Best time to post on Instagram [Complete Guide]

Best Time to Post On Instagram: Instagram has been the ultimate life-saver for all of us this pandemic. With all the new features they have been testing and rolling out every week, its goals are clear and that is ‘Keeping people stick to the platform’. Just to be clear, people at Instagram are quite successful in doing so.

Boasting a user-base of billion people and counting, IG recently came out with reels in Indian market and took it by storm. The kind of organic reach it has, it opens many opportunities for young creators to reach new audience every day.  

Know All About Instagram Posting Time

In order to succeed on this platform and build a cheerful brand around your business, you need to be part of some communities within your niche. Being part of community gives you a sense of familiarity on IG and as we know that it has not only a platform for growth but also for downfall sometimes, which happens for sure.

And when that happens your community makes sure you get up from those low engagement, low numbers and bounce back. You maybe a personal brand, a company brand or even an influencer but what gets you going in the game is being known and highly engaged in the community. 

There is no formula or way to make it big in these platforms, just some basic traits to succeed in real life that has to be put in action. You ask – “What basic traits to succeed?”

You need the discipline to post daily or in regular intervals just as you need discipline in life to succeed. You have to be consistent in anything that you want to succeed, so is the case for IG too.

Consistent posting, consistent stories, consistent branding and whatnot. You have to make yourself seen in the huge sea of creators who are in the business as you. Some people find it difficult to post every day due to a creative block or burnout.

Here is a solution to that –

“You have the choice either post daily for straight 30 days and burnout or post every alternate day for the next 6 months and get results” it is up to you to choose your way. But whatever you do make sure to put in consistent efforts.

Why Finding The Best Time To Post On Instagram Matters?

Making viral posts and good quality content matters equally as the time on which you post. Usually many creators and influencers post their content as soon as it made but some are very specific in the timings at which they put out their content as they know what impact it has on their growth and business.

Posting your content at the right time when your target audience is active gives your post a chance to attract more eyeballs towards your post and eventually helps you get more leads. Some creators and businesses have a global reach and therefore they have to make sure their post timings are inclined with their active audience.

Normally we’ve seen that evening timing for Indian audiences suits very well as people leave their work or have free time. Anything between 6-9 pm is considered a good posting time. While conditions in other parts of the world require different timings.   

Benefits of Best Time to Post on Instagram

Here are some benefits you will find if you figure out the best time to post on Instagram 

Interest – When you show up to your audience each and every day at the same time without any delay, you create interest in the mind of your followers. They guess everyday what new interesting thing you are going to post and if you don’t show up any day, they would DM and ask you about that.

This is the level of interest that you will be able to create which will help you maintain the attention of your target audience. If you provide a service on IG and you start showing up daily to your audience at the same time, they start trusting you and your content more and the day they’ll be needing any service related to your field, you will be their first choice. 

Recency- The word Recency describes the engagement of the customer with your content with relation to the time. There is a concept in IG algorithm know as T.O.P meaning Time on Post. The more time your followers or visitors spend on your post greater the T.O.P and thus greater the reach.

This is only possible if you post at a perfect time your audience is active. Therefore if you increase recency you will be benefitted in both, growth in terms of business and social media. If you don’t see any change in engagement try switching to different times choose the best performing timing. This type of testing gives you quick results. 

Relationship – Now that you have started posting daily what you will see is new conversations would spark up in DM’s and comment sections of your post. They maybe appreciation or questions but make sure who-ever interact with you, has a good experience and would love to do business with you.

It is the power of consistent posting and timings of your post that yields such result. Have interaction with them every time they react on your stories or comment on your post. Being thankful for reaching out develops a good relation with customers. 

Engagement Is Usually Your Number One Priority on Instagram

When it comes to engagement on Instagram one has to be really targeted to reach your perfect target audience. People start engaging on Instagram with as many accounts as possible to gain more traction as a result of which they attract general accounts that are of no use.

Because if you are marketing to everyone you are marketing to no one so you have to be targeted in your approach. You can go and find a community related to your niche and start engaging with them, you may follow new accounts no matter big or small if they fall in your niche, do engage with them. 

People treat engagement as the number one priority when it comes to growing your account. And there correct to a certain extent you can have 80/20 ratio between engagement and other activities on your page. Also there is a misconception that engagement is done only on other people’s post but it is far more than that.

The place where engagement matters the most are actually the direct messages. You have to develop a relationship with them and that can happen only through messaging them in personal. 

It is true that stories are a great way to interact with your audience but what it does is, it breaks the ice between the creator and the audience. The real relations are to be made in personal only. Therefore, you should value engagement but not at the cost of post timings and quality.

How to find the best time to post on Instagram?

To find the best time to post on Instagram one cannot give a general answer. In every part of the world people get free from their work in the evening and that is considered to be the ideal timing. It is true that you will have to find out your ideal timing through testing. Don’t just take anyone’s word for it and start testing your post timings.

What you can do is track the amount of engagement you are getting on different times and compare which of them performed the best. This way you will find out which timing is working for you and which timing is not. Sometimes due to algorithm change you would not get the ideal amount of engagement that you used to get every day. 

Interesting Read: A Complete Guide on Working of Instagram Algorithm

If you are living in the United States and have businesses in countries like India too, then you have to alter your timings according to them. Most Indians are active in the morning and then during the evening. If you don’t want to alter your timings then you should think about posting twice a day and check for yourself.

