Best Times to Post on Instagram

You post a content out there on Instagram and it barely gets much reach, let alone engagement.

Can you guess the reason behind it? Yes! It is because of wrong time of publishing the post.

Think of the time if you don’t take your meal on time when you feel hungry just because you are busy but when you are free you don’t feel hunger anymore. Similarly, when you don’t post the content on Instagram at the right time then you lose the amount of engagement on your contents.

You Can Also Read: 9 Organic Ways to Grow your Instagram Account

• A person spends more than 2 hours of a day on Instagram.
• More than 1000 of contents gets posted daily on Instagram.
• Instagram is known to be second growing social media platform.
• The engagement rates of Instagram contents are six times higher than that of Facebook contents.
• The most popular types of content on Instagram are known to be Grid Posts (93%) and Stories(85%).
• 44% of people prefer to shop through Instagram on a weekly basis.
• More than 70% of audience age is under 35.

Now, you might be thinking that Instagram doesn’t tells you the best times to post on Instagram then you are wrong. You might be thinking about the best week or days to post contents as well. We have come up with this post after running few experiments and implementing many of the techniques.

We will discuss about best time to publish your content on IG and everything that goes around. So, never skip any of the part and let’s get started.

Benefits of posting content at right time

There are many of the benefits of posting content at right time. Let’s get to know them.

• When you post on a best time to upload Instagram post there is a high chance of you getting high engagement rate.
• Posting on a right time regularly will make your audience used to your contents, this will make them wait for your content regularly on that particular time.
• Now, when you make your audience used to your contents, they will follow up your next content. This will give you some amount of initial engagement which will then gain you some new followers as well.

In the next section, we are going to be discussing about how you can find best time to upload post on Instagram in order to gain returning followers or you can buy targeted Instagram followers. So, let’s get started.

How we found the best time to post for BizGlide and you can too

So, our team of Instagram used to post contents by the common time when everyone is at Instagram and free from any kind of work. The time was around 7pm, 10 pm etc. This schedule was getting barely anything out of Instagram.

Later, the team opted to post by the time everyone is up and checking on their phone. This time was around 7am, 8am and etc. So, this was getting us an average amount of engagement.

Finally, our team decided to switch on the time and experiment a little bit more. So, they started to post a content by morning, evening and by night time. Now that we started to post by evening time, we got drastic amount of engagement which was never expected.

So, this is how we figured out best times to post on Instagram and you need to just stick on with regular content strategy. So, now you might be wondering how you can find best time as per your content. We are going to discuss that only.

Is there any right time to publish post on Instagram?

Calculating correct time to post on Instagram is like a predicting outcome of stocks prior a year. It depends on many factors such as:

• Day of the week or even month of the year and trends of the year.
• Behaviour and preferences of your audience.
• The aim of your content.
• The type of content.
• Instagram algorithm.
• The type of posts such as regular post, story, reel, IGTV, Live.

Finally, the answer is yes, there exists best time to upload Instagram post but it is different for each and every account. You just have to post regularly on different time and different types of posts. See, which combination is working well for you. You can go through the insights option to get a solid starting point.

What is the accurate time to post on Instagram in 2022?

According to our research, we have analysed more than a million of Instagram posts and here are the best time to upload post on Instagram and here is what we found best time by weekdays:

• Monday – 5AM
• Tuesday – 6AM
• Wednesday- 6AM
• Thursday – 5AM
• Friday- 6AM
• Saturday- 6AM
• Sunday- 6AM

Apart from that we found that it works in the favour of your account if you post particularly on Saturday or Sunday, specifically Sunday at 6AM. You can gain a high amount of engagement on your content by publishing it on a Sunday at 6AM.

Worst time to post on Instagram

Our team didn’t stopped there because we got extra miles to do our research and present best data possible to you. So, here are the worst time to post on Instagram by weekdays:

• Monday – 2PM
• Tuesday – 1PM
• Wednesday- 10AM
• Thursday – 11PM
• Friday- 9AM
• Saturday- 8PM
• Sunday- 4PM

So, now that you know about the worst time to post on Instagram make sure to avoid these time on weekdays for publishing. Our team found that it is not a good idea to publish your post from 10AM to 4PM on Wednesday and Thursday from 9PM to 11PM.

