What’s the best time to post on Instagram today (or any day)?
This post gives you the ideal daily times to post on IG to get more Likes & engagement!
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Question: When do you post on Instagram?
For most people, the answer is: “Whenever I get the time!”
Finding time to post on Instagram (and FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) is hard for most business owners.
When they finally get around to posting on IG, it might be 3 AM, 8 PM, or noon.
After all, it doesn’t matter WHEN you post as long as you’re posting, right?
WRONG!
The timing of your Instagram post can make or break the engagement it receives.
So it’s crucial to look CLOSELY at your Instagram timing to ensure you’re getting the best engagement possible.
In this post, we'll cover:
- Why timing matters on Instagram
- What time are people most active on Instagram?
- Is it bad to post on Instagram at night?
- What is the best time to post on Instagram?
- How to discover your ideal Instagram posting times
- How to time your Instagram posts perfectly with Post Planner
The best time to post on Instagram for any business
On social media, timing is everything.
However, the perfect timing isn’t always easy to discover.
There are dozens of social media gurus online, and they each have their own opinion about the best time to post on Instagram.
The problem with following their advice is that it doesn’t work for ANY business.
We want to give you the tools to make a plan that works.
This article will give you a clear-cut plan to develop an Instagram timing strategy that works for YOUR business.
Why timing matters on Instagram
Surely timing can’t matter that much on social media, right?
It REALLY does.
So often, businesses’ social media posts fall flat because they don’t post them at the correct times.
Even if they get some momentum, the post doesn’t live up to its full potential.
It could have gotten more likes and engagement, and maybe even generated a few new followers.
It often has nothing to do with the quality of the post and EVERYTHING to do with timing.
There are 2 primary reasons you need to figure out the best timing for your audience on social media.
The life span of an Instagram post
First, we need to talk about how long your Instagram post exists.
Yes, I know–your post TECHNICALLY exists forever. But how long does it live before it can no longer impact your business?
About 48 hours.
Yep, that’s right — in 2 days, your Instagram post is stone-cold dead.
In other words, it won’t get any more significant engagement after those 2 days.
You must take advantage of every second to get your post before as many people as possible!
If you post 5 hours too early, you just wasted more than 10% of your post’s life span!
The importance of engagement
Let’s say that 10% extra life gets you an additional 15 likes and 2 comments. Does that matter for your business?
Yes, yes, YES!
That extra engagement makes your post more visible and increases your chance of bringing in new followers.
It’s possible that the extra engagement from posting at the correct times could result in a new follower or 2.
Think about that.
Posting at the wrong time could be costing you followers every time you post.
Engagement = More followers = More sales
No business owner in their right mind would turn down that opportunity!
What time are people most active on Instagram?
If you’re going to answer the question of when to post on Instagram, you need to know when they’re most active.
In other words, you need to know when people will be online to see your post!
If you search for that question on Google, you’ll find dozens of completely different answers.
Some people said that people were most active early in the morning. Other people were saying they’re more active in the evenings.
So which is it?
Unfortunately, it’s neither.
Nobody knows when people are MOST active on Instagram because every audience is different.
Keep that in mind as we answer a few more common questions.
Then, we’ll show you a better way to figure out when your audience is active.
Is it bad to post on Instagram at night?
Are you a night owl?
If so, you might regularly get around to posting on your Instagram at 2 or 3 AM.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there’s a good chance you’re missing out on a good portion of your audience.
However, there are a few essential things to consider:
- The age of your audience
- The occupation of your audience
- Interests of your audience
For example, let’s say you have a young audience comprised mostly of college students.
In that case, midnight or later MIGHT even be the BEST time to post on Instagram.
In other words, it depends on when your audience will have the highest engagement.
What is the best time to post on Instagram?
So if nights, afternoons, evenings, and mornings all MIGHT work, that doesn’t help much, does it?
Hopefully, you’re starting to see part of the problem here.
