When is the best time to post on Instagram? Complete actionable guide for 2021
Instagram has confidently taken an honorable place among social networks. Now it isn’t just a way to have a pleasant pastime, but an excellent tool for promoting goods and services on the Internet. Using seemingly idle and funky images for others is a way to distinguish yourself. We’ll tell you when it is the best time to post on Instagram to achieve maximum user attention.
Table of contents:
- When to post on Instagram in 2021
- Instagram engagement is vital
- How to find Your best time to post on Instagram in 2021: peak times
- How many times to post on Instagram?
- Find your top time zones online followers
- Experiment with posting times and measure the statistics
- Best times to post on Instagram for technology companies
- Best times to post on Instagram for B2C
- Best times to post on Instagram for educational organizations
- Best times to post on Instagram for Healthcare
- Best times to post on Instagram for Non-Profit
- Instagram posting time tips
- Scheduling your leads to more engagement
- How to schedule for your best time
- FAQ
- When should I post on Instagram 2021?
- Is it better to post on Instagram at night or in the morning?
- When should you not post on Instagram?
- How do you know when to post on Instagram?
When to post on Instagram in 2021
Determining the best time to post on Instagram wasn’t easy. To do this, the service Later needed to analyze 12 million Instagram posts in accounts with 100 to 1 million+ followers. The most optimal time to publish posts on Instagram was found. However, it's worth noting that it might not be right for your business. In each case, determining the best time depends on where your subscribers are located. However, first things first.
Instagram engagement is vital
In order to create a popular Instagram account, you need to provide a good level of engagement with your followers. Engagement on Instagram directly affects the attraction and retention of the audience, increasing its trust and loyalty to the brand, as well as its recognition and, as a result, sales.
Instagram has long ceased to be a social network, which is used to "stick to pretty pictures". People use it to view the feed and read the information under the photo. Therefore, the quality of each post is very important: the publication should contain both an attractive image with interesting engaging text.
It’s also important to publish posts at a specific time. How do you define it for your audience? You can test specific times for each post and see when the audience is most interested in your posts.
However, this method requires a significant investment of time and money. If you don’t have them, you should use the information obtained by professionals. Sprout Social, a media platform with more than 24,000 customers, conducted a survey that determined the appropriate time to post on Instagram. It also identified the right timing for each niche.
How to find Your best time to post on Instagram in 2021: peak times
There are times when posting on Instagram is best. First, we provide general statistics for each day of the week:
- Sunday: 7:00 am – 8:00 am, 4:00 pm.
- Monday: 6:00 am – 10:00 am and 2:00 pm – 10:00 pm.
- Tuesday: 2:00 am – 4:00 am and 9:00 am.
- Wednesday: 7:00 am – 8:00 am and 11:00 pm.
- Thursday: 9:00 am, 12:00 pm – 7:00 pm.
- Friday: 5:00 am, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm.
- Saturday: 11:00 am, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm.
How many times to post on Instagram?
The optimal number of posts each day depends on factors such as:
- niche;
- target audience preferences;
- number of subscribers;
- amount of interesting information that you can share with users.
Someone prefers to post once a day, many people publish posts up to 6 times, and some brands up to 30, publishing every half an hour, and their audience clearly doesn’t mind. Everyone should determine the optimal number of posts for themselves. There are only general guidelines.
Everyone has a subjective approach to maintaining personal accounts. Someone wants to immerse subscribers as much as possible in their life. Others, in addition to photos, also share information useful for followers. In this case, it is recommended to post up to three times a day.
It’s generally accepted that publishing one post per day is enough for commercial pages. This’s enough to keep subscribers from forgetting about you, but at the same time, you wouldn’t bore them.
Everything is not so simple though, because much still depends on how you can please your subscribers. If there isn’t any suitable content, it’s unlikely that someone will be upset about missing one day. At the same time, if you decide to hold some kind of action or want to share a sensation, then you shouldn’t deny yourself the publication of an additional post.
Find your top time zones online followers
When determining the best time to post on Instagram, it's worth considering your followers’ time zones.
To do this, you should study your audience using the built-in analytics tool — Instagram Insights. It gives you everything you need: you can see the geography of your followers, their gender, age, and most importantly when they are most active on Instagram.
In order to access Insights, you need to set up an Instagram business profile. One of the benefits of switching to the business profile is that you also get access to Instagram Creator Studio's excellent dashboard, which contains valuable audience insights. You will receive extended data on the time spent by your subscribers on the network.
Experiment with posting times and measure the statistics
If you prefer to dive into each case and control everything, you can create a special table. That’ll help you keep track of how many messages you receive by posting at different times on different days.
Start by choosing five different time frames throughout the week. For example, if you notice that your followers are at their peak between 5:00 pm and 9:00 pm, schedule your posts to appear at 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, and 9:00 pm.
Keep a close eye on how many likes and comments each post gets. Also, pay attention to the date and time you posted them.
Change tactics next week and post at different times of the day. For example, if you posted on Instagram at 5:00 pm on Monday in the first week, you should schedule the publication at 6:00 pm in the second week.
The research may take several weeks, but the obtained information will be especially useful. You can determine the best time to post on Instagram for your target audience.
