So, what are the best times to post on social media? It is one of the most common questions many marketers come across. There is no specific answer to this question. You can’t say this is the best time to post on social media due to the ever-changing routines of the people on social media.
Most people use several social networks every month. Even as social media usage keeps changing, you can post content during times when your target audience is active on social media. Posting content at the right time will strengthen your chances of driving optimum engagement, more leads, conversions and eventually sales.
No matter how interesting your post is, if it doesn’t post at the right time, it won’t give you the desired results. Publishing when your audience is active maximizes your chances of gaining attention of your target audience.
Below is a research-based starting schedule drawn from the Sprout Social, CoSchedule, and Hootsuite studies listed further down. Use it as a starting point, then let your own analytics take over. Hopefully knowing the perfect social media timetables will maximize your brand reach and user engagement.
Let’s explore.
Key Takeaways
✅ Midweek mornings are the safest starting point. Sprout Social data puts the strongest engagement window on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., and Wednesday morning works for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn at the same time.
✅ Every platform runs on its own clock, so a single schedule will not serve all of them. Facebook peaks Tuesday through Friday, LinkedIn concentrates on Wednesday and Thursday, and the best time to post on TikTok falls in early morning slots that would go nowhere on another network.
✅ Weekends still hold usable windows. Sunday ranks last on most feed-based platforms, while YouTube and Pinterest both show weekend slots worth scheduling into.
✅ Time zone selection carries as much weight as the hour. A brand targeting the United States and Canada should build its calendar around EST rather than around whatever zone the marketing team happens to sit in.
✅ Published averages give you a starting hypothesis. Your own social media analytics tells you when your specific audience is actually online, and that reading beats every study quoted in this post.
Why You Should Post on Social Media at the Right Time?
What’s the point of investing your effort in creating an amazing post when nobody sees it? If you are a startup with a little social media following, posting at a random time during the day is acceptable. But if you are an established enterprise with a huge following base, finding the optimal timing is the key to engaging with your audience and promoting your brand on social media.
Unfortunately, your target audience won’t see every single post you publish on social media. The increased number of posts and social media algorithms are the main reason behind why your post isn’t visible to a majority of users. Social media algorithms carefully use the source of engagement to decide which post will be relevant to your users. So, don’t publish at the wrong time, otherwise your post is not being seen.
How to Identify Your Best Time to Post?
There are many factors that can help you find the best time to publish your posts on social media. For instance:
· Lifestyle and preferences of your target audience
· Day of the week
· The goal you want to achieve with the post
· Types of content such as video, story, image, reel, or live session
Global Times to Post on Social Media
Engaging with the right people at the right time is the secret formula to finding the best time to post on social media. Scheduling your posts when your potential and present customers are online is a sensible strategy that works. However, it is important to note that each social media platform has different timing that works best for their audience.
It makes it a bit difficult for marketers to find the perfect timing. For instance, the best time to post on Instagram is different from the best time to post on Facebook. You need to carefully consider time zones when figuring out the perfect times to publish your posts on different social media marketing channels.
You need to consider the country, region you are targeting. For instance, if your target audience is Canada and the United States, choose the EST time zone to reach the highest number of people. Depending on the global audience, you need to choose the time zone relevant to your audience. You can schedule your posts if your target audience spreads globally in different regions.
The Best Time to Post on Social Media to Gain Maximum Engagement
It’s no secret that each social media platform has its own advantages, you can fulfill your engagement and conversion goals. Knowing which days to post content to maximize user engagement helps you reach your social media goals.
According to a survey conducted by Sprout Social, the best time to post on social media to gain engagement is Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. The same study suggests that Wednesday morning is the perfect time to publish content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn.
Sunday is the worst time to post on social media. Don’t schedule your posts on Sunday.
Let’s explore the best times to post on different social media networks before creating your content calendar. Note that the data presented here comes from analyzing the following landmark studies that were done, so when you see the name mentioned, come back here to click on the link to find more detailed information if you are interested:
These studies were published in 2022, and each company updates its numbers every year, so treat the tables below as a starting hypothesis rather than a current rule.
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When is the Best Time to Post on Facebook?
