The golden hours to publish your social media posts

Apr 15, 2024 | Social Media

Are you about to publish a new post on your social media channels? Hold off on pressing that publish button just yet! 😉 There might be a better time to post on social media, a time that will result in more reach and engagement. But … what are the best times to post on socials? We’ve compared several sources and put the insights together for you.

Facebook

The best days to post on Facebook are midweek days, especially Wednesday and Thursday, which seem to be the most effective. Especially throughout the day, at like 11 AM.

Posting right before noon pays off because of how the Facebook algorithm works. When you publish a Facebook post and this post gets a lot of interactions within a short time, the platform sees this as qualitative, valuable content. Your posts will then be shown to a larger audience. You don’t want to put your post live too early or too late because people will be sleeping for example.

Instagram

When it comes to Instagram, the best choice is to post throughout the week, ideally on a Monday or Wednesday. As for timing, consider posting either early in the morning (at 9 AM) or during lunchtime (at 1 PM) to maximize engagement. During these times of the day, most people are scrolling through their Instagram feeds, resulting in higher reach for your posts.

Weekends tend to be the least popular days for posting on Instagram, as most people are busy with their personal lives.

Tip: If you have a business account, you can see when your audience is most active. Go to Your profile > Statistics > Total number of followers. Here, you’ll see your dashboard with information about your most active days and times.

LinkedIn

It’s safe to say that posting during working hours tends to result in a great interaction rate. People are cruising through the network to look for new research, opinions, and inspiration. Also, posting right before or after working hours does great, as people turn to their LinkedIn feed while traveling to work or going back home. The best day in general is Thursday.

Just like on Instagram, weekends are the worst days to post on LinkedIn. The majority of your audience will be out, socializing in the real world or spending time with their families. So it’s important to schedule your posts for weekdays.

TikTok

TikTok’s peak usage goes hand in hand with people’s leisure hours, typically occurring later in the day. That’s why posting around 7 PM is best. Ideally, on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday if you’re looking for a higher engagement rate.

Timing is of great importance at TikTok. You want to reach your target audience when they are most active, and liking and sharing your videos. Does this happen often? Then the TikTok algorithm rewards you by also showing your content to others on their For You page.

Tip: In the TikTok analytics section, you can find the Follower activity metric. Here, you can identify the hours and days when your audience was most active.

An overview

posting-times-social-media

The truth is that there is no single best time to post for everyone on every platform. The above-mentioned times are a good starting point, but they’re not a guarantee for the best results for your social media. To fully harness your potential, it’s advisable to discover your own “best timing”. For this, you need to analyze your audience thoroughly per channel. You can do this with the help of some social media tools.

💡 Here’s a piece of advice: experiment with various posting times to discover your ideal timing. Start by sharing content in the morning, afternoon and evening, and see which times generate the most engagement. After a few weeks, analyze your findings and find what works best for you.

Now, go ahead and test it out yourself! 😎 Need a helping hand? Find out what we can do for you.