The best time to post on social media per platform

Your brand’s essence is vividly reflected in the content you post on social media. Because creating relevant, engaging, and visually appealing posts that resonate with your audience is crucial. 

The need for high-quality content highlights the role of skilled social media teams in shaping your brand’s online presence. According to a Birdeye survey, 79% of businesses rely on their corporate social media team for content creation and publishing. This social media statistic underscores the importance of having a team closely aligned with your brand’s goals and objectives. 

To truly enhance the effectiveness of your social media campaigns, it’s crucial to grasp the best times for posting, aligning with when your audience is most attentive and interactive. 

In this blog post, we delve into the optimal posting schedules for various social media platforms, providing insights to help you boost engagement and grow your audience smartly.

When is the best time to post on social media in general?

When you’re trying to figure out when to post your content, you’ll quickly realize there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to finding the best time to post on social media. 

Generally, the best times to post on social media currently are:

Note: These times are general guidelines based on various sources, and effectiveness can vary based on the specific audience and content type. It's always recommended to monitor your own engagement metrics and experiment with different posting times to determine what works best for your audience.

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Best times to post on social media platforms

If you’ve just started building your social media presence, you can use these guidelines as a place to start. 

If you’re eager to find the best time to post on social media for your business, you should do some research.

Keep in mind each of these suggested times should be applied to the timezones of your target audience if you want them to be successful.

Best time to post on Facebook

The best posting times to get more likes on Facebook are between 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM. The best days to market your business on Facebook are weekdays, with early mornings being the most effective​. 

Best times to post by industry:

• Business-to-business (B2B): Afternoons, when people tend to take a break, seem to provide the best results.
• Business-to-consumer (B2C): Periods before and after work and typical times for lunch breaks tend to perform best.
• Healthcare: Posts that reach people in the healthcare industry in the morning get the best results on Facebook.
• Software: Reaching people in the software industry before and after work, and during the middle of the day when they’re likely to take a break tends to work best for Facebook posts.

Best time to post on Instagram

You tend to get more followers on Instagram and better engagement when you post around 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, with Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays performing best on average. 

While weekday mornings generally see good engagement, with Wednesday frequently emerging as the optimal day, it’s important to note that peak times can vary. Some data points to different peak times across various days, including early mornings and evenings.

Best times to post by industry:

• B2B: Most B2B audiences tend to scroll through Instagram during their downtime, so midday during lunch breaks and early evening are the best times to post.
• B2C: Similar to B2B followers, mornings, midday, and evenings are best to reach B2C followers when their minds are off work.
• Healthcare: Followers in the healthcare industry will avoid social media during the peak hours later in the evening, so morning to early afternoon is the best time to post to reach them on Instagram.
• Software: Just like other industries, followers in the software industry scroll Instagram when they have the time, before and after work, or during a lunch break.

Pro tip: Schedule Instagram posts and discover the strategic benefits of a well-planned content strategy

Best time to post on LinkedIn

For your LinkedIn marketing to give you desired results, the best time to post is around 1:00 PM PST on Mondays. While afternoons generally yield good engagement, incorporating a variety of content types throughout the day is also recommended.

Similar to other platforms, posts made late in the evening and into the early morning generally do not perform as well, as they fall outside of ‘office hours’. 

Posts that achieve the highest engagement on LinkedIn typically occur on weekdays, specifically Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, whereas engagement tends to be lower on weekends, particularly on Saturdays and Sundays. 

Best times to post by industry:

• B2B: Similar to other platforms, B2B audiences are often focused during the workday, so posts before and after work and during a midday lunch break will likely reach the most followers.
• B2C: While LinkedIn tends to have more appeal to B2B audiences, you can still effectively reach a B2C audience during a typical lunch break in the middle of the day. 
• Healthcare: Posts scheduled for mid-morning and early afternoon tend to have the most reach for healthcare audiences on LinkedIn.
• Software: LinkedIn is a great place to reach software professionals, but you need to catch their attention before work or in the middle of the day when they’re taking a break from their busy schedules.

Pro tip: Learn how to create a LinkedIn Business Page that drives results! 

Best time to post on X (Twitter)

Optimal posting times are generally early in the mornings, especially around 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM PST on weekdays, with Mondays and Wednesdays being particularly effective​​. 

To get the best ROI on your Twitter marketing spends, consider posting on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as those are considered the best days. 

Best times to post by industry:

• B2B and B2C: Both industries use Twitter throughout the day to get information on the latest news in their industry. However, both morning and evening perform the best when people have free time to scroll through their feeds.
• Healthcare: When doing Twitter marketing for doctors, posting earlier in the morning and later in the evening tends to get the best results. 
• Software: Posts in the middle of the day tend to perform better in the software industry while their minds are in “work mode” during the middle of the day.

Pro-tip: How to create an exclusive X (Twitter) business profile that drives unlimited sales!

Best time to post on Pinterest

Pinterest users tend to be more active during weekday evenings, particularly from 8 PM to 11 PM. They also scroll during weekend mornings, as people often browse Pinterest for leisure and inspiration. 

For Pinterest, evenings and nights, especially on weekends, tend to see higher engagement. 

