Later Media analyzed more than 35 million feed posts (excluding Reels and IGTV) to find the answer.
The result? They discovered the best average time to post on Instagram for every day of the week, and for several key locations!
When is the best time to post on Instagram?
The best time to post on Instagram (local time) is 6 am, according to an analysis of 35 million global Instagram posts.
The best days to post on Instagram are Saturdays and Sundays, and the highest average engagement occurs for posts made on Sunday at 6 am.
On the other hand, posts published on Wednesdays between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and on Thursdays from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. received the lowest engagement rates on average, making them the worst days to post on Instagram.
The best time to post on Instagram each day
The best times to post on Instagram per day, according to 35 million global Instagram posts, are:
- Monday: 5 AM
- Tuesday: 6 AM
- Wednesday: 6 AM
- Thursday: 5 AM
- Friday: 6 AM
- Saturday: 6 AM
- Sunday: 6 AM
The worst time to post on Instagram each day
The worst times to post on Instagram per day, according to 35 million global Instagram posts, are:
- Monday: 2 PM
- Tuesday: 1 PM
- Wednesday: 10 AM
- Thursday: 11 PM
- Friday: 9 AM
- Saturday: 8 PM
- Sunday: 4 PM
So what does this tell us?
Like the Later Media team, we were quite surprised to see that the best times to post were so early in the day. Later Media has been studying the best times to post on Instagram since 2018, and this analysis has revealed some significant changes.
Historically, we believed that publishing when our audience was most active was the most effective strategy, and while this seems to have a positive correlation, it's not the only one. only factor that impacts engagement.
We know that Instagram's algorithm takes punctuality into account, but perhaps not as much as before. We also know that Instagram confirmed recently that the number of interactions in the first 30 minutes No determines the ranking of a post in the Home Feed.
Therefore, the pressure to publish your posts at the time when your audience is most active has been eliminated. Instead, a "get up early to post" engagement strategy emerged.
To the publish earlier in the day The accounts benefit from a less competition (Globally, most posts are shared between 9 am and 1 pm each day), while also taking advantage of user traffic during their first commute of the day, even if it's a few hours after the post was shared.
Being one of the first to post each day gives your content the best chance to be seen by your audience, regardless of when they are personally most active on the app.
Instagram itself (and the way we use and interact with content on the app) has changed significantly in the last 12 months, so it's a good time to adjust your posting strategy.
The best time to post on Instagram by location
Another factor that can impact the average best time to post on Instagram is the location .
Different regions have different audience behaviors and can be greatly affected by time zone overlaps.
For example, New York is 3 hours ahead of California, but accounts based in New York are likely to still have followers spread across both regions.
These are the best times to post in local time across different time zones:
- US and Canada (west): 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM
- US and Canada (central): 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.
- US and Canada (east): 4 a.m. to 9 a.m.
- South America: 4 a.m.
- United Kingdom: 4 a.m. to 6 a.m.
- Western Europe: 6-8 PM
- Europe (East): 5 a.m. M to 7 a.m. M.
- Africa: 6 a.m.
- South Asia and the Middle East: 3 a.m.
- East and Southeast Asia: 11 pm-4 am
- Australasia: 11 PM - 2 AM
While these local times are a good starting point, if you want to get the most participation, it's best to find the best custom times to post on function of your unique audience.
By doing this, you can hack the algorithm to increase your reach and get more likes and followers!
How to find the best time to post on Instagram
Here are some tools and features that can help you discover your best personal moments to post on Instagram:
- The function of Later's Best Time to Post It automatically calculates your 7 best Instagram posting times based on your historical engagement activity.
- Instagram Insights can be used to find out when most of your followers are online and when they are most active. This isn't as precise as using Later's Best Time to Post's algorithm, but it can be an excellent starting point.
- Manually track when you post on Instagram and how your posts perform over time using a spreadsheet.
#1: Discover the best time to post with the best time to post later feature
If you wish to skip the experiments and go directly to the correct data, Later He does all the hard work for you!
As we mentioned, the function The best time to publish Later It automatically calculates your 7 best posting times based on your posts with improved performance of the past month:
#2: Use Instagram's built-in analytics to understand your audience
Using the Later Best Time feature is the most accurate way to discover your optimal posting times based on actual performance data, but you can also use Instagram's native insights to understand where most of your audience is performing. audience and when is it more active.
These data points can be very valuable indicators of when might be the best time for you to publish.
For example, if most of your audience is in New York, you might want to schedule your posts for 6 a.m. EST.
To access Insights, you will need to set up a Instagram business profile or a Instagram creator profile . You can also track key information about your followers directly in your dashboard. Later with Later's Instagram analysis .
Here, you can track similar information about your followers, including their age, gender, location, languages, and more.
These types of metrics are perfect for fine-tuning your content strategy!
#3: Use a spreadsheet to manually track your best times to post
If you prefer to calculate the numbers yourself, you can create a spreadsheet to track the engagement you receive when you post at different times on different days.
Start by choosing five different times throughout the week.
In your spreadsheet, keep track of how many likes and comments each post receives, along with the date and time it was posted.
The following week, change the schedule of your posts for each day. For example, if you posted at 5 pm on Monday of week 1, post at 6 pm during week 2.
Once you have a clear understanding of your best times and days to post on Instagram, you can schedule your posts for those times.