Posted on 4 How To

Best time to post on social media in 2023 [ALL NETWORKS]

When is the best time to post on social media? Social media marketers have been asking this question since time immemorial — well, at least since the advent of Facebook — but we’re here to help.

The Hootsuite team analyzed thousands of social media posts on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn to find out if certain days and hours get more activity than others. We reviewed posts on our social media using an audience of approximately 8 million followers to determine the best and worst times to post.

The overall best time to post on social media in 2023

Here is a summary of what we found:

Generally, the best time to post on social media is 9:00 AM PT (12:00 PM EST) on Mondays. But each network has its own charm.

  • The best time to post on Facebook is 10:00 AM PST on Mondays.
  • The best time to post on Instagram is 9:00 AM PST on Mondays.
  • The best time to post on Twitter is 9:00 AM PST on Fridays.
  • The best time to post on LinkedIn is 1:00 PM PST on Mondays.
  • The best time to post on TikTok is 1pm PST on Sundays.

Will these times work for everyone?

The truth is that there is no single best time to post for everyone. You’ll find out your personal best time to post on social media by posting often and measuring performance as you go. (Preferably use Hootsuite analytics, which will tell you the exact best posting time based on your audience’s unique behavior.)

If you’re just getting started with social media and don’t have a lot of past or audience data to work with, this posting time is a great place to start.

Eileen Kwok, Hootsuite’s social marketing coordinator, told us, “It’s good to test different times and see what works best for you. Start by posting in the morning, afternoon and night and see how the time increases. After a couple of weeks, based on your assessment, you will find what works best for you.”

Is there really a better time to post on social media?

Because news feed algorithms (especially Twitter algorithms and Instagram algorithms) consider “newness”as their primary ranking signal, posting your content while your followers are online is one of the easiest ways to improve organic reach.

This brings us to the bad news: it’s hard to agree on a single “best time to post on social media”standard. Everyone and their uncles have done research on industry benchmarks, but the real source of truth always comes back to your own data on your own followers.

Trish Ryswick, Social Media Specialist for Hootsuite, notes: “The worst thing in the world is an amazing post that you work so hard on and then it doesn’t get the traction you want. We’ve all been there. Knowing when your audience is most active online helps prevent that.”

A universal best time to post, like the one we found in our research, is best used as a starting point for new accounts that haven’t built an audience yet and therefore don’t have anyone to test on.

However, once you have an audience, it’s incredibly easy to figure out the best times to post on your social media channels, especially if you have the right tools.

A tool that tells you the best time to post

Want to find the best time to post in seconds? You need a tool that measures when your target audience is most active. Login to Hootsuite.

Hootsuite’s Best Time to Post feature automatically tells you the best time to post on each platform. Recommendations are based on your past performance and tailored to your unique audience and their social media activity patterns.

The Best Time to Post tool goes one step further and breaks down suggested times based on four key goals: increase reach, increase awareness, increase engagement, or increase traffic.

Simply select your goal and Hootsuite will provide personalized recommendations on the best time to post.

The best time to post on Facebook

According to our analysis, the best time to post on Facebook is 10:00 AM PST on Mondays and Tuesdays.

When it comes to Facebook, both past performance and follower activity matter. You also want to think about what time your target audience tends to scroll, paying attention to time zone differences. Regardless of the platform, you should always post in the time zone of your target audience.

“Our top tip is to always target the time zone your audience is in. For us, North America and the UK are our main targets. If we post something at 3:00 PM PST, that’s 10:00 AM in the UK.

– Trish Ryswick, Social Engagement Specialist, Hootsuite

The good news is that almost half of all users check Facebook multiple times a day, and they spend more time on the social network than many others, so you have multiple chances of posting during the day at peak times.

Key Facebook stats to consider when posting:

To learn more, check out the latest Facebook statistics and Facebook demographics.

The best time to post on Instagram

According to our analysis, the best time to post on Instagram is 9:00 AM PST on Mondays and 8:00 AM PST on Wednesdays.

Age is a key ranking signal in the Instagram algorithm. This means that audience behavior is an important factor influencing publication time. By thinking about when your audience is scrolling and planning accordingly, you will be able to grab the most attention.

While early mornings tend to get the most attention on brand accounts on Instagram, the Hootsuite social team recommends tweaking your strategy a bit when posting to your personal account.

“If you run a brand account, I think it’s always a good idea to post on Instagram early in the day. However, I have found that when it comes to personal accounts, like your own Instagram account, most people prefer to post at night, at 8 or 9 pm.”

