media marketing efforts to prioritise your social media management efforts at the right times of day.
By sharing Instagram content when your specific Instagram audience is online, you can ensure you’re driving high engagement from every single video, image and story you publish.
The Global Best Posting Times for Instagram (2022 Edition)
Whilst it’s excellent to know your posting times, there are other ways to hack the algorithm to ensure your content appears at the top of the home feed. And if you’re starting out, you won’t have a whole lot of data to base your content on.
But fret not! With the 2022 global posting times, you can post during the times when Instagram users are most active. A recent study by the American Marketing Association created a list of tables for different social media platforms and their top engagement times.
We’ve listed Instagram’s best time slots below:
- Monday: Between 7 am and 8 pm (highest engagement at 11 am)
- Tuesday: Between 7 am and 10 pm (highest engagement at 11 am)
- Wednesday: Between 6 am and 8 pm (highest engagement at 11 am)
- Thursday: Between 7 am and 8 pm (highest engagement at 11 am)
- Friday: Between 7 am and 7 pm (highest engagement at 11 am)
- Saturday: Between 7 am and 3 pm (highest engagement between 10 am - 12 pm)
- Sunday: Between 8 am and 3 pm
Why Choosing the Right Time Matters for Social Media
If you’re looking to increase engagement, connect with clients, and build a thriving audience on Instagram, a world of different factors are coming into play to help you achieve this. One of the most important factors is this: posting your content at the right times.
There are over 500 million people active on Instagram every day. Yep, every single day! So it’s vital to use data to your advantage to have the best chance of reaching the right people in your industry.
The mysterious Instagram algorithm considers several factors when ranking your content in your followers’ feeds. This includes how relevant your content is to them and how fresh and recent your content is on the platform.
Plus, your audience is more likely to see the newest content on their feed if it satisfies Instagram’s core ranking signals such as relationship (i.e. if a user has previously interacted with your content) and interest (i.e. if a user has indicated an interest in content similar to yours).
But not only that, there are a few reasons your brand should care about Instagram posting times. We’ve listed a few of our favourites here.
- Your account has a better chance of maximizing its reach because your intended audience is online, active and looking for new ideas, hot tips or a fantastic business to help solve their problems.
- Your content gets higher engagement rates, whether that’s likes, comments, shares or your inbox seeing an influx of direct messages.
- When you post during the most active times on Instagram, your audience will likely take action.
- You can also discover what type of content works best with your optimal posting times. That’ll help you figure out what resonates with your audience.
How to Find Your Own Best Time for Instagram Posts
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Posting at optimal times makes sense. Does that mean you should post at the same time as everyone else? Absolutely not.
To get the best reach and drive higher engagement rates on your content, you need to start by analyzing your content, running some experiments and seeing what posting times deliver the best results.
To help your content stand out on the Instagram feed, we’ve rounded up seven practical steps you can take to find your best posting times on Instagram.
By diving into your Instagram insights, leveraging a social media scheduling tool that offers deep Instagram analytics and landing the best day or times of day to post, you’ll be able to craft a posting schedule that helps you clarify the peak times to publish content.
Use Sked’s ‘Best Time to Post’ feature
Use Sked Social’s Best Time To Post feature to identify when your Instagram followers are most likely to see and engage with your Instagram profile posts.
Making use of this analytics tool can give you deep insights into your content and your audience. Sked can analyze historical data and use this information to suggest the best-performing times for your particular audience.
These suggestions are completely personalized for your account, so they’re tailored to your follower’s activity times and uniquely your own. You’re using the data to share content at a time most likely to invite Instagram engagement from your target audience.
Get to know your audience
Understanding your target audience is key to nailing your post times.
Sked’s analytics will help you understand your audience and when they’re most active online. However, you also need to really know your own audience and apply your own insights as well. Plus, you can head into your Instagram Insights to find out where your audience is located, their age and their gender, too.
The very first step is actually getting to know who your main audience is. What do your key demographics look like? For example, if your account is mainly targeted toward Gen Z fashionistas, their content consumption times may differ from an account about meditation targeting early morning rising yoga teachers.
You may already have this information available from your social media strategy. If not, understanding your audience across different social media platforms (from TikTok to LinkedIn to Instagram) will give you an edge over your competitors.
Consider time zones and days of the week
Managing Instagram account with clients around the globe? Then you probably have an audience spread out across various time zones that you need to keep in mind.
Sked allows you to schedule posts in advance—ensuring you’re hitting your audience with content at the perfect times around the world.
If your audience is globally distributed and you have to reach a diverse group of people at different times, don’t be afraid to post multiple times a day. Stagger your content, so it reaches different people in different time zones.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, people tend to browse Instagram more during the workweek or a workday afternoon during a lunch break. Often, a Sunday afternoon can be the worst time to post as people are generally busier with family and friends over the weekends.
There’s plenty of research around this subject, so make sure to read up on it and run your experiments to find your best fit. Your industry may also dictate which time zone and day of the week is best for scheduling your content.
Check out the competitors
Now that you’ve looked at all your data, it’s time to check out the competition!
Your competitors are most likely running similar experiments too. You can do some competitor research to see what’s working well for them.
Review their Instagram accounts, especially the posts that seem to be doing well. Make a note of what time they’re posting this content. This is often a great way to get a bit more insight on post times and the types of content resonating within your industry.
Experiment with timings
Experimentation is a key element of every social media strategy. While Sked’s Best Time to Post feature can be beneficial as starting point to understand your ideal post times—it’s also helpful to do some more digging for your industry or niche.
