Many of you have been asking us this question recently, what is the best time to post on Instagram?
We have finally decided to talk about it, while we also share some tricks to get more followers, likes, and comments on this social media.
Nowadays, if you are not on Instagram, you are definitely missing on a lot of visual content and promotional space that can be of great help for your brand.
Knowing when is the best time to post will make a huge difference in the number of people that will actually see what you post.
Let’s start…
Contents
When is the best time to post on Instagram?
Quick Answer: In general terms, these are the times that are working best for almost everyone on Instagram:
- Best Times: 8:00 p.m to 10:00 p.m
- Best Days: Tuesdays to Thursdays
- Most Consistent Engagement: Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m
- Worst Days: Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays
*This is based on our own studies, there isn’t just one answer to this type of questions.
Interesting Fact: 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time is when “the largest number of people in the world are likely awake”, according to FastCompany.com.
What are other things that you need to remember?
Maybe you are not used to changing your own way of working, or maybe you just don’t feel like doing it anyway. There are a few things that we would like you to always have in mind:
Your profile’s insights
Of course, this is something that we cannot ignore. Your profile’s insights will let you see when your followers are more active during the day, where they are from, what their age is, and pretty much everything.
Instagram is actually giving you the answer to these questions.
For example, by looking at the picture above, a logical thing to do would be to target people with age between 18 and 24, that live in the United States.
Note: You will be provided with these insights only if you have a business account, so go ahead and do that if you want.
Naturally, the benefits are way too clear:
- You will understand why your target audience is more active at one particular time
- You will know if you must adjust your schedule to theirs
- You will be able to know what type of content is getting more positive reactions
- You will know who you really need to target
Scheduling posts
As you saw in the previous section, there are specific moments of the week where you have the biggest window of opportunity to reach to your audience; this is a very important element to take into account because it is going to increase your reach in a quick manner.
If you don’t feel like waiting for a specific time of the day, you can always schedule your posts.
If you are trying to determine the best time to post on Instagram, there is something that you must understand: it’s not only about seizing the best time for your own content, but it’s also about what’s coming afterward.
Instagram’s algorithm allows your publication to reach more people (you will get featured on the explorer page) if it’s getting a lot of likes and comments; this is a sign of good content and Instagram wants more of that.
It’s also about how fast your content gets this positive reaction from your audience, that is why we are actually writing this article; the more people on the app, the more chance of getting them to see your stuff and like it.
The importance of other countries
As we all know, not every country has the same time and that’s something that will have a very important and significant influence on everything that you do related to your content and brand.
Always stay alert to this because you may have a big part of your target audience in a country that has a very different schedule that you have and that can play a big role in the long term.
Imagine trying to target people from countries that have a completely opposite time of the day; it can and will get crazy
You will have a few options:
- Adjust to your own timeframe
With this, you will just ignore the fact that your followers have a different time.
This is something that could be the most logical and comfortable decision for you if you find yourself with too many things to do at once.
Let’s say you are living in the United States and the vast majority of your audience is in China; while it could help to adjust your content for that timeframe, it could also prove tiresome for you if you are the only one who is managing the account by itself.
- Adjust to that country’s timeframe
This advice is the total opposite of the first one, but it’s still a valid one.
Perhaps you want to appeal to a very specific demographic with your Instagram account; if that is the case, then you should aim to establish a schedule that adjusts better to that country’s timeframe, thus providing you with far more reactions and much better results.
- Post on several hours of your day
This is a challenging thing to do, but one that can be done without much trouble once you have a working team to assist you.
Surround yourself with the best possible people and try sharing your content on different times of the day; this is going to have a possibility of reach for people in different parts of the world, thus having the kind of effect that you want.
The importance (or rather lack of importance) of weekends
This is a variable that we have to take into consideration when discussing the best time to post on Instagram: weekends are usually not the best time to share your content with your target audience. Why? Because people are usually resting, spending time with their loved ones, etc; it’s not the best time to share important content or to post a high amount of publications.
Having said that, there are moments during the weekends where you may have a window of opportunity to share your best content and that is something that we cannot afford to waste, right? As Chi explains (2018), “posting from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM CDT during the weekdays also generates a lot of engagement — people usually check their phones during lunch or when they start to run out of mental energy toward the end of the workday.”
Best time to post on Instagram by day of the week
We will now talk about each day in specific, but remember something very important: There won’t be a magic solution to this topic, it will be all about testing and developing a personal strategy; each audience is different.
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Sundays:
2:00 p.m to 7:00 p.m to reach people in the United States and Canada.
7:00 a.m to reach people outside of America, for example, a country in the Europe region.
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Mondays:
7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. for an audience living in the United States or Canada.
10:00 a.m. if you are trying to reach people outside of America.
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Tuesdays:
6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. for audiences located in the United States or Canada.
9:00 a.m if you are trying to reach people outside of America.
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Wednesdays:
5:00 p.m to 8:00 p.m. for an audience located in the United States or Canada.
8:00 a.m for audiences located outside of America.
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Thursdays:
7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. for an audience living in the United States or Canada.
10:00 a.m. if you are trying to reach people outside of America.
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Fridays:
4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. for an audience living in the United States or Canada.
8:00 a.m. if you are trying to reach people outside of America.
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Saturdays:
3:00 p.m to 8:00 p.m to reach people in the United States and Canada.
7:00 a.m to reach people outside of America.
* Using Eastern Time Zone for all days
(google this to know the exact time for your location: *time* eastern standard time in *your location*)
As we said before, at 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time is when “the largest number of people in the world are likely awake”. You can try posting around this time and seeing the results you get.
About the rest of the article: I will try to cover as much information as possible about this new Instagram feature IGTV, and at the end, will talk about how you can start growing your channel with hashtags.
What about videos?
Believe it or not, Instagram videos don’t work the same way as the vast majority of your content and that is because of one simple reason: they are a little bit more time consuming: and people that are at work or taking care of their children don’t have a lot of time during the week to watch them with regularity.
But there are exceptions during the day, of course, and you should aim to that if you are a brand that requires using a lot of videos. “If you’re posting videos, though, you’ll want to schedule those posts between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m., any day of the week.” (Share This, 2018). This is a pretty accurate perception and advice; from 9:00 p.m. to 8: a.m. there is a big chance for you to share videos because it’s most likely that your target audience is resting from work and their children are sleeping or they are just waking up, having breakfast and preparing their kids to go to school–in both regards, this is the best chance for you to share your videos.
Conclusion
There is a running phrase about timing being everything and that is something that is very true when it comes to using Instagram for branding purposes; it’s not only about posting regularly and having great content, but it’s also about having a big understanding of how your target audience works and when is the best time to post on Instagram. Without that, the results are never going to be as great as you desire.
But, much like every single thing we do in this world, you are going to get a hold of this situation as long as you keep practicing and improving yourself as time comes along.
The more you try, the more you are bound to succeed.
Before you go
We are all about giving people the best hashtags for Instagram out there.
See our selection of Poetry hashtags or Architecture hashtags, for example.
If you like what we do, as always, you can bookmark our homepage to access our content every time you want.
Thank you for being here,
The Hashtagie Team