What did we find?

So, our team was keeping an update with the best times to post on Instagram and we were really shock to see that more than 50% of people loves to roam around Instagram by the early time of morning. This was a serious shift into this data.

There was a myth that the correct time to publish your post was when your audience is most active. But this strategy seems to give some fruitful results. As a matter of fact, you might know that social media takes time to show you some love. Apart from that, Instagram recently shared that the number of interactions in the first thirty minutes doesn’t affect the ranking of a post in the home feed section.

So, Instagram strategy to post go live at the time when your audience is most active has got old now. We now have the new strategy which is “early to rise, early to post” boosting up the posts.

“80% of the people got 70% of hike in their post engagement when they published post by the early morning hour”.

What is the reality behind this?

The working mechanism by posting early on Instagram is that you get less competition when you post early. However, we can conclude that most of the post shared between 9 AM – 1PM and this creates competition between the posts. So, when you share your posts by the early hours of morning then you are creating a good chance to grab a new wide audience. Then the strategy to post while users are most active creates contradiction.

Instagram app and the way we use and interact with the content on the has changed drastically from past 12 months. So, if you want to reach more and more audience, you need to post early in the morning. Apart from that you need to adjust your posting strategy as well. Now that you know our side of Instagram story, you might would want to know about the in-depth story as well. Don’t worry because we are here to tell you best time to upload Instagram post by post types as well. So, let’s get started.

Best time to post reels on Instagram

Aiming to get more engagement and new followers? Without a correct time of publishing post, you won’t be getting out of it anything. According to the report of Later’s blog post, it is seen that posting reels can get you 300% more engagement than that of regular IGTV video.

Over the period of two year, we have seen that the best time to post reels on Instagram is between 9AM to 12PM from Monday to Thursday.

So, now that we know about the best time to post reels on Instagram, let's get to know about the best time to post IGTV and Live on Instagram.

Best time to post IGTV and Live on Instagram

According to our report of posting IGTV and Live to Instagram keeps floating to different hours of a day. So, here we are going to share the best time to post IGTV and Live by weekdays:

• Monday- 8pm-10pm
• Tuesday- 8pm-10pm
• Wednesday- 8pm
• Thursday- 8pm-10pm
• Friday- 4am, 12pm,2pm
• Saturday- 10am, 6pm, 7pm
• Sunday- 6am, 7am, 3pm.

However, the best time to post IGTV or live remains Monday to Friday from 12pm, 7pm-9pm.

Best time to upload post on Instagram for your account

You want to grow your Instagram account and gain more amount of engagement. Is that right? If the answer to this question is Yes then make sure to keep reading this post till the end. Instagram is known to be the most popular social media sites across the world and it can give you some fruitful results. So, this is the section that will entail you finding about the right time to post on Instagram. Let’s get started.

1- Review insights of your top performing posts

One of the most important things is that you would need to identify the type of performance you are aiming for such as brand awareness or engagement. Because the type of engagement that you want is going to decide about the right time of your post.

Now, you would need to head to your most engaging content and take a look at the impression or which of your posts has got a high amount of impression. What was the time that you posted them? Which is the most likes gaining posts in your account?

Instagram comes with an in-built insights tool which offers deep and descriptive information about your account. And this makes us jump to the next point.

2- Use in-built insights tool

Suppose that you want to target dinner time of your audience. But what is the locality? India? California? Boston? For this you can refer to in-built tool of the Instagram as it can help you with:

• Top locations
• Age range
• Most active times
• Gender

With this lucrative information you can easily implement into your Instagram strategy and get some results. So, you can even calculate the best time to post on Instagram today as well. Apart from that, this tool is going to determine on which time zone is your audience is most active and then you can post accordingly. Age range will also be helpful to determine the kind of posts you can create to target a specific an age group.

3- Check when your audience is most active

The next point to amp up your Instagram journey is to find out the time when your followers seem most active. As marketer, you would need to know about the audiences, their behaviour, their choices and their preferences as well. When you are going to target a scholar then their Instagram feed would be really different from a shopaholic girl.