Best times to post on Instagram for technology companies
In addition to the Wednesday peak times, there are also two separate periods of stable audience activity — from Tuesday evening to Wednesday evening and Friday from midnight to 10 pm. The lowest overall activity is observed on Saturday and most of Sunday.
- Best time: Wednesday 6:00 am and 9:00 – 10:00 am, Friday 7:00 – 10:00 a.m.
- Best day: Wednesday
- Worst day: Sunday
Best times to post on Instagram for B2C
The first thing to note is that Instagram is perfect for showcasing and selling products of all types. Retailers and brands can overcome the noise and increase reach during peak times, or schedule posts for relatively stable periods of activity — Tuesday through Friday from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. Purchasing power decreases only in the late evening but does not decline to zero. While the very minimum of activity occurs daily at the time before 5:00 am and after 9:00 pm.
- Best time: Wednesday at 3 pm
- Best day: Wednesday
- Worst day: Sunday
Best times to post on Instagram for educational organizations
Surprisingly, Saturday is far more conducive to Instagram promotion for educational companies than other segments. Great coverage can be obtained here on Wednesdays, Fridays, or, again, Saturdays from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm. It should be borne in mind that the lowest activity is observed every day until 8 am and after 11 pm.
- Best time: Friday at 10 am.
- Best day: Friday
- Worst day: Sunday
Best times to post on Instagram for Healthcare
Due to the strict rules on the exchange of information in healthcare, you can face serious problems in building a social presence.
A good recommendation is a strategy for social health networks. Clear guidelines for leading and communicating in the profile for the entire team and the ability to use your own analytics to determine the optimal time to post on Instagram is the right thing.
- Best time: Tuesday at 8:00 am
- Best day: Tuesday
- Worst days: Saturday and Sunday
Best times to post on Instagram for Non-Profit
The engagement peaks occur in the afternoons and on weekdays. It’s clearly an unaffordable luxury for most segments. According to statistics, the audience is consistently active from Monday to Friday, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Leaving aside the short period of moderate activity on Saturday afternoons, the lowest user activity is generally found in the daily periods before 8:00 am and after 10:00 pm.
- Best time: Tuesday from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm. and Wednesday at 2:00 pm
- Best day: Wednesday
- Worst day: Sunday
Instagram posting time tips
According to experts from Instagram, 6 factors are affecting the order of delivery of content in the feed:
- User's interest in the content.
- User’s relationship with the content creator.
- Relevance.
- How often the user opens the application.
- The number of user’s subscriptions.
- User’s activity on the platform.
It’s important to note that the algorithm is constantly changing. Instagram predicts how interesting it will be for each user. Thanks to algorithms, the social network assumes the relationship you have with each of the subscribers and shows their posts in priority order. Also, the content novelty and posting time affect the engagement in the publication.
Scheduling your leads to more engagement
If you publish a post when the audience is most active on Instagram, you have a great opportunity to draw attention to the publication. The more likes and comments a post has, the more often Instagram shows a post in users' channels.
It is a cyclical process: active involvement leads to greater visibility and more active interaction. Therefore, pay close attention to the time of posting on Instagram.
How to schedule for your best time
Keeping an Instagram account competently means publishing posts at the right time. But this doesn’t mean at all that you should be tied to the Internet and wait for the moment to publish. It’s enough to schedule posts on Instagram. You can do this simply and without wasting time using the Postoplan service.
Why do thousands of business people around the world choose Postoplan:
- The ability to maintain an unlimited number of accounts.
- The ability to preview publications.
- You can use hundreds of calendar post ideas just in case you have a creative crisis.
- Unlimited number of users.
- An unlimited number of projects.
- Convenient scheduling for account management.
- 2 excellent graphics editors: users can edit images to fit the graphics format for each of their social networks.
Scheduling posts on Instagram, editing and deleting them is very easy. The convenient planning grid allows you to do it quickly.
Sign up for Postoplan and get a free 7day trial. During this period, you will be able to fully appreciate the many benefits of the service. After that, you will be offered favorable rates for further use.
FAQ
We will answer the most frequently asked questions about what’s the best time to post on Instagram.
When should I post on Instagram 2021?
It’s best to post on Monday (6:00 am – 10:00 am and 2:00 pm – 10:00 pm) and Thursday (9:00 am, 12:00 pm – 7:00 pm). According to statistics, these days are the peak of user interest in publications.
Is it better to post on Instagram at night or in the morning?
Young people from 12 to 35 years old check Instagram In the morning. They are active and interested in the news. Most office workers make sure to check social media at lunchtime. They have already done the most important things at work, so they can relax a little.
In the evening people come to the Internet to relax after a tiring eight-hour day. In this case, you should not offer them any posts about work or business. At this time, it’s good to publish humorous and entertaining posts.
People usually sleep at night, but not all of them and not always. Young people can have fun in the clubs, some are on duty at this time. The main thing is that competition among publications is practically zero at night.
When should you not post on Instagram?
Not the best time for posting is the period from 12 to 4 pm and until 9 am. Also, don't post on Monday morning until 10 – 11 am.
How do you know when to post on Instagram?
In order to find out when is the best time to post on Instagram, you can analyze the statistics using Instagram Insights. It’ll take time, but you’ll know exactly when you should delight your subscribers with fresh publications. You can also use research results and post according to the specifics of your niche.