  • Eileen Kwok, Social Marketing Coordinator, Hootsuite

The team also notes that some industries may have better luck on Instagram with people leisurely scrolling through the page in the evening. For example, people tend to house hunt, shop, and watch videos later in the day. Real estate, retail, and entertainment-related accounts can get better results by posting to Instagram in the evening.

Key Instagram stats to consider when posting:

View all the latest Instagram stats here (and get to know Instagram demographics while you’re there).

The best time to post on Twitter

According to our analysis, the best time to post on Twitter is 7:00 AM PST on Mondays and 10:00 AM PST on Wednesdays. When the Hootsuite social team looked into their data, they found that postings were most successful on weekdays between 7:00 AM and 10:00 AM PST.

Like Instagram, the Twitter algorithm prioritizes novelty and focuses on trends. Twitter says they define popular topics based on “topics that are popular now, not topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis.”

Using events – such as the Super Bowl, awards shows, etc. – and posting relevant content around those events can help you get more attention. However, the Hootsuite social team also warns that these events have the potential to detract from content that is not directly related to them. “It’s smart to keep in mind what’s going on in the world as a basis for when you should post. For example, if it’s the Super Bowl and social media is going to be very busy with content, you might not want to post at that particular time or even that day because you’ll get less engagement,” Eileen says.

Among the major social networks, Twitter has been ranked as the most popular for news and current affairs. Here’s why, according to Trish, morning is the best time to post on Twitter:

“Recently, we did a survey suggesting we post more readable content in the morning when people are just getting ready for work or lunch break. People are more likely to want to start their day by reading because they are awake. I think this plays a role in why morning posts perform better on Twitter.”

Key Twitter statistics to consider when choosing the best time to tweet:

Here’s our complete list of Twitter stats (as well as Twitter demographics).

Best Time to Post on LinkedIn

According to our analysis, the best time to post on LinkedIn is 1:00 PM PST on Mondays. However, Hootsuite’s social team says they also have many successful posts early in the day on LinkedIn.

According to Trish, the best thing to do on LinkedIn is to post a variety of content throughout the day. “We usually post more written content in the morning and video in the afternoon,” she says. This is because people tend to watch videos and longer content at the end of the day, while they usually look for material to read early in the morning.

“One would think that early morning LinkedIn posts work better, but we have found that our afternoon posts sometimes explode. While it used to be mostly professionals who would get up and scroll at 5am, now there are many young professionals on LinkedIn who are also browsing in their free time. However, we are still seeing a lot of success before 9am on LinkedIn,” she adds.

Ryswick stresses the importance of not making assumptions about your audience on LinkedIn. Today, almost 60% of LinkedIn users are between the ages of 25 and 34. This demographic tends to prefer shorter videos and images, which may be why these later video posts perform well.

Key LinkedIn stats to consider when posting:

  • 16.2% of US users check LinkedIn at least once a day (up from 12% in 2020).
  • LinkedIn pages that post weekly have 5.6 times more followers than pages that post monthly.

Here is a complete list of LinkedIn stats to help determine when to post.

The best time to post on TikTok

According to our analysis, the best time to post on TikTok is 9:00 AM PT on Saturdays and 1:00 PM PT on Sundays. We also found that Thursday at 7pm is a hotspot for TikTok.

Not surprisingly, TikTok spends the most time on the app during their free time, which tends to be later in the day. If you’re in an industry that performs well on most early morning channels, such as finance or politics, you should set your TikTok posting time later.

The TikTok algorithm takes a little longer than other platforms to post and display videos in the right feeds. This means you need to think ahead and be a little more patient than on other platforms.

Eileen’s tip: “Don’t be discouraged if your post doesn’t get a lot of views in the first couple of hours of posting. A TikTok video typically takes 24 hours to fully post, so we recommend leaving a post even if it doesn’t get enough engagement right away.”

Another important thing to note is that TikTok doesn’t always publish a video the second you click “publish”, so you should keep that in mind when scheduling your posting time. In other words, post a little before the time you want your video to start showing up in people’s feeds.

“We’ve learned the hard way that on TikTok you should post a little earlier than when you really want your video to appear,”says Trish. “Sometimes it can take a while for TikTok to actually release your video because it’s trying to figure out what video it is, whose algorithm it should use, and stuff like that. That’s why adding the right keywords is so important – because it helps you dive into the algorithm faster.”

Need help with TikTok keywords? We’ve included you in our TikTok SEO guide.

