The Best Time to Post on Social Media in 2023

Publish posts, but they get too few hits? Do you want to increase your reach, but your efforts aren't working? It could be because you're posting at a bad time and your subscribers don't see your content. In this article, we break down the latest stats on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok to help determine the best time to post to social networks. To make the results more accurate, we used more than one source of information and tried to derive averages from it.

 

Twitter 

 

Content Studio did a study to determine the days when audience activity is at its peak. Usually, this indicator is used to determine the most appropriate time for engaging with your subscribers. It turned out that on Wednesdays, people are more willing to interact with content, but on Saturdays and Mondays, these numbers are significantly lower.

 

Additionally, they provide data on the best time to tweet based on the day of the week: 

 

• Monday: 10 a.m., 2 to 4 p.m.

• Tuesday: 1 p.m., 3 p.m.

• Wednesday: 4 p.m., 6 p.m., 10 p.m.

• Thursday: 10 a.m., 12 p.m.

• Friday: 2 p.m., 6 p.m.

• Saturday: 12 p.m., 7 p.m.

• Sunday: 10 a.m., 3 p.m.

 

Another study partially confirms this information. Giraffe says that Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, as well as the times such as 8:30 a.m., 9:23 a.m., and 10 p.m., are the most appropriate to post on Twitter. Unfortunately, the source does not explain this kind of minute precision. 

 

LinDeal also believes that Saturday is the worst day to post tweets, but Wednesday and Friday get the upper hand here as well. The best time to post content is at 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. 

 

When deciding how to set up your social media posting, consider the niche you work in. For example, for B2B companies, the most optimal time to interact with your audience is on weekdays and during business hours. This conclusion is logical because a manager would definitely not want to communicate with suppliers late at night. Therefore, it's best to post tweets from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. while people are at work. Activity in this segment peaks on Monday and Thursday, especially during lunch breaks from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

 

For the B2C segment, this data will be different. Users flip through the feed during the day but make orders more often outside working hours, so try to post content between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m., when subscribers are having a break. 

 

The study showed that many well-known companies do not have a clear publishing schedule. For example, Notion and Shopify can be inactive for a few days and then post a couple of tweets at once. But they manage to keep their audience's attention.

 

Based on this data, we can conclude that the right days to post on Twitter are Wednesdays and Fridays. But the time will vary depending on your line of business, but you'll get more attention if your tweets come out in the afternoon. 

 

Instagram 

 

On Instagram, the best time to post content is on Wednesdays, at 11 a.m. That's the conclusion the folks at Hootsuite made. If we break down the engagement rate (ER) based on day of the week, we get this: 

 

• Monday: 12 p.m.

• Tuesday: ER is high from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., but peaks at 9 a.m.

• Wednesday: 11 a.m.

• Thursday: engagement is high from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., but the optimal time is 12 p.m.

• Friday: the interval of 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. has high ER, but posting at 2 p.m. will get the most attention.

• Saturday: 9 a.m.

• Sunday: engagement rate holds steady from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. but posting at 7 p.m. will get the best result. 

 

For those who prefer to promote their online presence through videos, it’s preferable to post them Monday through Thursday at 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. 

 

Another research says that the most appropriate days to post on Instagram are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the best times are 9 a.m., 9:30 a.m., and 8 p.m. 

 

The results of research by LinDeal confirm this information: Wednesdays and Fridays are considered the days of peak activity. But the publication hours will be different: it’s best to post from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. From 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. engagement will fall and this is understandable: that’s the time people usually go to bed and can only browse their feeds before going to sleep. And on Sunday, you should not post anything important, because people prefer not to hang out on social media on this day.

 

So, if you combine all the information above, you can conclude that the best days to post on Instagram are Wednesdays and Fridays. We recommend that you post before 12 p.m. or after 6 p.m. 

 

TikTok

 

The data collected by Influencer Marketing Hub says that the most appropriate days for posting on Tik Tok are Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Choose the times between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. 

 

Depending on the day of the week, the prime time period will also vary. Here's what Influencer Marketing Hub has to offer: 

 

• Monday: 6 a.m., 10 a.m., 10 p.m.

• Tuesday: 2 p.m., 4 p.m., 9 p.m.

• Wednesday: 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 11 p.m.