Say you have a “best time” bracket of 1 pm-3 pm on Mondays. Experiment with your social media posts at different times within this bracket to find the ideal time that works best for your audience.
Also, experiment with different content at different times to see which type performs best at certain times. For example, you might find that weekday morning is better for Instagram Stories, whereas it makes sense to post content on the Instagram feed in the evenings.
Experiment with timings in any way that makes sense for you. Always keep an eye on your metrics to understand which experiments paid off.
Post consistently
Consistency plays a huge role in determining success on Instagram. This means you can’t just post at the ideal time for your audience, once a week, and expect to see results.
Remember, if you don’t post often enough, your content is less likely to appear in your audience’s Instagram feeds. This sends the algorithm all sorts of wrong signals about their level of interest or engagement with your content.
Instagram thrives on consistency. It sends Instagram the right signals about engagement and interest and helps you build a meaningful relationship with your audience. Ultimately, that is what social media is all about— building relationships!
So post consistently, post frequently, and post at the best time repeatedly to see the benefits of timing your content right.
Analyze and adjust
Finally, it’s all about constantly learning and optimizing. Analyze your posting schedule regularly, see what’s working (and what’s not) and adjust as needed.
You can track your Instagram analytics from your business profile; you’ll be able to see engagement, reach likes, comments, shares etc.
As the world changes, your audience’s social media habits constantly evolve. Ensure you’re keeping up with changes and optimizing your times (and content) to reflect these changes.
For example, Oberlo shares that the COVID19 pandemic hugely impacted social media browsing habits. With more time spent at home, social media usage increased dramatically. This consequently changed the “most active” hours for many people, resulting in brands having to tweak their posting schedules to match.
Keep your content fresh, engaging and fun by reviewing, analyzing, and adjusting.
What is the worst day to post on Instagram?
As with the best times to post on Instagram, there are, of course, the worst days and times to post that might hinder your engagement rates. Why is this important? Understanding the most active and least active times will help you schedule your posts effectively and efficiently for time zones worldwide.
The AMA also discovered the worst times, and we’re not surprised by the results.
Drum roll, please!
Sundays are the worst day to post on Instagram. This is generally down to the fact that people are taking some time for themselves, with family or friends and enjoying the last of the weekend. During the week, the worst time to post is between 12 am, and 6 am (from Monday to Friday).
Is There a Best Time for Instagram Stories?
Is the timing for your posts different from Instagram Stories? Yes and no!
The truth is, Instagram Stories are a lot more candid. Whilst it’s a great idea to schedule your stories, many businesses will post on a whim. So, finding the answers to this requires the same level of experimentation and research as your social media strategy.
You can use historical data in your Instagram scheduling tool to analyze your Stories’ performance. Note how many taps, swipes right, swipes up, and other important insights you may find, as this will indicate the level of engagement you received on a particular Story.
Content is Not Just About Timing
As we mentioned earlier, success on Instagram isn’t just about timing. The Instagram algorithm also considers your relationship with your audience, how much they interact with you, how much your content interests them, how frequently you post, and of course, the quality of your content.
The right post time is essential, but if you really want to ensure you get consistent engagement on your Instagram and maintain a successful marketing strategy, you should also consider some of these tips as well:
- Pay attention to the content that works and create more of it: Pick a day every week to do some “market research”. Find accounts you love, content that is engaging and make some notes for your own business.
- Change things up and refresh your content to catch your audience’s waning attention: Social media is all about keeping this evolving. You want to look for new ways to keep your current and potential followers engaged.
- Review your hashtags: A well-thought-out hashtag strategy will help you get the most out of every piece of content you put there. Hashtags aren’t going anywhere soon, and having a strategy will ensure that your content shows up for the right audience. You can create a hashtag strategy alongside your content.
- Create more shareable and saveable content: Fresh and engaging content spurs your followers to share with their audience. Aim to create helpful, informative or inspiring content for other Instagram users.
- Curate user-generated content to build relationships and invite more engagement from your Instagram followers: UGC marketing is increasing in popularity. With 79% of users saying ‘UGC’ has a high impact. This content feels a lot more accurate, down-to-earth and relevant.
- Experiment with the length of your captions: Different length captions will have different results. Sometimes your post speaks for itself, while your audience favours a long-form caption.
- Ask your followers for their thoughts and opinions: There are some excellent features to get real-time feedback from your followers. You can go Live on Instagram, post a poll, or use the quiz sticker to drive engagement and gather audience feedback.
- Run competitions and giveaways on your account: Everyone loves a giveaway. This is a fun opportunity to give back to your followers and create some engaging content!
- Create a variety of content: Including photos, videos, graphics, Instagram Stories, Reels, Lives, and more. This will ensure that your feed never feels stale. You’ll always have fresh ideas coming from your business that people resonate with.
Here’s How You Can Always Post at the Best Time
Despite all our best intentions to post at peak times, manual posting can become laborious and exhausting. Give yourself time back by avoiding posting manually on Instagram.
Instead, get yourself a good quality Instagram management and scheduling tool like Sked Social!
Sked is Instagram’s number #1 scheduling platform. It allows you to create an automated posting schedule, ensuring your posts and Stories on your Instagram business account are automatically posted at the right time, without fail.
Want to take advantage of Sked’s scheduling and ‘Best Time to Post’ feature? Try Sked Social free for 7 days and turbocharge your Instagram marketing.
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Why settle for a lackluster social media management tool when you could be using Sked Social? With unlimited collaborator access, streamlined approvals and advanced auto-post technology that lets you schedule to all major platforms, Sked Social offers everything you need.
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