This is why it is really important to take out some time and analyse your audience and their behaviour as well.

4- Use a third party tool

If you want to get some additional information on your Instagram insights then you can always consider to go with a third-party app. These third-party apps are there to offer you more fruitful and deep insights for your account. They even have the option to schedule post within few clicks. Isn’t it cool that you can analyse the best time and post from right there?

So, you can get the information on best time to post on ig from these such apps: Later, Buffer, HubSpot, HootSuite etc.

5- Think like your audience (buyer’s persona)

What do you mean by buyer’s persona? Buyer’s persona is nothing but fictional character which is going to represent your customers as human beings. So, you can think of their lifestyle, occupation, hobbies, family, education level, interest and many other details. Now, this can help you calculate out the correct time to post on Instagram. So, for example it is not a good idea to target parents having kids who make bed by night time. However, there are more questions that you can think about your buyer’s persona, so here you go;

• Why do your audience come to Instagram?
• How much time they spend on Instagram?
• Which of the other accounts that they follow?
• Do they follow 100 or 1000 more accounts?
• How many times of a day they come to check on their account?

These are some of the additional information that can help you determine Global best time to post on Instagram for your account.

6- Post consistently for a longer period of time

It is really important that you show up on your account for regular basis. You need to follow this trick for more than 6 months or 8 months. In order to get the taste of your fruit, you need to apply this strategy to target your audience. It is obvious that you are not going to get a jaw dropping change in your account overnight. So, you would need to analyse your insights from time to time to adjust with your audience.

When you analyse and adjust, you will definitely see some slow but consistent growth. This is why it is important that you maintain your presence on Instagram. It doesn’t just give you growth but credibility, trust and meaningful relationship with your audience as well.

By the time you gain trust, credibility and relationship with your audience, Instagram notices this and offer you more boosting growth.

7- Keep an eye on your competitor

On the basis of your industry, there is a chance that your competitor might be using the same strategy as you. You can find many of the tools that can help you with social competitive analysis which can give you fruitful results.

Because if the strategy for is working for other then it might also be working for you as well. There are many of the brand who publish post on the hour mark. So, you can avoid the competition by posting before or after the exact time as them.

8- To get more out of your IG

When you aim to build your own community and gain some results from the account, you must need to keep your stories up to date. So, make sure that you set up stories as frequently as possible.

As we have seen that different account has different best time to post on Instagram today to get more engagement. However, you can also determine the best time for your account to post according to your niche or industry. Let’s jump to the next section quickly.

Best time to post on Instagram according to Industry/Niche

It helps you really well when you know the right time to post your content. However, it also helps you to maintain your social media calendar for posting content. Apart from that you would also need to keep an eye on the translation data. So that you can see how its useful for your account. Here are the best times to post on Instagram according to different industries. Let’s get started.

1- Best time to post on Instagram for consumer goods

This is the industry that covers almost a large area of products such as food, non-food categories, clothing, footwear and everything else. According to a report in 2020, US saw heavy demand on packages goods but the social media engagementwas relatively low. You wonder why? Yes! Just because of wrong time of post.

So, the best time to post on Instagram for consumer goods industry is Sunday 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. Best days to post on Instagram would be Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays. However, the worst day seem to be Saturdays.

However, we saw we mostly saw weekdays getting more engagement to this industry. Saturday depicted the worst day to post for this industry.

2- Shopping/Retail industry

Instagram has created a big opportunity for those who wants to offer some product to their audience. As we can see that people use more Instagram as a shopping outlet comparatively to shopping apps or website. If you aim to target the audience interested in retail then you need pay attention for worst and best time to post.

For retail industry, the best time to post on ig is Wednesday 3pm and Friday 11am to 12pm. Worst day is Sunday because most of the people wants to just take rest and enjoy with their family. However, make sure to avoid posting contents by early morning or late night.

3- Media and Entertainment

By the time you find free moment, what you do? Quickly open Instagram app and start to scroll! Now, by the free time you are not going there to catch on news, submit report or get information on weather forecast, but go there for fun and entertainment.