• Thursday: 9 a.m., 12 p.m., 7 p.m.

• Friday: 5 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m.

• Saturday: 11 a.m., 7 p.m., 8 p.m.

• Sunday: 7 a.m., 8 a.m, 4 p.m. 

 

Giraffe says that the best days to post videos are Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. You should choose the time in the morning (10 a.m.) or later in the day (8 p.m. and 11 p.m.). 

 

Unfortunately, there are not many relevant studies on TikTok for 2023, so we will take these two sources as a basis. Based on them, we can conclude that the optimal content posting days are Tuesdays and Fridays, from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. 

 

Facebook

 

A research by Hootsuite shows that the peak of audience activity on Facebook falls on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., but posting from Monday through Wednesday also gives good results. Giraffe partially confirms this data and recommends that emphasis be placed on posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Good times for this are 7 a.m., 3:15 p.m., and 7 p.m.

 

LinDeal also suggests that posting on Wednesdays will yield the highest engagement results. The best time to post is during lunch hours (11 a.m. and 1 to 2 p.m.).  Sunday, on the other hand, is still the worst day for posting, when the stats will be unsatisfactory.

 

Just as with other platforms, it's important to consider the niche you're working in. For example, in the B2B segment, people have a hard time getting up and running at the start of the week because processing an order is a necessity and not a leisurely activity you can do with a glass of wine. You have to reconcile balances, check prices, and only then contact suppliers. Therefore, Mondays in the B2B sector are quite laid back and weekends are idle. If this is your field of activity, try to post your main content from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays.

 

For B2C, the recommendations will be different. Do you want people to buy from you? Publish on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as in the evenings, when your audience has time and energy to review and analyze the posts. 

 

Based on these three studies, we conclude that the best time to post on Facebook is Wednesdays during lunchtime. 

 

Rounding Up

 

After analyzing these materials, we saw a pattern: Wednesday lunchtime is considered the most appropriate period for posting content on almost all platforms. At the same time, weekends are not the most suitable days for interaction with subscribers.

 

This suggests that although social media audiences are different, people's behavior is similar. By the middle of the week, we're at our peak, so we're ready to interact with information. In the mornings we are sleepy, in the evenings we want to lie down and watch a TV show, and in the middle of the day we switch to something relaxing to distract ourselves, so we scroll through our social media feeds.

 

But there are exceptions to every point, and we see the biggest difference when it comes to the best time to post. Perhaps it depends on what kind of audience was used in a study, as well as on the location. Also consider that the materials indicate Pacific or Eastern times, which means that these will not always be relevant to us.

 

The information from these studies will come in handy if you're just starting to promote online and you have little raw data, in order to understand when your audience is the most active. It's also worth paying attention to them when your reach and engagement stats are dropping. Plunging stats can indicate both a decrease in audience interest and that it's time to change your posting times to reach a larger portion of your subscribers.

 

Keep in mind that the best day and time for posting may differ based on the time of year as well. Let's say your target audience is moms with elementary school kids. During the school period, they have to get up early, take the kids to school, and then pick them up. But early mornings and lunchtime are periods when a woman can relax and browse her feed in peace. But in summer, the situation will change because the kids will demand more attention, which means the daily routine will be different.

 

This example also shows how important it is to rely not only on statistics but also on knowing your customers. Think about their lifestyles, how they distribute tasks throughout the day, and when they're ready to absorb your content. This kind of research will help you far more than mindless posting based only on data vaguely relevant to your niche.

 

Periods of low audience engagement can also be turned in your favor. Consider how to shake up your subscribers so that reach and engagement stay about the same throughout the week. For example, if your content plan includes a popular topic, move it to a time when people are reluctant to engage with content on social media, or schedule weekly discounts on certain products that will be available during that period. Remember: this is what cafe and restaurant owners do when they do daytime menu promotions because that's when customer flow is low. By doing this, they manage to attract more customers and increase daily revenues.

 

To summarize, we want to say that it's best to focus on your own data. Each social platform has a section where you look up information on your audience activity. Thanks to this you will understand which days are the best to post content for you personally.

 

Statistics analysis is the best friend of promotion because without it we can only speculate about the effectiveness of our content strategy. That's why we also recommend relying on this tool, so you don't have to do guesswork and know exactly what you need to do to increase your reach and engagement.