Undoubtedly, Facebook is the most-used platform with a massive user base. Therefore, it is recommended to know when to post on social media giant to achieve maximum engagement.
| Best Day | Best Time |
| Monday | 11am – 12pm |
| Tuesday | 10 am – 3pm |
| Wednesday | 11am – 3pm |
| Thursday | 2pm – 4pm |
| Friday | 1pm – 4pm |
Best Days: Tuesday to Friday
Publishing content on early mornings and mid-mornings observe a significant engagement and serve as the best time for marketers and brands to get more eyeballs on their posts.
When is the Best Time to Post on Instagram?
After Facebook, Instagram is the most-used social media network, with more than 3 billion monthly users across the globe. Instagram puts its best efforts to come up with the advanced features to gain the attention of brands and users. The platform serves as the best place to showcase your brand’s value and highlight your products or services. With Reels, Stories and shoppable posts, there are endless opportunities to post content on Instagram.
Brands can strengthen their Instagram marketing strategy and make the most out of this amazing social media platform. It is possible when brands know the best times to post engaging content on the platform. According to Sprout Social, the best time to post on Instagram is:
| Best Day | Best Time |
| Monday | 11am – 12pm |
| Tuesday | 10am – 1pm |
| Wednesday | 10am – 1pm |
| Thursday | 10am – 11am |
| Friday | 10am – 11pm |
Best Days: Tuesday and Wednesday
According to a study, increased engagement has been observed on weekends as well.
When is the Best Time to Post on X (Twitter)?
X (formerly Twitter) is the perfect place to share breaking news, memes and political views. Staying active on Twitter is important for brands as people are constantly interacting with each other in real-time. There are innumerable options available when it comes to posting content on Twitter. For instance, you can post user-generated content, special discounts, inspirational quotes, interesting statistics, new product feature announcements, customer reviews and the list goes on and on.
Many marketers use the platform to promote their blog posts and website, while some use it to run advertising campaigns to increase Twitter engagement. You can give your tweets maximum exposure by posting on the best time.
According to Sprout Social and Hootsuite’s data, the best time to post on Twitter is the early morning on Monday and Thursday.
| Best Day | Best Time |
| Monday | 9am – 4pm |
| Tuesday | 9am – 12pm |
| Wednesday | 9am |
| Thursday | 9am – 4pm |
| Friday | 9am |
Best Days: Wednesday and Thursday
When is the Best Time to Post on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the biggest professional networking platform, with more than 1.4 billion members, and it is the favorite place for B2B brands to connect with the right people and generate leads.
LinkedIn gives B2B brands a great opportunity to introduce their team members, share branded content and latest happenings in the company. Social media marketers should know when is the best time to post on LinkedIn to gain the attention of the interested audience.
| Best Day | Best Time |
| Monday | 10am |
| Tuesday | 10am – 12 pm |
| Wednesday | 3pm |
| Thursday | 9am – 10am |
| Friday | 11am – 12pm |
Best Days: Wednesday, Thursday
When is the Best Time to Post on TikTok?
TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms, with more than 1 billion active users. It is a short-form, video sharing app that has gained a massive popularity in the last few years. Due to its rapid growth and rising popularity, many brands are harnessing the power of TikTok marketing.
Many brands use TikTok to share user-generated content, run contests and hashtag challenges, go live and team up with industry influencers to make their marketing campaigns successful. Marketers put their best efforts into creating engaging videos that their audience wants to see. By posting relevant and engaging content at the right time, you can build a stronger and successful brand on TikTok.
Wondering when is the best time to post on TikTok? Here is the answer:
| Best Day | Best Time |
| Monday | 6am – 10am |
| Tuesday | 2am – 9am |
| Wednesday | 7am – 8am |
| Thursday | 9am – 7 pm |
| Friday | 1pm – 3pm |
Best Days: Monday to Sunday
When is the Best Time to Post on YouTube?
YouTube is one of the biggest video platforms across the globe, featuring educational, corporate, and user-generated content. It is a leading online video platform that attracts millions of users to consume content from all around the world.