Social media has got the other name of entertainment and fun. If you don’t post on time or not show up daily there are many of your competitors out there catching up your audience.

For entertainment industry the best time to post on Instagram today is Friday Morning specifically 9am. If you intend to get huge amount of engagement then you must consider to post on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday between work hours such as 8am to 5pm. However, the worst day of engagement for fun and entertainment industry would be Saturday and Sunday as people choose to take a break from their work and apparently from screens.

4- Best time to post on Instagram for education industry

Education has got a new way to find its student through Instagram. However, this domain has discovered new day to get more attention from their students. So, it was the Friday that showed up the highest amount of engagement last year but it’s turning towards Tuesday specifically at 10am to 12pm.

You can find many educational contents over Instagram from highlights to sharing school updates and many more. So, the best time to post on ig for education industry is at Tuesday specifically at 10 am. The best days to post on Instagram would be Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday as well.

“As you know that Sunday is holiday then let the students enjoy so don’t post on Sunday as it is a worst day.”

5- Best time to post on Instagram for finance industry

Though it is not seen a good option to engagement on Instagram for this industry. This is because the highly regulated nature of finance industry. After going through surveys and social testing, they got to know that their audience is not searching for finance related contents over Instagram.

So, the best time to post on Instagram for finance field is Wednesday by 6am. The worst day would be Thursday and Sundays.

6- Tech industry

We can say that it is difficult to formulate any specific time for this industry because it keeps fluctuating. To attract more and more audience that is interested in tech related contents then you need to post on Wednesday by 6am or 9am.

The best time to post on Instagram would be 10-11 am or 7-10am. Sunday would be the worst day to post as tech savvy audience does not check their feed as often on weekend.

7- Non-Profit

Instagram is one of the biggest opportunities for this industry. Facebook provides best facility to promote events when you have a great opportunity to complement this strategy over Instagram.

So, the Global best time to post on Instagram would be Wednesday 2pm and you would get highest engagement between 1-4pm. Worst day to post will be Saturday and Sunday.

8- Healthcare

Most of the peeps don’t go on Instagram for healthcare practices. However, the best time to post on Instagram would be Tuesdays by 8am.

To get more out of your Instagram account you can get the highest engagement on weekdays from 9am to 3pm. Avoid your efforts on Instagram during Saturday and Sundays.

9- Restaurants

During the pandemic time, we have seen that many of the restaurants started to receive food orders online. It was really important to get adjusted with the time for the businesses.

So, the best time to post for restaurants would be Wednesday by 10am to 12pm. On the other hand, the best days to post on Instagram would be Wednesday and Thursday. But make sure to avoid posting during Sundays or Saturday.

10- Travel and tourism

During 2021, when the pandemic started to outbreak travel and tourism industry faced loss. There was really less engagement from the people for virtual tourism, local exploration or discovering new destinations as well.

So, the best time to post on Instagram for travel and tourism industry will be Wednesday by 12pm. However, the best days would be Wednesday and Fridays. Avoid posting on Sunday.

How to make sure that your post gets published by the right time?

Now, that you know ins and outs of your Instagram account then you would be wanting to be consistent on your account. However, sometimes you won’t be able to manage posting by the right time. In this situation what are you going to do? Need a help? Yes definitely!

You can get registered with some of the third party apps where they offer to schedule your post on your desired time. So, you can conveniently schedule the post and it will be posted on your account by the right time. This way you won't be losing your engagement and life as well. There are some of the post scheduling apps that offers free or paid services. You can check these options such as buffer, crowdfire, Later, SproutSocial and etc.

Isn’t it easy for you to be consistent on Instagram without hampering your life? You can create a post queue according to your content calendar. You just have to select the pic and get captions ready.

Instagram has become one of the biggest channels for businesses through which they can achieve their marketing goals. As you might know that it is not enough to post the content as you like and whenever you want.

By getting most out of your best time to post on Instagram and scheduling in advance, you can boost the engagement and get new followers which can convert to some fruitful results as well.

FAQ