This is what you can do to ensure you have a good post time

1. Day of the Week – You have to make sure that you are posting your content on the right days and at the right time to reach at the right audience. To do that you have to research on the timings your target audience is active.

You can do that by going on the activity Tab on your Instagram and see on which time of the days your audience is most active. You have to choose the day and time according to the highest bar in the graph.

Work Day Break – You have to take in consideration that people also take work breaks and have lunch, at those times go and serve on Instagram and other social media platforms. You can test and alter your post timings to these and understand their behavior.

These breaks can be ones toys or even three times in a day. Also you can try posting multiple times a day but make sure it should not affect the quality of your content. Sometimes these breaks can last for more than half an hour and that is enough time for anyone to engage or share your posts.

Take Advantage of Time Zones – You can use different time zone advantage testing different geographical regions with targeted posts. This may hurt your engagement a bit but will give you definitive results on what to work.

If you have targeted audiences then use that as a basis to schedule more posts to ease up your work. On the other hand if you are a business operating at various places then you should definitely e use the different time zones in your advantage by creating region specific content.

The Average Best Times to Post on Instagram

So now if you are thinking that we are going to give you some magic timing which after posting your posts will get good boost then we are sorry to break the bubble there isn’t one ideal time.

Nothing is easy; we have compiled a list of the best researches and blogs out there which have done study on their ideal post timings. Also you should note that time zones of different countries also matter. Don’t just take this data and copy paste it to your procedure, go and find your own ideal timings by testing. These are for references 

• HubSpot – between 2 PM and 3 PM – Thursday considered the best day
• Sprout Social – Wednesday at 11 AM and Friday between 10–11 AM
• Expert Voice – Wednesday: 11 AM and 3 PM 
• Later – 9 AM-11 AM EST

Interesting Read:- Top 10+ Sprout Social Alternatives for 2021

Best Times to Post on Instagram by days of the week

Just like we don’t do the same task each and every day, so is our social media usage habits. One day we scroll on Instagram for hours and hours and the other day for only a few minutes.

Therefore our habits to use Instagram and interact with pages depend on each day of the week. For example people are more free on the weekend that is Saturday and Sunday so therefore good engagement is received by anything you post at the right times.

In week days it depends on the time zones too but anything in evening between 6-9 always works. Here is a list of different timings by days of week of reputed blogs. 

Hubspot –

• Sunday: Between 10 AM – 2 PM CDT
• Monday: Between 11 AM – 5 PM CDT
• Tuesday:  5 AM, between 9 AM – 6 PM CDT
• Wednesday: 5 AM, 11 AM, 3 PM CDT
• Thursday: 5 AM,11 AM, 3 – 4 PM CDT
• Friday: 5 AM, 9 AM – 4 PM CDT
• Saturday: 11 AM CDT

Sprout Social –

• Wednesday at * 11 AM
• Friday at *10–11AM
• Wednesday is the overall best day
• Tuesday through Friday, 10AM–3PM. 

Later –

• Monday: Morning 6AM, 10AM, 10PM
• Tuesday: 2AM, 4AM, 9AM
• Wednesday: Morning 7 AM, 8 AM, 9 AM
• Thursday: 7AM< 8AM, 11PM Night.
• Friday: Morning 5AM, 1PM, 3PM
• Saturday: 11 AM, 7 PM, 8 PM
• Sunday: Morning 7AM, 8AM, 4PM

You have to note that this timing does not imply to every area but are tested by these blogs to get their results. Once you start posting in morning everyday you see that you don’t get many comments but the post gets good reach.

The reason behind this is because people are getting ready in the morning therefore less engagement and good reach because less people post in morning. Evening posts perform exceptionally well only if you engage before and after the time to post.

It is known as the before and after strategy. You go and comment on people’s post and seeing that those creators would come back pay back some comments on your posts. Nowadays the ‘Pin Comment’ option also increases the chances of your comment to be seen. All of these attract eyeballs to your account and eventually you get a follow. 

When Brands should post on Instagram?

Well, not every brand works in the same sector therefore you need to specify in which sector does your brand fall. Here is a list we have put up for you to go through and find out yours.

• Instagram for Technology Companies: Wednesday at 10 AM is the best time to post
• B2C Companies: Saturday at 11 AM and 1 PM is the best time to post
• Educational Organizations: Monday at 8 PM is the best time to post
• Healthcare Companies: Tuesday at 1 PM is the best time to post
• Non-Profit Organizations: Tuesday at 3 PM and 9 PM, Wednesday at 3 PM and 4 PM, Thursday at 2 PM & 3 PM, and Friday at 10 AM & 2 PM are the best timings to post.
• Consumer Goods Companies: Wednesday at 3 PM is the best time to post
• Media Companies: Friday at 9 AM is the best time to post. 

Conclusion

To sum up all the aspects we have covered about finding the best time to post it is actually to test and find out what’s working for you. A famous Instagram coach once said “You should start working on what’s working for you” and that is something we suggest you do.

All of this is data found out by various blogs and games but according to their conditions. You should find out where your target audience lives and what the times they are most active are. That way you can maintain good relations with them earn their trust and do good business with them.

Instagram is the coolest kid in the block right now to hang out with so make sure you have all the aspects of growth with you before you jump in. As we said – Testing is pretty darn important. Your best post timings will change after a time because people change their work patterns often. Adapting to such action will lead to better understanding of audience.