There’s no way around it: Creating high-quality content requires investing time and energy. A well-built social media strategy helps your business get the most out of this investment, and that includes thinking through the best times to post social media content. Social media algorithms are more likely to promote content with a significant surge of likes, shares, and comments. Ideal post timing can help your photos, videos, and blog posts attract such early engagement and ultimately reach more users.
Learn about the best times to post on popular social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, and how to find the optimal posting time for your brand.
Is there an overall best time to post on social media?
No magic hour guarantees success, but strategic timing can attract engagement and improve reach. As a general guideline, the best time to post social media content is whenever your audience is awake, online, and actively scrolling. Peak engagement hours vary slightly from platform to platform, but sharing new content during the daytime in your target audience’s time zone(s) is a good place to start.
Social platforms have broad audience activity and engagement patterns, but two different brands may have different optimal posting schedules. The ideal time to share depends on your brand’s unique audience. Factors like age, lifestyle, and geographic location all affect user behavior patterns and influence when they are most likely to engage.
The best times to post on 7 social media platforms
Ideally, you’ll notice engagement patterns in your own social data. But if you’re new to sharing social media content, you might not have enough information to extract valuable insights. Luckily, tools like Sprout, Buffer, and Later publicize findings from the millions of social media posts shared on their platforms. The following timing recommendations are averages based on data from these top social media management platforms. Consider all of these times as a good place to start in the local time zone of your target audience:
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Best times: Weekdays, especially Monday to Thursday, are the best days to post on Facebook. Buffer reports seeing peak engagement on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Post during the daytime, between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., to catch your audience while they’re online.
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Worst times/days:Facebook engagement drops on weekends. Avoid publishing content overnight or early in the morning.
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Best times: Instagram engagement peaks in the morning and early evening on weekdays. The best times to post are around 9 a.m. or 6 p.m. Monday to Thursday.
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Worst times/days: Weekends, early mornings, and late nights are the worst times to share Instagram content.
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Best times: Weekday afternoons are the best time to post on LinkedIn. Late afternoon posts, shared between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., achieve the best results. Buffer reports seeing the most engagement on Wednesday and Friday afternoons.
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Worst times/days:LinkedIn engagement drops over the weekend. Engagement is at its lowest during early morning hours between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m.
TikTok
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Best times:TikTok posts can see strong engagement on any day of the week. Sprout reports the best results on weekdays during the late afternoon and early evening. Buffer highlights weekend mornings and suggests that the optimal time is 9 a.m. on Sunday.
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Worst times/days: Early mornings and late nights are the worst times to share new TikTok content.
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Best times: X posts perform best on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Buffer reports strong engagement in the morning, while Sprout sees the best results in the late afternoon. Both platforms identify 12 p.m. as a peak posting time.
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Worst times/days: X engagement drops on the weekends and overnight.
YouTube
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Best times: Sunday morning, around 9 a.m., is one of the best times to share long-form YouTube videos. On weekdays, long-form videos see the highest engagement in the evening, especially on Mondays and Tuesdays. YouTube Shorts tend to perform better in the evening and later in the week.
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Worst days/times: Long-form video engagement dips during midday and midweek. Wednesday and Thursday afternoons are the worst times to post. For YouTube Shorts, avoid posting early in the week and during the afternoon.
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Best times: Weekday mornings between 8 a.m. and noon are the best times to share new Pinterest content. Engagement remains strong throughout the afternoon. Audience activity starts to fall off after 5 p.m. Later also reports strong engagement with inspiration-focused posts shared in the evening, between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
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Worst days/times: Early mornings, late nights, and weekends are the worst times to share new Pinterest content.
How to find and leverage your own best time to post
Posting during the peak engagement hours reported by social tools is a great place to start. When you’re ready to further refine your social media strategy, you can use post performance data, user demographic information, and experimentation to boost engagement and find the best approach for your specific audience. Here’s how:
Review performance data
Use a social media analytics tool or the platform’s native analytics capabilities to identify and analyze your top-performing social media posts. Review social media metrics like reach and engagement, as well as campaign-specific metrics, such as traffic or sales. Compare timing for your top-performing posts and look for themes. Were they all posted in the afternoon? On Wednesdays? Two days before sales?
Focus on one platform at a time and consider conducting separate analyses for different types of posts. For example, if your Facebook strategy involves sharing product links, blog content, and videos, you could choose to review top-performing posts for each post type individually.
Analyze audience demographics
Use your social media analytics tool or the platform’s insights to access audience demographic information. Details like audience location and age can help you make decisions about timing. If the majority of your audience is located on the West Coast of the United States, for example, tailoring your posting schedule to the Pacific time zone may help reach viewers at the most opportune time.
To take things a step further, consider what age suggests about your audience’s daily schedule. Are they working-age, school-age, or retired? Look for opportunities to reach users when they aren’t occupied by other obligations. This could mean sharing content on the weekend or during lunch breaks.
Experiment with timing
Take what you’ve learned from post-performance and audience data, identify a few key time slots, and start sharing content. Testing multiple slots for different types of posts can help you build a sophisticated strategy. To do this, ask yourself what your target audience might need at a specific time or day and look for ways to deliver it with content. For example, you could share longer-form content on the weekends when users have more free time, or try posting weekend inspiration content on Friday afternoons for followers who are looking ahead. If your posting calendar requires sharing content outside work hours, consider using a social media management app to schedule posts ahead of time. Tools like Post Studio are available in the Shopify App Store.
Set a period of time for your experiment and then review your success. If a specific time slot isn’t working, don’t be afraid to move on. This is standard practice for indie jewelry brand Bluboho. On the Shopify Masters podcast, founder Natalie Westlake says that her team reviews performance numbers every week. They use this review process to pair the right message, platform, and timing. If the numbers reveal that a specific time or day isn’t working, “it’s time to abandon ship.”
Best times to post to social media FAQ
What is the best time of day to post on social media?
The best time to post on social media is whenever your audience is awake and online. For most social platforms, this tends to be around nine in the morning or eight in the evening.
When should you not post on social media?
Engagement patterns vary between social media platforms. Performance data from social media management tools like Buffer and Sprout suggests weekends are the worst time to post on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. TikTok and YouTube, on the other hand, see consistent engagement on Saturdays and Sundays.
Should you post daily on social media?
Many social media algorithms prioritize active accounts, and posting regularly can improve reach and engagement. Aim to strike a balance between posting frequently and maintaining content quality. Flooding your feed with low-effort posts might trigger unfollows and inadvertently decrease reach.
