It’s one of the most Googled questions for a reason — everyone wants engagement!

Sprout Social has released its latest report on when the best time is to post on various social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Will we ever really know when the best time to post on Instagram or Facebook is? It differs so much between days, times, time zones, and probably more abstract metrics like a social media user’s mood when scrolling.

Sprout Social is American based and its graphs are for global engagement so worth keeping in mind when using this as a guide to plan and schedule your content.

BEST TIMES TO POST ON INSTAGRAM

Highest global engagement looks to sit around 11am-midday with Tuesdays being the most popular day to post.

The research shows that the medium to high level of engagement could be achieved from around 8am-8pm which is a generous window of time to further analyse for your own brands and audiences.

Weekends look surprisingly strong here but if you know your audience well enough not to post, don’t feel the need. There is an uplift in the graph around mid-morning from 9-11am.

Instagram has basic in-app insights to give you an idea of what works best for your account. Head to your profile (only accessible for Business and Creator accounts), then click into Insights > Your Audience. Scroll down to the bottom to see your audience’s Most Active Times on Instagram.

Otherwise, for more in-depth insights, use Facebook Creator Studio or other reporting tools like Iconosquare.

BEST TIMES TO POST ON FACEBOOK

Given that it’s the most used social media app, it’s no wonder that the best times to post on Facebook are, well, mostly 24/7.

The graph does however highlight a key block of time from Monday to Friday which is midday, with a leeway of a couple of hours earlier and later.
Other good times for engagement extend to later in the afternoon and early evening — think about users on their lunch and coffee breaks, commuting home or the after-school scroll.

Weekends should generally be avoided, although there is a couple of hours on Sunday morning that may garner more engagement. Ever had a Sunday sleep-in and scroll of last night’s events? This is you!

BEST TIMES TO POST ON LINKEDIN

Best practice for LinkedIn suggests posting between 9am-12pm and this graph largely proves that to be correct!

Largely, most users looked at LinkedIn on typical business days from Monday to Friday with little reason to post on weekends. There is even a slight carry of engagement into the later evening, most likely as the other side of the world wakes up and news updates break.

Interestingly, company pages do not get near the same engagement as employees with personal accounts. Got something important to announce? Trial posting it via your founder/director/boss’ page (tagging the company page in the caption) and then sharing it to the company page. Company pages are still great for visibility but if they need a helping hand, this can help!

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Info sourced from here.