When it comes to social media platforms, you will probably get several options available these days. However, one of the most dominating social media platforms is Instagram. Instagram likely does not require any introduction and is one of the most chosen platforms by famous personalities and businesses. However, the question keeps revolving around which is the best time to post on Instagram.
As Instagram reels are one of the most commonly chosen methods of advertisement, it is posted on a frequent basis. If You Are someone who is looking forward to finding the right time to post on Instagram and get maximum engagement, you need to have prior details about the best times. So here I have gathered some information by experimenting to ensure that I can provide you with an estimated time for posting on Instagram.
Before we talk about posting reels on Instagram, we will take a general lookout at the best time to post anything on Instagram.
It’s better to have 1,000 engaged fans than 10,000 followers when you want to optimize for sales.
Gretta van Riel
Table of Contents
Is there any best time for posting on Instagram?
Every brand in the market is looking forward to improving its engagement and reach. All the brands have different sweet spots for posting videos or images on Instagram. The reason is that every single brand presence on social media caters to different audiences and has different behavioural patterns.
You cannot give up, as there are certain practices that you need to follow in order to get the best results. Most social media marketers are into making several trials to understand the sweet spot that works for their brand.
If you have been following Instagram, then you will know that the algorithm of this social media platform mainly prioritizes recency. So you have to make sure to post precisely when the followers stay online. It is the only key to reaching more people quickly. Hence, every time you open Instagram, you will see the newer post shows higher on its news feed compared to the older ones.
It is, therefore, the easiest and quickest way to optimize your Instagram post and achieve success. However, there are plenty of other essential practices that you should know to improve your engagement.
However, beyond everything, you also need to have a clear agenda for the marketing strategy of Instagram. You have to work accordingly if you have specific targets like improving engagement or driving, getting more traffic, or building awareness. Always remember that you need to be a very good observer, as all the posts that have won the most engagement is a guideline for when to post on the social media platform.
“Social media is not a media. The key is to listen, engage, and build relationships.”
David Alston
What is the best time to post to get more shares, comments, and likes?
To provide you with the proper data, I have made a thorough analysis by checking more than 35,000 posts on Instagram made by businesses from different genres and sizes. Later, I studied to create a proper insight for you. Even when there are multiple time slots, the best time for any business on Instagram is 11 AM every Wednesday.
I have checked that most Instagram users will have more chances to interact when businesses start posting content in the midweek during the mid-day. Apparently, the reason behind more interaction on a Wednesday in mid-hours is that people start browsing their social media platforms when they take a break and scroll.
Weekends are not a great choice to post as most people are out and socializing with the real world. You will face the least engagement during weekends. No one will have time to scroll Instagram, comment, share, and engage.
If you want to find the best times when you can post on Instagram every day of the week, here is a breakdown that I have created after days of analysis.
- Monday – 12 PM
- Tuesday – 9 AM
- Wednesday – 11 AM
- Thursday – 11 AM
- Friday – 2 PM
- Saturday – 9 AM
- Sunday – 7 PM
If this is the first time you have started using Instagram for your professional purpose and you don’t have much data or insight about how your audience works, it is better to choose these posting times as these are the peak times when people remain online.
When you gradually get older and start using social media on a regular basis, we would strongly recommend you keep posting and changing the schedules to find out when the audiences are most active and get details of their activity patterns.
- MONDAY: On a Monday, the best time to post reels on Instagram is 12 PM. The reason is that most of people stay busy at the start of the week. They mostly have stress regarding work. However, by lunchtime, when they slowly get accustomed to the work environment, they would take a break, and there are chances to scroll Instagram feed.
- TUESDAY: As people have already started their week and are accustomed to the work, they slowly start scrolling earlier. 9 AM in the morning is a peak hour when most Instagram users use the platform and scroll the feed.
- WEDNESDAY: On Wednesday, the best time to post on the social media platform is 11 AM. Wednesdays are considered to be one of the best days to post as it has the greatest engagement.
- THURSDAY: If you’re planning to post on Thursday, the best time would be 12 PM. It is likely between 11 AM to 2 PM when most of people remain online.
- FRIDAY: 2 PM is considered the best choice to post on Instagram on a Friday. You will face consistent engagement on a Friday from morning to lunch Which is between 7 AM to 2 PM.
- SATURDAY: If you’re planning to post on a Saturday, 9 AM can be the right time to post on Instagram. It is better to use the morning as most people stay outside on the weekend evening.
- SUNDAY: Sunday is not a great time to post as people mostly stay out or are busy socializing. However, the best time to post on a Sunday is 7 PM.
When can you post Instagram reels?
If you want to grow Instagram engagement or followers by posting reels, you can post on any day. According to the data received, reels get 300% more engagement compared to ordinary Instagram images and videos. While the time of posting chosen by different industries is different according to their potential viewers, the best time to post is somewhere between 9 AM to 12 PM from Monday to Thursday.
How to find the right time to post Instagram reels?
As mentioned above, the timing to post on Instagram can differ a lot from one business to another. Based on their industry type and audience, it is a need for businesses to find the right time and follow it. So following are some of the steps that you can do to understand the right time to post on Instagram.
Review your previous Instagram post:
The very first thing is to consider the performance that you want for your brand engagement or awareness. Your particular approach to making Instagram posts can be a lot different based on your specific goals.
You can start analyzing by finding the Instagram post from the past that was able to earn the most impression. Find out when you post and how these posts differ from those that are getting more likes. Making use of Instagram analytics and inside can become a great source to find the reality.
Remember that not all the analytical tools in the market are equally designed. There are many social media management tools that will help you to get rid of heavy data crunching. Making use of the right tool will help you to check out the best time to publish. Make sure that you find out the exact day of the week and the time posted.