Key TikTok statistics to consider when posting:

5 tips for finding the best time to post

1. See When Your Audience Is Most Active Online

Many social media algorithms prioritize novelty. Why? Because people care about what’s new – especially considering how often we check our feeds these days.

Posting while your followers are online is one of the easiest ways to work with (not against) both algorithms. By predicting when your subscribers are likely to view your channels, you maximize the chances that your content will reach and connect with them. (And, as our experiments have shown, the timing of your Instagram posts affects engagement.)

Eileen recommends playing on your target audience’s habits, not your industry, when deciding what time to post: “Understanding your target audience’s social habits and knowing when they’re online can help you get more views. For example, under the hashtag “finance” on TikTok, there are about 60 billion views. Brands are finding ways to make financial topics interesting to a younger audience with TikTok, but they need to post at times that make sense for that audience.”

Determining when your target audience is online is as easy as viewing analytics. For example, Hootsuite’s Best Time to Post feature provides a heatmap of the hours and days your followers are active.

2. Look at your most effective posts from the past

You are already optimizing your content to fit your social media goals. When it comes time to decide when to publish this content, we recommend using the same data-driven approach.

The first step is to take a look at your analytics tools or social media reports and focus on your most successful posts for a given metric. Posts that turned out to be the best in terms of:

  • Awareness (i.e. posts with high impression counts)
  • Engagement (i.e. posts that have earned impressive engagement rates)
  • Sales/traffic (i.e. posts that get a lot of clicks)

Then look at what time of the day or week you posted successful content and see what patterns form.

Pro tip: The Best Time to Post feature in Hootsuite Analytics automatically extracts your unique post history without data processing and suggests post times to maximize your ROI.

You can also view the best time to post based on impressions, interactions, or link clicks (most tools only show your impressions).

This data is then fed into Planner and Composer so when you schedule next week’s posts, you can automatically see recommended post times based on your own unique social media performance history (most tools only recommend based on global best post times).

3. Post in your audience’s time zone, not yours

If you’re aiming to catch people during their foggy-eyed morning scroll in bed, posting at 6:00 makes sense. Of course, if your target audience is European innovation leaders, make sure you schedule this post for 6:00 AM CET (or even earlier if you want to make sure you hit Eastern Europe as well).

At Hootsuite, our channels aim to reach people across North America (PST via EST) by posting in the morning or afternoon PST. For channels that also want to catch the UK, the earlier in the morning the better.

Meanwhile, brands with significant audiences in a particular region may consider creating a separate descriptor for that audience. (This may have the added benefit of allowing you to post in the target language as well.)

Another option for those of you with a global customer base is 24/7 content publishing. (In this case, we definitely recommend the social media planner.)

4. Check out the contest

Check your competitors’ channels to see what they’re up to. Survey their high-performing posts (or even do a full social competition analysis) and see what patterns emerge, or perhaps redesign your competitors’ strategies.

Here at Hootsuite, for example, we’ve learned to avoid posting at one o’clock, because that’s when many brands post. Instead, we post at: 15 or: 45 to give our content a little breather.

In your industry, it’s worth keeping a close eye on whether you’re learning exemplary tactics or just noticing some pitfalls to avoid. (You might even consider adding a posting schedule to your ongoing social media listening efforts.)

The Hootsuite industry benchmarking tool in Analytics shows you how competitive you are. He’ll even give you personalized advice on how to get ahead of the leaders in your industry.

5. Test, Optimize, and Change Post Times

At some point, you’ve done all you can and it’s time to hit the publish (or schedule) button and see what happens. But what happens if the results don’t turn out the way you hoped?

Some systematic A/B tests (where you post the same content at different times to see which times bring the best results) can be helpful.

Social media is constantly changing, and so are the people who use it. For example, the big move to remote work has coincided with increased use of social media.

The habit has shifted from checking the feed during lunch to checking between Zoom meetings. If your audience changes, your strategy may need to change too.

The Hootsuite social team recommends changing posting times quite often. If something you thought would work well doesn’t work, consider posting it in a different timeslot next week. Seasonal changes, cultural changes, and user trends are always changing, so keep experimenting!

“It can be gutted when you’ve been hard at work on a post and it doesn’t land. My best advice is to be patient. Sometimes the algorithm takes longer to post your content, and sometimes your audience takes longer to warm up to the type of content you create. Consistency is the key, so keep trying!”

– Trish Ryswick, Social Engagement Specialist, Hootsuite

CDN CTB