Many Instagram business accounts have a content calendar to ensure they post regularly on Instagram. They put in the effort to create valuable content that will meet the needs of their followers and other Instagram users that may visit their page. Unfortunately, they never seem to get any engagement from their Instagram audience.
Does this sound familiar? Despite working with your excellent social media strategy, you find out that when you post on Instagram, only a few family and friends engage with your content. Perhaps the problem is not with the value that your quality content provides, but with the time you post on Instagram.
You see, Instagram posts perform better when they’re published around the time your audience will be online since they will show up on their Instagram feeds. If you upload content at the wrong time, you’ll hardly get good engagement because your audience is not available to engage with it at that time.
If you still struggle with a low engagement rate on your Instagram business account, come along on this journey to help you learn the best time to post on Instagram, how to schedule posts for better engagement, and beat the Instagram algorithm for good!
The Best Time to Upload Instagram Posts (Based on Instagram Insights)
There are a variety of Instagram posts you can upload on your account, ranging from Reels to videos, Stories, photos, and more. Deciding the best times to post any of these categories of content is determined by various factors including your industry, audience, type of content, etc.
Thankfully, a variety of social media industry giants like Search Engine Journal, Hootsuite, and Later, among others, have devoted time and resources to research the best time to post on Instagram. The posting data gathered is according to millions of Instagram pages they reviewed.
So, you can rest easy as a social media manager, knowing you have a cheat sheet posting schedule available for you to run with for the best results. Let’s get right into it.
Note: The majority of the times posted below are based on past data from IG accounts based in the U.S. Eastern Time Zone (EST), but it remains relevant across multiple time zones. Be sure to modify the times to match your audience’s time zone as needed.
The Best Time to Post an Instagram Post
The following times are the overall best times to post on Instagram for better reach.
- Monday: 12am, 1am, 3am, 7am EST
- Tuesday: 12am, 9am EST
- Wednesday: 12am, 2am, 7am EST
- Thursday: 12am, 2am, 3am, 5am, 7am, 11pm EST
- Friday: 12am, 5am, 8am EST
- Saturday: 12am, 1am, 3am, 11pm EST
- Sunday: 12am, 2am, 5am, 7am, 11pm EST
The Best Time to Post Instagram Reels
Reels are one of the popular types of social media posts right now. The short-form video content similar to TikTok videos, is quick and easy to consume, and pass across your message in a fun way. If you’re looking to post Reels on your page to boost engagement rates, the following times of the day are best for posting:
- Monday: 6am, 10am, 10pm
- Tuesday: 2am, 4am, 9am
- Wednesday: 7am, 8am, 11pm
- Thursday: 9am, 12pm, 7pm
- Friday: 5am, 1pm, 3pm
- Saturday: 11am, 7pm, 8pm
- Sunday: 7am, 8am, 4pm
Best Time to Post Instagram Videos
There are now diverse kinds of video content on Instagram that can help you gain high engagement. However, it’s important to note that videos can sometimes be lengthy, and this may affect your audience’s preferred time to watch them. To accommodate this factor, here are the peak times for posting Instagram videos to gain maximum engagement.
The sweet spot hours range between 11am and 1pm during most workers’ lunch break. Asides from the lunch hour, anytime after 7pm when they will be home and resting also works, especially during a work week when people use Instagram to unwind.
Best Time to Post Instagram Stories
Stories on Instagram last for about 24 hours, but they are still a great way to give visibility to your post. They show up at the top of the Instagram feed, and your Instagram followers will see it on their radar. If they often engage with your Stories because they find them to be compelling content, the higher the chances of them seeing it.
While there is no specific best time to post Stories, a good starting point would be to post in the early hours of the day around 9am to late afternoon around 4pm. Monday mornings to Friday evenings are the days with the highest average engagement for Stories.
Best Time to Go Live on Instagram
If going Live on Instagram is part of your Instagram campaigns to garner more engagement to your page, you should make sure to choose your IG Live hours within the same time zone as your primary audience. Q&As, real-time conversations, and interviews are common IG Live content that social media marketers can try.
The best times to go Live on Instagram would be a workaround the 9am – 5pm work hours that most followers’ jobs fall into. During work periods, such as hours earlier than 12 pm and between 2pm – 5pm, you may not get the most engagement because people are hard at work.
Between 12 noon and 1pm, which is lunchtime for most workers, your Live post may garner higher engagement. People are usually looking for something to watch around this time. Also, the evening commute hours, between 7pm and 9pm is a prime time for going Live.