There are many tools that provide you with complete information about the best time to publish by analyzing the post of the last 30 days and calculating the average engagement rate.
Check your competitors:
One of the best ways to understand the right time to post on Instagram is by checking your competitors. Depending on the industry you are in, you will find several competitors present in the market. Just like you, they will be making the same analysis to find out which is the right time for publishing.
There are many brands that post on the hour mark. You can easily avoid the competition by posting a little bit earlier than:00. As they are from the same industry and are looking forward to finding the same group audience, checking their timing can be beneficial to help you understand the right time to post on Instagram.
Where is your audience location?
There is no doubt the fact that Instagram reels have a great reach and can have a global user base. For instance, the USA has almost 130 million users on Instagram, India has 100 million, and Brazil has 91 million Instagram users. These are the top three countries with the most Instagram users. Apart from this, there are millions of Instagram users spread out in different parts of the world.
You have to pay attention to these numbers as depending on where your audiences are located will strongly influence not only the kind of content that you create but also when you must force them on social media. Always pay attention to the time zone and look for the peak hours within the geographical location.
You must always start by looking for the locations of your followers. When you have a business account or a creator account on Instagram, you can check the Instagram Insight feature, where you can find out the location of your followers. When you find out from where you are getting maximum engagement, you will be able to create Instagram reels accordingly and post according to the time zone of the audience.
Post According to the audience time zone:
As mentioned above, you should always understand the correct time zone of the audience. Depending on the insight that you get from the analytic tools, you will be able to know where you are getting the most engagement. So, once you’re sure about which countries users are impacted mainly by your Instagram reels, you will be able to post according to their time zone.
Always make sure to follow your audience’s time zone so that you post when they are awake. Do not mess with the time, as even a difference between a few minutes can make a significant difference in your engagement.
Suppose most of your audiences are from North America, and you are living in India. So you have to make sure that you schedule your content according to the North American audiences so that you are able to increase your audience base. The more you start sharing at the right time, the better engagement you receive.
Find out what unique things you have to offer.
In order to get a huge audience, you have to be remarkable. Why would anybody be watching your Instagram reels leaving others? It is beyond physical traits or skills. You have to find out some characteristics or abilities that are unique and that nobody has seen before.
Doing the same thing over and over again will not lead you to get more engagement. So you have to check out something different so that people are attracted to watching you. If you are a business, you can show your products or services in a different manner to help people get attracted to you. Even when you are selling the same thing as lipsticks, you require doing it in a little bit different style to make it look unique and appealing to the users.
Start making more content:
You have probably heard this a lot of times. It is an obvious reason for every creator. You know you have to work hard to create more reels on Instagram to get engagement. You have to provide creative videos that are fun to watch consistently. It is not always about coming up with hilarious content and groundbreaking ideas, but you have to make sure that you produce a large amount of content.
It can be sharing any quick update about your business, or if you are an influencer, you can share a little bit of your life which does not need much editing, rather than planning a video. However, you have to make sure that you create content – more content for your Viewers.
Collaborate with others from your industry:
It is always a great idea to choose the cross-promotion technique. It is a great way to share a brand with a larger group of audience on the platform. It is really easy to achieve. All you need is to reach out to an influencer who has a huge number of followers on Instagram and can be an excellent choice for your brand. Collaborating with reputed influencers or Instagrammers to post a series of content using your services or products is a great way to improve your customer base.
Cross-promotion has mutual benefits and can help each other to increase engagement and get more new followers. However, you have to make sure that you choose Instagrammers or influencers who are relevant to your business niche.
Use relevant hashtags:
As we all know, Twitter is the king when it comes to using hashtags. Even when Twitter started, most social media creators started following the use of hashtags on their content to make it easy to find relevant content. But you have to know that you cannot pick any hashtag and expect to nail it in a few days.
You have to start looking for hashtags relevant to your business and content. In case it is not relevant to the video, it will end up bringing a different group of audience which would not be of any use. Remember that engagement is not the game; you need to make sure to increase engagement from the potential audiences who are looking for content from your industry. This will lead you to get more benefits.
Use your existing content:
You should always pay attention to all the existing content that you have made so far, but it didn’t perform well. Rather than wasting the effort and time that you had to put into creating those contents, it is time that you start reusing them for your purpose.
Now that you know how to post and when to post Instagram reels, start editing them and then use the correct hashtags before posting. For example, if you have created a short video for YouTube, you can definitely re-purpose that similar content and use them on Instagram. Make sure that you properly use the existing content and make them look new for your audience.
Summing up:
Whether you are a business or you are willing to become a popular influencer on Instagram, it is imperative to find the best times to post reels on Instagram. Without you having proper knowledge about the best time to post a reel on Instagram, you will not be able to crack the requirement.
As mentioned earlier, you have to make sure that you keep ming trails as it will help you to find out the right time. Additionally, you have to use Instagram Insight to check the best time to post reels on Instagram. But always make sure to produce high-quality content that has extra features to get attention. When your reels have something different and unique, it has more chances to grab attention.
However, as it can be challenging for any new person to create and post Instagram reels at the right time regularly, you can hire an expert who can help you to get the job done by posting appropriately at the right time.
FAQs
There is no fixed right time that you can choose for posting on Instagram. Even when we have found Wednesday is there any choice to post, especially at 11 AM, it is always a great choice to do some trial and error to find out what works for you. Remember that the best time on Instagram will differ a lot from one to another, depending on the audience.
Yes. You have to make sure that you experiment by posting continuously on Instagram to find out which is the best time to post reels on Instagram for your purpose.
There is no such specific industry that can be benefited from Instagram, as most industries have started leveraging the potential of this platform. However, brands from beauty, health, and lifestyle can have more benefits than any other industry.
