Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide. According to a Statista study, Instagram had 1 billion active users as of June 2018. So these are a lot of target groups that can be reached via Instagram. In addition, the study found that 41% of users are under 24 years old. In addition to using quality content, the moment when a message is posted is also very important for success. When is the best time to post an Instagram post?
Instagram has created an algorithm for prioritizing posts. Previously, all messages were chronologically visible to the user; the most recently posted messages were then at the top. Now, the order of the messages depends on the likelihood that the message is liked by the user. This makes it harder for companies to get to the top of the feed.
According to a study by Hopper HQ The Instagram algorithm does the following:
Here's what's happening:
These points make it even more important to post a message at the best possible time. When there are not many users online, there is less interaction with the message and it will take longer before there is sufficient interaction. This is negative because the message will not be marked as a message with “good content”.
To build a large number of Instagram followers, you need to have engaging content that your audience is interested in. But if you don't publish your content at the right time, most people will never see it. So how do you find out the best times and days for your audience to post? The best way to find an ideal post time is to test the timing of your posts to see which time generates the most engagement. To help you a little bit with that Sprout Social, a social media management platform, analyzed customer data to see when and on what day their own social media posts generated the most engagement.
Here are the best times and days to post to Instagram overall, according to Sprout Social:
Posting at 5:00 a.m. from Tuesday to Friday generates some of the highest engagements, people usually check their phones immediately when they wake up.
Posting from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the weekdays also generates a lot of engagement, people often check their phones at lunchtime or when their mental energy starts to run out towards the end of the workday.
If you want to post on the weekend, post around 11:00 a.m. on Saturdays when people often have a lot of free time.
On average, these are the best times to post to Instagram during the week:
These times are average times and vary by target group and type of company. The exact times for your own page and target group can be found under your company's Instagram account. When you have a business profile, it is possible to see the statistics of the page and messages. This shows you when your followers are online and most active on Instagram and what type of posts they find interesting.
It is often the case that the best time to post a message is very awkward. These are often times outside working hours, late evenings, weekends and sometimes even at night. The latter is when most of the target group is in a different time zone. It is therefore wise to schedule your Instagram posts. As a result, you don't have to set the alarm late at night to post a message, but this happens automatically.
Each brand's audience is different. To build an engaged Instagram audience, you need to know who your followers are. And one of the best ways to get to know your audience and get their attention is to know exactly when they're active on the app. At the beginning, there is nothing more than testing based on the statistics that are known. If all is well, you can quickly recognize a consistent line in this. Dare to ask what your followers like best. Ask a question in your story, under a post, or come up with another unique way. Your followers only appreciate that you want to take them into account.
It's not just the exact time that influences the number of likes. It's also important to be consistent with posting. There are no clear guidelines for exactly how often you should post on Instagram, as long as it's consistent. If your followers know you're posting every day at 5:00 p.m., they will also expect a message every day at that time and may look forward to it.
It's a good idea to plan the posts you'd like to post on Instagram. If you don't do this, and you post a lot of posts, you might find out at some point that you don't have enough different content to post at all. For example, make a monthly schedule to see when you are going to post a message and what the content of that message is.
It's also important not to post too many messages in a row. This can overwhelm your followers and cause them to stop liking your posts. If you have a lot of different content and you want to show it all to your followers as soon as possible, make sure you don't post more than 2 posts per day. If you post messages in short order, your followers will see this more as spam. Do you want your followers to always stay a little bit curious? Then post messages once every 2 days or even once a week on a fixed day.