When it comes to YouTube marketing, creating interesting, educational videos is not enough. As a social media marketer, you need to ensure your target audience manages to see your videos. Using some powerful YouTube tools will help your YouTube channel get noticed and grow your audience. Your YouTube audience should know when your video is published so that it can get the engagement it deserves. Driving YouTube video engagement will become easier when you know when is the best time to publish your videos on YouTube.
Keep in mind that distribution is one of the most important aspects when it comes to YouTube marketing. Presenting educational and interesting videos to the right audience at the right time will strengthen your video marketing strategy. The ideal posting time is solely dependent on your target audience. The time that works for one brand may not necessarily work for another brand.
Since YouTube works differently compared to other social media marketing channels. Marketers need to post videos a little earlier, as your videos will be indexed by YouTube, just like Google indexes your blog posts.
Succeeding with your YouTube channel will become easier when you know the right time to post videos for your audience. The peak viewing time for YouTube audiences is between 7pm to 10pm. Posting video content between 2pm to 4pm is the best strategy as it allows YouTube to index the content and make it ready for viewing at peak user times.
| Best Day | Best Time |
| Monday | 2 pm – 4pm |
| Tuesday | 2 pm – 4pm |
| Wednesday | 2 pm – 4pm |
| Thursday | 12 pm – 4pm |
| Friday | 12 pm – 4pm |
| Saturday | 9 am – 11 am |
| Sunday | 9 am – 11 am |
Best Days: Thursday, Friday
When is the Best Time to Post on Pinterest?
Pinterest is a social media network that is known for its visual search feature. Compared to other social media networks, Pinterest has a smaller user base than Facebook or Instagram. Getting your brand on this visual platform is a sensible approach to give your brand more visibility and increase its reach. Pinterest is an amazing platform that gives brands a great opportunity to promote their products to potential customers. Maintaining your Pinterest presence can make your content marketing game strong.
It is recommended to pin at the right time when your target audience is around and checks their feed. Pinning time matters a lot, so you need to know when is the best to pin, so that your followers interact with your content when it publishes. According to CoSchedule’s study, the best time to post on Pinterest is:
| Best Day | Best Time |
| Monday | 2 pm – 4am |
| Tuesday | 2 pm – 4am |
| Wednesday | 2 pm – 4am |
| Thursday | 2 pm – 4am |
| Friday | 8 pm – 11 am |
| Saturday | 8 pm – 11 am |
Best Days: Friday, Saturday
Frequently Asked Questions About the Best Times to Post on Social Media
Midweek mornings perform best across most platforms, with Tuesday through Thursday between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. showing the strongest engagement in Sprout Social’s data. Treat that as a default setting rather than a rule. It is an average drawn from many audiences, and yours may behave differently.
Yes, and the gaps are wide enough to matter. The best time to post on Facebook clusters in late morning through mid-afternoon, the best time to post on LinkedIn lands inside midweek business hours, and the best time to post on Twitter skews early on Monday and Thursday. Running one schedule across all of them gives up the platforms that peak outside your chosen window.
Sunday underperforms on most feed-based platforms, which is why the studies cited here rank it last. YouTube and Pinterest are the exceptions in the tables above, and both show weekend windows worth keeping in the calendar.
Start with the platform windows listed in this post, publish against them consistently for several weeks, then compare results inside each platform’s native analytics. Once a pattern holds, lock those slots into a social media calendar so the schedule survives past the experiment.
Audience habits shift as a following grows and as platforms adjust what they show people, so a schedule set once and left alone goes stale. A quarterly look at engagement data is enough for most brands, with an extra review any time you enter a new market or add a new time zone to your audience.
What is the Best Time to Post on Social Media: Wrapping Up
There is no secret formula to find out the best time to post on social media and engage with your users. Every brand is unique, so you can’t find the single best time to publish your content. Creating your content calendar by considering the time mentioned in this post will help you attract more eyeballs and encourage engagement with your brand.
Author Bio
Irfan Ak is a tech savvy & experienced digital content strategist at Branex, he is working with SaaS and several other brands on their content marketing strategy. He is also a regular contributor on various authoritative websites that created value for them. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
