The Best Times to Post on Instagram in 2020
Timing still is an important factor when it comes to engagement on your Instagram posts. Small changes in time of publication can lead to significant changes in the number of views, likes and comments. The problem is that the best time to post for you depends on your specific audience. So forget about the dozens of online reports claiming they found THE best time to post on Instagram.
This doesn’t mean that there is no starting line. We analyzed millions of social media posts so you don’t have to. Use these outcomes as a jumpstart when experimenting with your best times to post on Instagram.
Best times and days for engagement on Instagram
We’ve used Coosto to find out when most engagement on Instagram take place. Wednesday clearly is a winner. On average, you can expect almost 34% more engagement when you post on Wednesday than on Saturday, which is probably the worst day to post on Instagram. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday rise above average as well, so we would advise to start experimenting with publishing posts on one of these top 4 days.
When it comes to timing, it’s quite obvious that posts during lunch breaks and evenings (in other words: when people are awake but not at work) perform well in terms of engagement. There’s significantly less engagement taking place during office hours. We see engagement spiking around 5pm and 8pm.
Best time to post on Instagram
Some marketers rightfully criticize research that has a too narrow focus on timeframes of engagement. They argue that your audience could be engaging with posts that were published much earlier. Which is why we looked into the exact time of publication as well, so you can determine when you should actually publish a post. This graph shows the average amount of engagement for each publication time frame. It's clear as day that 3pm and 9pm generally are the best times to post on Instagram.
Real time dashboard
Today’s A can be tomorrow’s B. However useful this research could be for you to determine your best times to post, it remains static. A lot can happen between the date of our analysis and the moment you’re reading this blog post. That is why we’ve made a heatmap, showing the current engagement on a wide variety of Instagram posts (past month) in a real time dashboard. If you want to stay up-to-date on the best posting times for Instagram, bookmark this post and visit our blog regularly. You could also check out the best times to post on Facebook.
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As we said before, the ideal timing for your Instagram posts still depends on your audience. Feel free to use our research as a reference point, but don’t be blinded by it. If your posts perform well at other times, go for it!
Now, what if your ideal posting times are not working for you? Too late, too early, on a Saturday when you planned to eat out… Not to worry, as you can use our Content Calendar in Coosto to schedule your Instagram posts and stories (and content for all other major social media platforms). You’ll get notified when your post is due, so you can actually publish it in no-time. Create your account now and try for free.