It’s IMPOSSIBLE to answer the question “What is the best time to post on Instagram?” for everyone at once.
In other words, what works for you might not work for me, and vice versa.
However, this question is critical to the success of your business, so we must try to answer it.
There are 2 different approaches to this question:
- The “expert” approach
- The “personal” approach
Let’s quickly look at both of these viewpoints.
The different opinions of various “experts”
There are a ton of self-proclaimed social media “experts” out there.
They give out a ton of advice, and many people follow it.
That’s not a bad thing for the most part.
A good portion of the information they share helps business owners get more followers on social media.
However, not everything they say is data-driven.
For example, when it comes to Instagram posting times, they each have a different opinion.
For example, Later says that the best time to post on a Wednesday is from 3 AM to 6 AM.
However, Hootsuite says the best time to post on a Wednesday is 11 AM.
According to YOUR data
Everyone has their own opinion, but what will work for your business?
To figure that out, you have to ask YOUR followers!
Of course, you’re not going to literally ask your followers when they’re most active.
However, understanding your followers is the key to posting at the correct times.
Everyone is coming to different conclusions about the best time to post on social media because no two audiences are alike.
In other words, every business owner has to try to understand their audience’s habits, then cater to those in their posts.
That’s much easier said than done.
This post will describe how to PERFECTLY time your Instagram posts for maximum engagement.
How to discover your ideal Instagram posting times
The only thing between you and perfectly-timed Instagram posts is figuring out when your audience is most active online.
Unfortunately, there's not yet a button you can push that'll instantly tell you when ALL your followers are online.
So we’ll have to use good ol’ fashioned analytics and experimentation for now.
On the bright side, it isn’t too challenging to discover this info about your followers.
On the even brighter side, it’s not going to cost you anything to learn about your Instagram analytics.
Using free tools, you can have this info in hand by the end of the evening.
However, learning when to post on Instagram isn’t a once-and-done deal.
You have to refine your posting times repeatedly, meaning this info will come in handy more than once.
Instagram Insights
Instagram Insights is built into every Instagram business account.
It gives you valuable information about your followers’ habits and demographics.
To access Insights, just click the menu on your Instagram business account, then click “Insights.”
Accessing insights from the menu will automatically pull up general information about your audience. This is the perfect place to look at your audience’s habits.
The image above shows that the audience is most active from 12 PM to 6 PM on Thursdays. However, 9 PM and 12 AM would also be decent Instagram posting times.
You can also access individual post insights.
Click on the post you want to analyze, then tap “View Insights” below the image.
Instagram will pull up data about that post’s performance.
Using these more detailed analytics gives you specific insight into how posts perform at different times of the day.
For example, your audience may be most active at 3 PM, but you might get more engagement when posting at 1 PM.
Post Insights will help you discover those little quirks.
Experimentation
Once you’ve spent some time analyzing your posts with Instagram Analytics, it’s time to start experimenting.
Experimenting means that you’ll be making posts slightly before or after your peak engagement times.
If it goes up, try it again.
If it goes down, try something else.
For example, let’s say your analytics reveal a peak engagement time of 3 PM.
Try posting at 2:30 PM and making a note of your engagement.
If they go up, try 2:00 PM.
If they go down, try 3:30 PM.
If you repeat this process multiple times, you should reach an ideal posting time for your audience.
This process can take a while, but it’s worth your time.
If you find the best time to post on Instagram for your business, you could see DRASTICALLY increased engagement.
That engagement could lead to more followers and more SALES!
In other words, it’s worth your while to take this process slowly and ensure that you figure out the very best time!
How to time your Instagram posts perfectly with Post Planner
What happens if your best Instagram posting times are in the middle of the night?
What about if they’re during your daily staff meeting that would be almost impossible to reschedule?
The simple fact is that MOST people will have trouble posting at the ideal time EVERY day.
How do you get around that?
Post Planner is a tool that allows you both to discover excellent content and schedule it to AUTOMATICALLY post whenever you want!