Best Time to Post Based on Industry
The industry or niche your business falls into can determine what time is the best to post. If you’re looking for the best time to post on Instagram according to Industry-specific data, Sprout Social, the top social media management tool, conducted research to find out when various industries recorded the highest Instagram engagement on their pages.
See the result of their findings below:
- Media and Entertainment industry: Friday 9am, Wednesday – Friday 8-5 are the best times to post. The worst days are weekends, at any time.
- Retail Industry: Wednesday 3pm, Friday 11am – 12noon, is the best posting time. Sunday is the worst posting day and Late night and early morning are their worst hours.
- Tech Industry: Best time to post is Wednesday 6am – 11am, Friday 7am – 10am, Saturday 7am -11am. Sunday is the worst day to post.
- Non-Profit Industry: Wednesday 1pm – 4pm is the perfect time to post. Weekends are the worst days and times to post.
- Education Industry: Wednesday & Friday, 10am, 6pm – 10pm is perfect for posting. Sunday, as usual, is the worst day and time to post.
- Food & Beverage Industry: Wednesday – Friday, 12 noon during the lunch period. Weekends are the absolute worst days for engagement.
The Worst Instagram Posting Times
Just like we mentioned earlier, there are best times to post on Instagram, but you should also note that there are worst times to post on Instagram that may poorly affect the engagement on your Instagram account. These time frames fall on Wednesday and Thursday for a few reasons.
Wednesday is the middle of the week and people may be neck-deep in their work during your posting times. Thursday is the start of the weekend, and many people will be busy making plans or hanging out on Thursday night.
So, avoid posting on Instagram during the following hours if you need audience engagement for growth:
- Wednesday: 10am – 4pm
- Thursday: 9pm – 11pm
Other Ways to Maximize Best Posting Time for Instagram?
Need more help boosting your posts? A few pointers shared below can help.
Leverage a Growth Service for Engagement
Growth services like Botlist are becoming increasingly popular tools that provide engagement packages for brands and individuals looking to boost their social media growth quickly. A tool like Botlist provides diverse Instagram engagement packages such as IG likes that you can get more likes on Instagram, views, followers, and more to help you blow up engagement on your page, and as a result, build social proof.
As you post your content at the best posting hours, use Botlist Likes packages to drive engagement on the post so that the algorithm can identify the post as a highly engaging, quality post and show it to more Instagrammers.
Post Compelling Content
Quality posts are all the rave these days. Potential customers on your followers’ list are looking for brands that can provide value and solve their problems. Create captivating content that attracts your preferred audience, and you’ll see how improved your engagement rates become over time.
Create a Posting Schedule for Your Instagram Accounts
Regular posting is vital in generating consistent engagement on your page. By setting a schedule for your posts using the times listed above, you’ll be able to post consistently and achieve better results with your social marketing strategy. Work with scheduling tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, or Later to help you set up a schedule and push content regularly.
4 Ways to Identify the Best Time to Reach Your Target Audience
How did researchers come to the conclusion that the above-listed times are great times to post, you may wonder. Well, it’s simple; they tracked engagement metrics from various accounts that work with their social media management tools.
You can do it too by using Instagram analytics to track your own data to get a good idea of the best times to post on Instagram based on when your audience engages with your posts the most. However, this mostly works if you have gained a good amount of followers.
Let’s see other ways to achieve this:
What Day of the Week Is It?
Based on the best posting times we’ve listed, you will observe that during workdays, the best times to post are usually early in the morning when your audience is getting out of bed, or during lunch when they need something to keep them occupied. During weekends, they start to engage much earlier as they are least occupied. As you create a schedule for posting, take this into consideration.
What Is Your Audience’s Primary Time Zone or Location?
Your audience’s location and time determine what time you post. For a locally based audience, your posting times should align with the local timing per region or locality. For an international-based audience, the more vastly spread the audience is, the less you have to worry about timing.
Who Is Your Main Audience?
Regardless of the time you post content, some niches or industries like the entertainment industry will always get high engagement. In these cases, timing matters little. So, decide who your unique audience is and what triggers their engagement responses.
What Is Your Call to Action?
This is the super power of social media! The call to action on your post may make more meaning when your audience sees it at a particular time of day. So, pay attention to your main audience when deciding when to post so that they can follow through with your CTA when they see your post.
