Instagram is ranked 4th among the world’s most active social media platforms with 1.6 billion users, and the number of users grew by 12.2% over the past 12 months. So it’s an important platform for advertisers.
There are many factors to consider when posting on Instagram, one of them being the posting time. Nowadays there is much content generated on Instagram, so Instagram users get just a tiny fraction of all content. If you want them to see your post, first you should post at the right time, when your users are online and are most likely to engage. In this article, we’ll explore the best times to post on Instagram in 2023 and why timing matters in social media marketing.
Is There a Best Time to Post on Instagram?
Different Instagram features like Feed, Stories, Reels, and the Explore page are governed by a separate algorithm. One of the most important measures for the various Instagram algorithms is engagement. Engagement is measured by likes, comments, shares, and saves, and tells the app that people like your content. The more engagement your post receives; the more users will get your content. Posting on Instagram at the right time affects the engagement of your content directly, so the posting time is an important factor to consider when developing your social media marketing strategy.
The Instagram algorithms prioritize recency, so posting when Instagram users are online is very important.
The best time to post on Instagram is the time when your followers are mostly active online and would get delivered your content.
In practice, it’s not so easy to find the best posting time, since your followers’ habits depend on many factors, including interests, age, social or even political events, etc. In addition, there are different time zones, weekdays and weekends, and other factors influencing followers’ behavior.
Recent statistics show that the majority of users are aged 18 to 34:
- 517.7 million users (32.0% of Instagram’s total ad audience) are aged 18 to 24.
- 488.7 million users (29.6% of Instagram’s total ad audience) are aged 25 to 34.
The third most active group is users aged 35 to 44 (246.3 million users, 15.3% of Instagram’s total ad audience). So, when considering user behavior and interests, keep in mind these statistics and age groups.
What is the Best Time to Post on Instagram?
There are many social media posting and scheduling tools that collect statistics on the posting times and users’ engagement with the posts. Different scheduling tools provide a bit different statistics, but there are some basic trends. We summarized the results and provide our conclusions on the best posting time, based on many social media platforms.
Best times to post on Instagram in 2023:
- Mondays: 7 – 8 AM and 6 – 7 PM.
- Tuesdays: 7 – 8 AM and 6 – 7 PM.
- Wednesdays: 7 – 8 AM.
- Thursdays: 7 – 8 AM and 4 PM.
- Fridays: 7 – 8 AM and 4 PM.
- Saturdays: 8 – 9 AM.
- Sundays: 6 – 8 PM.
The best time to post on Instagram is 7 – 8 AM from Monday through Thursday. In the morning on working days, when people are commuting to work, seems to be the most effective for posting to reach the maximum engagement.
Another good time to post on Instagram is after work on working days when people are coming home from work. It’s 6 – 7 PM on Monday and Tuesday, and 4 PM on Thursday and Friday.
Other social media platforms find the best time to post on Instagram during lunchtime, 11 AM – 1 PM from Monday to Thursday.
The worst days to post on Instagram are Saturday and Sunday. During weekends, engagement drops significantly, with some engagement on Saturday morning and Sunday evening, though these weekend peaks are not even close to the weekday engagement levels. It’s better not to post on weekends at all. If you still publish, adapt your content, making it more relaxed or funny.
These are the basic, summarized results on users’ engagement. Your Instagram followers could show a bit different result, depending on your audience, product, country of targeted users, and other factors.
You should experiment, try different posting times, measure the engagement with the content of your Instagram and adapt your posting strategy until you find one that works best for you.
How to Find Your Best Time to Post on Instagram?
If you want to find the best time to post on Instagram that works well for you, consider the following tips:
- Find out when your audience is most active online. First, you need to know your audience. If you are targeting entrepreneurs, or sports professionals on Instagram, their social media usage might be wildly different from commuting office workers, working from 8 AM to 8 PM.
Use Instagram analytics, account insights, and social media management tools’ analytics to determine when your followers are using Instagram. - Review your top-performing posts. Before measuring your posting performance, decide, what kind of performance you’re aiming for: brand awareness or engagement. Your strategy for scheduling your Instagram posts could vary depending on your current goals.
