Marketers invest a lot of time and energy into creating the perfect tweet or infographic to share on Facebook, but their efforts will be for naught if no one sees their post or tweet. In just a few simple steps, you can learn when is the best time to post on social media (and how often you should post!) to maximise your exposure and interaction with your audience.

This comprehensive resource provides advice on when to publish to various social media platforms, categorising its recommendations by sector, time of day, day of the week, and type of platform. We hope that this data will allow you to better target your posts and see a rise in engagement as a result. Participation rates were analysed from 14 major sectors in North America.

Here are some of the most important lessons learned about the optimal time to share content on social media

Although the hours of 10am-4pm are when many brands update their social media, this does not necessarily make them the most effective.
On weeknights, try posting to Instagram after you’ve eaten or before you go to sleep.
Twitter is like a bottomless pit of riches first thing in the morning.
Try posting on the weekends, especially in the evenings, if you haven’t already. Although it may not be the best time to reach your audience online, some brands may find success during this window.

ideal Instagram posting time

Our Social Media Industry Benchmark Report found that Instagram’s average engagement rates are roughly 10 times higher than Facebook’s and 20 times higher than Twitter’s, so it’s vital that you make the most of your posts on this channel.

Let’s talk about how to interpret the embedded data below before we dive into the rankings. We calculated the daily average engagement rate for a large group of brands and then correlated it with whether or not the engagement rates were higher or lower than usual and by what percentage. The temperature gauge can be used to compare current engagement rates to historical norms (red is bad, blue is good). For instance, a dark blue ratio of 1.3 indicates a 30% improvement in brand engagement over the norm. With this set up, brands are compared to one another, which increases the precision of the data.

Each dot’s size represents the total number of posts made during that time period, giving you an idea of the time period’s popularity based on its actual activity. Understanding how to apply these findings to your brand requires considering not only the engagement rate ratio but also the volume of posting in each time slot. While the overnight time slot may have a high engagement rate, that doesn’t mean it’s the best time to post for your brand or industry on social media.

Optimal Facebook Posting Times

Instagram may be the king of engagement, but reaching your audience when they’re most engaged on Facebook is crucial.
Some general tendencies regarding Facebook’s optimal posting times and days are as follows:

Get away from lunchtime: Just like on Instagram, the majority of posts occur in the mornings and afternoons on weekdays, but they don’t generate much discussion until later in the day. Attempt some early morning or late night Facebook posts to see if you can reach your followers when they are not at work.
You could try making updates on weekends: Sundays and Saturday evenings after dinner, in particular, as well as the rest of the weekend in general, see higher than usual levels of engagement from consumers with brands on Facebook.
Do more people seeing your brand and liking it on Facebook because you posted on a Saturday night mean anything? Doubtless not. Find out when your followers are most active on Facebook by conducting research and testing different times of day and week, and then adjust your posting schedule accordingly.

When you should tweet the most

Even though Twitter makes it more difficult than usual, finding the best time to tweet for maximum engagement is still crucial.
Do you find yourself falling into a routine of mediocre concentration throughout the day?

Try tweeting first thing in the morning or late at night instead of during the middle of the day like most brands do on Instagram and Facebook. Sending out a few tweets around commute time or bedtime on weekdays may help you gain traction, as these times have historically been when Twitter users are most engaged with brands.
Don’t be afraid to switch things up on Saturday afternoons if you’re looking for lower-than-average engagement rates on Twitter, but otherwise, the weekend is your friend.

Finding the Ideal Time to Publish

We’ve broken down the various social media channels to help you find the optimal time to post to each. You could, of course, just use a third-party social media analytics tool to compile the optimal posting times for all of your accounts in one convenient location…

Instagram’s native app provides a quick and simple way to monitor your audience’s online activity, and third-party applications like Rival IQ provide even more insight. Here, we’ll explain both of your choices in detail.

The Instagram Insights tab, accessible from your profile page, will show you when your posts do the best. Select the Total Followers option under Audience, and then look at the follower breakdown at the bottom of the page to see when you have the largest audience. When your Instagram followers are “active,” it means they are online and engaging with your content by doing things like liking, commenting, or saving.