How to Choose the Best Time to Post on Instagram?

Instagram has become a popular social media medium, and the platform started as a prominent entertainment medium. An analysis by Facebook Advertising tools suggested that Instagram will have 1.452 billion users. 

In India, there are 25,33,35,900 users on the platform, meaning 17.8% of the world’s population. 

When a significant chunk of the population is on Instagram, brands seek to promote their products and services. Moreover, promoting on Instagram makes the brand relevant to your audience.

Marketing your content requires you to identify your audience and outline strategies to engage with them effectively and build a strong relationship with your audience. It is crucial to understand how they engage with the content available to them.

If you want your target audience to notice and get likes and comments, you must post your content at the right time. But some might think, is there a best time to post on Instagram for likes?

Is there a Best Time to Post on Instagram?

Different brands cater to varied audiences. So, audiences might show different kinds of behavior towards these platforms.

On Instagram, the critical factor is recency. Recency means whichever content pops up in the beginning, it becomes likely that the audience will engage with the same. This concept of recency is a quick and effective way to reach the audience.

Recency is one of the factors which ensures maximum engagement. Additionally, it becomes important to have a strategy for posting content on Instagram. Some of the questions these strategies should address are:

• Specific targets focus on building awareness, higher engagement, or driving traffic.
• What does success look like to you?
• When have the posts achieved similar successes in the past?

Now that we have seen that posting at the right time helps. Let us now look at what are the best times to post on this platform:

What is the Best Time to Post on Instagram?

According to a study, the best time to post on Instagram in India is:

1. Monday- 3:15 PM and 7:30 PM
2. Tuesday- 11:30 AM and 1:30 PM
3. Wednesday- 4:30 PM and 5:30 PM
4. Thursday- 6:30 PM and 9:30 PM
5. Friday- 2:30 PM and 10:30 PM
6. Saturday- 8:30 PM and 4:30 AM
7. Sunday- 5:30 PM and 2:00 AM

Across different time zones, these are the most appropriate timelines for posting:

1. US and Canada (Western): 12 AM to 6 AM
2. US and Canada (Eastern): 6 AM to 8 AM
3. South America: 4 AM
4. UK: 4 AM to 6 AM
5. Africa: 6 AM
6. South Asia and the Middle East: 3 AM
7. East Asia and Southeast Asia: 11 PM to 4 AM

Because there are unique timelines, how do you find Instagram the best time to post:

How to Find the Best Time to Post on Instagram

• Review the Best Performing Posts: The time you post depends on your intent. Are you looking to increase engagement or ensure brand awareness? 

The next step is to analyze the data with the help of the Analytics feature on Instagram. You can know which content has the maximum impressions. What is the difference between the post which has gained maximum impressions? When did you post them? Then devise your policies accordingly.

• Studying your competitors: For any successful business and promotion, it is important to analyze them. The whole process is called social listening. 

It involves monitoring conversations related to your brand on social media. Brands observe comments on various products, services, and related keywords. Social listening also involves analyzing and taking action to increase your brand’s relevance.

• Schedule the best time to post: After analyzing your target audience and competitors. It would help if you chalked out the right schedule for posting content. You can do this by maintaining a spreadsheet of the posting schedule. Although this might change depending on the target audience’s activity, maintaining a schedule can help.

Amidst the pool of photos and videos on Instagram, Reels came into the picture. Like Tik Tok, another short video-based platform, Reels became popular in India. 

Reels became primarily popular because there are countries like India which prohibited their use. Another reason is privacy and security issues with Tik Tok. 

Reels and TikTok are highly similar. Apart from a short video format, Reels also include an audio library and visual effects. Moreover, Reels became another important medium for brands to promote their ideas, products, and services. How do you find out the right time to post reels? Let’s find out:

What is the Best Time to Post on Instagram Reels?

According to an analysis of more than 100,000 short-format videos, the following are the best time to post reels on Instagram (as per eastern standard time):

• Monday: 6AM, 10AM, 10PM
• Tuesday: 2AM, 4AM, 9AM
• Wednesday: 7 AM, 8 AM, 11 AM
• Thursday: 9AM, 12AM, 7PM
• Friday: 5AM, 1PM, 3PM
• Saturday: 11AM, 7PM, 8PM
• Sunday: 7AM, 8AM, 4PM

However, the timings mentioned above are subjective and may vary according to the audience’s behavior and preferences. It may also vary according to the goal of the post. Deciding the goal means whether you wish to post for your current audience or a new audience.

According to InVideo, video posts on Instagram gain two times more engagement. In this situation, creating engaging reels plays a major role.

As an influencer or brand, how do you ensure that you reach out to a large audience?

• Produce more content: Everyone knows how important it is to post consistently. However, coming up with creative and interesting ideas is a tough task. But with reels, you can keep your audience posted with life updates, which may not require much effort.
• Collaborating with others: Cross-promotions help in reaching out to a large audience. All you require is to reach out to the creator or brand so that you can be a part of their post or series of posts.
• Using relevant hashtags: When you want your content to reach a wider audience, hashtags play a key role. However, choosing the right tags is important. Otherwise, the content would not reach a large audience.

To conclude

On Instagram best time to post is highly subjective, and the subjectiveness can originate from multiple characteristics of the audience and your goals as a creator. 

However, you can make sure your engagement rate is under check by analyzing how your previous posts performed. Moreover, you might want to check how your audience is talking about your personal or professional brand.

Irrespective of the posting timeline, you must create content that catches your audience’s attention. Since the best time to post cannot ensure that you can gain overnight success.