When you know what you are looking for, review your top-performing posts. Which of your posts had the highest performance? When did you post them (write down the days of the week and the time)? Are these posts different from other, less-performing posts? Are there differences in posts for earning likes, comments, and shares? What is your most compelling content? - Check your competitors’ posting times. Depending on your industry, your competitors may be doing some of the same experiments, competitive analysis, or social listening that you need. Keep an eye on what’s working for others. If there are several competitors, employing similar strategies regarding the posting time, this could also work well for you as well.
Tip: Avoid direct competition in timing with stronger competitors. For example, many brands post on the hour mark. If your competitors do this, avoid posting a few minutes before or after the :00. - Post in your audience’s time zone. Needless to say, you should be posting in your audience’s time zone, not your time zone. If you have a diverse audience- select your priority audience and adapt posting time to it.
You don’t need to post in the middle of the night. You can use posting automation tools like Postus for your Instagram posts. With automated scheduling tools, you can post automatically at the right time. - Experiment, monitor, and adjust your timing strategy. The working conditions may be changing due to pandemic, working from the office, home, or using a hybrid model, changes in school timetables, etc. For example, during the pandemics of 2020, many people spent less time commuting or having a traditional lunch break, which affected profoundly the timing of their usage of social media platforms. After the Israeli- Palestinian war started, some people could be related to it directly, caring about their family members or friends. Such events could change people’s habits for social media usage. Which worked best before, could not work any longer.
Experiment with your posting timing, test and monitor your posting performance. Review your results regularly and adjust accordingly for your posting strategy. - Be consistent over the long term. It’s important to post systematically and to engage with your followers. When your audience gets the habit of seeing your posts on their feed, they like your content, and engage with it. Maintain your presence on Instagram to build credibility, trust, and relationships with your audience.
If you stop posting for a long time, your audience may lose interest in your posts and Instagram’s algorithms will notice it, so it could be difficult to start posting again on a regular basis. - Use automated social media scheduling and management tools. AI-based, automated social media scheduling tools like Postus can schedule your posting to the best times, analyze your audience’s engagement, save time, and increase your content reach.
Postus, the AI-powered social media assistant, could be used to create, schedule, and post content for Instagram and other social media platforms at the best times. Features include multi-language support (30+ languages), mood selection (from formal to funny), and flexible scheduling.
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Frequently Asked Questions
The best time to post on Instagram is 7 – 8 AM from Monday through Thursday when people are mostly active online and would get delivered your content. Another good time to post on Instagram is after work on working days, 6 – 7 PM on Monday and Tuesday, and 4 PM on Thursday and Friday. Social media posting and scheduling tool Postus can help you schedule your postings at the best times.
Research shows that Instagram users are the most active in the morning on working days, when people are commuting to work (7 – 8 AM from Monday through Thursday), and after work on working days, when people are coming back home from work (6 – 7 PM on Monday and Tuesday). Use social media scheduling tools like Postus to schedule your postings when Instagram users are most active.
The Instagram algorithm creates a different Explore page for each user. One of the most important measures for the various Instagram algorithms is engagement, measured by likes, comments, shares, and saves and tells the app that people like your content. Posts displayed are also chosen based on other parameters like your connections on Instagram and the people you follow.
Use the feature that gets more engagement from your audience. Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels, and the Explore page are governed by a separate algorithm. One of the most important measures for the various Instagram algorithms is engagement, measured by likes, comments, shares, and saves and tells the app that people like your content. The more engagement your post receives; the more users will get your content.
To find your best time to post on Instagram, consider the following tips: find out when your audience is most active online, review your top-performing posts, check your competitors’ posting times, post in your audience’s time zone, and experiment, monitor, and adjust your timing strategy. Use automated social media management tools like Postus to schedule your posts and analyze the performance.
It’s better to post on Instagram during the day when your audience is the most active online. The very best time to post on Instagram is in the morning on working days, when people are commuting to work (7 – 8 AM from Monday through Thursday), and after work on working days, when people are coming back home from work (6 – 7 PM on Monday and Tuesday). Use automated tools like Postus to schedule your posts.