Using a tool like Post Planner makes it so much easier to post at the ideal posting times.
It can also help you find the best content and develop a better content strategy.
Pair those benefits with your new knowledge of the best time to post on Instagram, and your account will be unstoppable!
This section will show you exactly how to use Post Planner to post excellent content at the best times.
Create a schedule
Now that you have your ideal Instagram posting times, it’s time to put them to good use.
In Post Planner, you can create a schedule that will allow Post Planner to automatically post to your Instagram (and other social media) at your specified times.
To create a posting schedule on Post Planner:
- Click the Publishing tab at the top of the screen.
- Next, click “Queue Plans” on the left side of the screen.
- Select the days and times that you want to post.
- Next, select the types of content allowed to post on each day and time slot.
That’s it!
You can create multiple plans that run at the same time.
For example, you could have a weekend plan that posts at 8 AM and a weekday plan at 6 AM.
As you’re creating your plan, reference the data that you got from Instagram Insights to help you select suitable days and times!
Create content
After creating your posting schedule, Post Planner isn’t ready to start posting content quite yet.
First, you have to fill up your content calendar with things you want to share with your followers.
There are 2 ways to do this:
- Create your own content
- Find content around the web to share with your followers
Both of these are necessary options. Let’s start with the first one.
Creating your content can be difficult — especially on a visual platform like Instagram.
Post Planner has a solution to help you make excellent visual content quickly.
The Content Studio has a complete set of design tools, high-quality stock photos, and many other options for your visual content.
A great way to use the Content Studio is to create a visually appealing push to your newest blog post on your website.
However, there are so many other creative ways to use it as well.
Curate content
If you had to create a piece of content every day (maybe even multiple times a day) for Instagram, it would quickly become overwhelming.
On the other hand, scouring the web to find enough content to share with your followers every day would be nearly impossible.
To help you with this problem, Post Planner offers an advanced content curation system.
It scours the web for highly relevant content so you don’t have to.
You can then add any content you find on Post Planner to your posting schedule with just a couple of clicks (we’ll talk more about that next).
Post Planner offers tons of pre-made content streams organized by keyword.
We also offer popular content for social media like quotes, conversation starters, and questions designed for maximum engagement.
Add content to your schedule
Now that you’ve gathered a bunch of content for your Instagram posts, it’s time to add them to your posting schedule.
On Post Planner, this is extremely easy.
When you find a post that you want to share, just hover over it and click “Create Post.”
Fill in any information you want to include as a caption and any other changes you want to make to your post.
Finally, click “Add to Queue.”
Post Planner will automatically start filling in your posting schedule every time you repeat this process.
If you want to organize your posts in a particular order, just go to your queue and drag and drop your posts until you’re happy.
Whereas looking for your posts can take hours, Post Planner allows you to find a month’s worth of content in a single afternoon!
Monitor engagement and repeat
After you make several posts on your Instagram, it’s time to refine your posting times.
Use the tips provided above and use Instagram Insights to monitor your engagement at different times of the day.
Also, consider what types of content are most popular with your followers.
Once you’ve compiled your data and you know what you should post and when you should post it, repeat the content process on Post Planner.
Over time, you should quickly start to see your engagement numbers increasing.
Don’t stop there!
Remember the process!
- Analyze engagement
- Create a posting schedule
- Find and create content on Post Planner
- Analyze and adjust posting schedule
- Repeat
The more you repeat this process of analysis and experimentation, the higher your engagement will soar!
Conclusion
What is the best time to post on Instagram?
Now you know that that question is impossible to answer for everyone simultaneously.
You have to answer for yourself and your audience.
However, identifying the best time to post on Instagram today will help you engage your audience and get more likes and followers.
Don’t waste any more time! Sign up for Post Planner’s free trial now and watch how much it can help you boost engagement.
With a bit of time and some elbow grease, your engagement will skyrocket!
Let us know your best tips for posting on Instagram in the comments below!
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