It took a lot of time to create the materials, a lot of effort was put into it, and suddenly it turned out to be in vain. The work was done for nothing because the wrong day and time were chosen to publish the content. Let’s consider the role of weekdays and the number of posts in the amount of likes, views, and audience reach.
Why timing is important
With the new algorithms of the application, the feed started to work differently than before. The attractiveness of posts and audience reach now depends less on the timing of their publication on Instagram.
The mechanism of the application takes into account the relevance of the content, that is, how long ago it was posted. Therefore, fresh photos have a higher chance of appearing higher in the feed of subscribers.
The best time to post is when the maximum audience is using the network.
How to find the right time to publish?
There are many different opinions on this matter. When is the best time to post photos on Instagram? It is generally believed that the best times are in the morning around 10am and in the evening around 7-8pm on weekdays, but it’s better not to post on Sundays and holidays. However, with the development of mobile internet, this last statement is now debatable. People are online even on weekends and holidays.
In 2018, an analysis was conducted on the best times to post on social media. The Popsters team examined data from 465 million posts and looked at the average post activity depending on the time. Here’s what they found:
- The most successful posts were made on Sundays. It’s best to post photos and texts on weekends and holidays.
- Monday is not far behind.
- On weekdays, user activity is lower and the day of the week doesn’t matter.
- Subscribers react less to posts made on Saturdays.
The study confirmed the popular belief that the time of day also matters. Online users are most active in the morning and evening, with the peak at 10am and 7pm. There is a slight spike at 12pm. If you’re planning to post on Instagram, the best time to do so is Sunday morning.
If your brand is popular, you should also consider time zones. It makes sense to make the same posts at different times for users in different zones. Don’t do this too often, four times a day is enough. Analyze where the majority of your followers live and choose the posting time accordingly.
It’s also important to consider the theme of your posts. Different brands have different target audiences and early birds from one audience may not overlap with night owls from another.
The research group Unmetric found that:
- Posts about travel and tourism are best posted at 11am and 1pm on Fridays. Followers plan how they will spend their weekends. Another popular day is Monday when they remember where they went over the weekend.
- Posts about entertainment are most popular at 2-3pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. People relax after lunch in the middle of the work week. However, it should be noted that entertaining content is popular throughout the day, just not in the morning. No one is in the mood for laughter early in the morning.
- Information about food and drinks is successful at noon. On weekdays, people only think about food, choosing a dish or fantasizing to increase their appetite.
- During lunch, plans are made for future purchases, so posts about retail are also best posted during the week.
- People think more about health on Wednesdays and Sundays at 9am. This is when they browse fitness-related accounts.
- Women think more about cosmetics and self-care at the end of the work week after lunch.
How many times a day?
Union Metrics studied 55 well-known brands to determine the correlation between popularity and posting frequency. The research showed that it is best to post one and a half times a day, and there is no evidence that increasing the frequency of posts has a significant impact on account visits. The quality of content and consistency of posting are more important than the number of posts per day. Regardless of how often you post photos and texts, consistency is the key to expanding your audience.
Instagram’s news feed has its own algorithm, so attempts to cheat the system and achieve peak popularity only by choosing the best time to post will ultimately fail.
When developing a promotion strategy, it is important to focus on long-term tactics rather than short-term advantages. To do this:
1. Study your audience in the profile statistics, which includes a good graph showing follower activity by time.
2. When choosing a time zone, focus on regions with the highest number of followers.
3. Check the time dependence more often, as audience coverage grows more from well-chosen content than from the right moment.
4. Continue to experiment and not stick to one hour or day, or risk losing followers.
5. Plan content in advance, or use online planners to ensure timely and desired likes.
In conclusion, when developing a promotion strategy, the timing of publication plays a small tactical role. The focus should be on the content of the post, which should have professional photos, engaging texts, and well-chosen hashtags. If the post is exceptional, it will receive a large number of likes at any time. Therefore, focus on quality content first, and then consider when to post it. This article explains the best time to post on Instagram.