Best times to post by industry:

• Health: Followers in the health industry often look for the latest trends in mental health and wellness during non-working hours in the morning and evening.
• Travel: Most Pinterest users looking for travel ideas are most likely to search during their leisure in the evenings.
• Beauty: Posts about beauty trends on Pinterest see the best performance in the morning hours.
• Food & Beverage: Food is a major part of what Pinterest users look for on the platform. Because they’re often looking for new recipes, right around 5:00 PM gets the most engagement as users look for a dinner recipe.

Best time to post on TikTok

Multi-location businesses looking to capitalize the hyperlocal social media marketing should prioritize TikTok because it is a young but rapidly growing app. 

Beyond just Gen Z and Gen Alpha, businesses can also achieve big results on TikTok by targeting the right audience at the right time. 

This platform sees more engagement in the afternoons and on weekends. The best times suggested are Saturdays at 9:00 AM, Sundays at 1:00 PM, and weekdays in the late afternoon. 

While there is a lot of data showing how much and how often the app is being used, there is still work to be done breaking down what times work best for certain industries. That said, there are a few major industries that dominate TikTok:

• Beauty
• Fashion
• Jewelry
• Art
• Home Interior
• Food
• Mobile
• Mobile accessories
• Toys 
• Dental

Start by using these general guidelines for the best posting times on TikTok. Then take the time to use the techniques we discussed earlier to find out what times will be best for your audience and industry. In time, you’ll figure out the best posting schedule for your content to increase your follower count and boost your engagement.

Best time to post on YouTube

YouTube viewers tend to engage more during the evenings and weekends, aligning with leisure time when they can relax and watch videos. 

Specifically, late afternoons and evenings on weekdays, especially around 2 PM to 4 PM, are effective, with an uptick in engagement on Friday evenings. Weekends see a shift to mornings, with 9 AM to 11 AM being prime viewing times.

For YouTube, late afternoons on weekdays and mornings on weekends are peak engagement times.

Best times to post by industry:

• Educational content: Viewers seeking educational videos often engage during weekday afternoons and early evenings when they can dedicate time to learning.
• Entertainment and vlogging: Entertainment-focused content sees a spike in the evenings and weekends when viewers are looking to relax and be entertained.
• Tech reviews and tutorials: Weekday evenings are prime for tech enthusiasts who are likely to explore new gadgets and software tutorials after work hours.
• Fitness and wellness: Early mornings and weekends are ideal for fitness and wellness videos, aligning with viewers’ workout schedules and health routines.
• Cooking and recipes: Posting cooking videos in the late afternoon, particularly on weekends, aligns with viewers planning meals and looking for culinary inspiration.

How to determine the best times to post on social media

Here are a few ways to determine the best time to post: 

1. Try A/B testing
2. Check the social posting habits of your competitors
3. Analyze your past posts
4. Post when your audience is most active

Let’s discuss these in detail. 

Try A/B testing

As you build your social media content strategy, you should experiment with different times and posting schedules so you can learn what works best for your business. You can do this with some classic A/B testing or split testing. A/B testing refers to a method where “A” is the control and “B” is the variable.

When testing which times are best to post on a social media platform, “A” represents the content you post and “B” represents the time you post it. So, you would post similar types of content at different times and measure the results.

Let’s say you have a new product you’re trying to promote. You’ll want to make two social media post ideas at two different times to learn when your content has better engagement. 

You may find your engagement increases when you post between 7 to 11 a.m., or you may find your engagement rates are actually lower when you post in the morning. You’ll be able to collect data each time you post your content on a particular day and time. Eventually, you should see a pattern of what posts perform at the best times and be able to replicate it.

Check the social posting habits of your competitors

You probably have at least one competitor who you’d like to outperform on social media. You might find they’re posting similar content to yours, but you’re not getting the same results.

Take a closer look at their posting habits and try to figure out what they’re doing differently. It might take some time and effort, but creating a report of their recent posts, when they posted them, and how they performed may give you an idea of how to improve your posting schedule.

Competitor analysis should always be a part of your marketing strategy on social media. Not only can it show you areas where you can improve, but it can also tell you where you excel and outperform the competition.

To help you further refine your marketing efforts, we have a social media marketing strategy template that you can download for free. Just follow the link and make your own copy.

Analyze your past posts

If you’ve been on social media long enough, you’ve probably had some posts that performed pretty well – and there’s probably a reason why. Looking at your best-performing posts can give you an idea of what times work best when you’re posting for your target audience. 

There are a few key metrics to pay attention to when looking at the posts that performed the best, including:

• Impressions
• Engagement rate
• Click-through rate
• Reach
• Account mentions
• Likes, comments, retweets, etc.

Find the posts that were seen the most, had the most engagement, and drove the most traffic to your website. Then look at the date and time you posted them. You might find your top-performing posts were all published on weekdays in the afternoon. This gives you a starting point when figuring out the best times to post on the platforms you’re using.

Post when your audience is most active

This seems like common sense, but it’s more overlooked than you might think. That’s because not all social media platforms offer analytics that show you when your audience is most active. However, Facebook and other platforms offer tools like Audience Insights that can give you detailed information about your followers, like their demographics, behaviors, and when they use the platform most.  

Figuring out when your followers are most likely to be on social media increases the likelihood that the content you post will reach them. That way, you’re not trying to battle Facebook or Instagram’s algorithm or posting when your audience isn’t using the platform. Tools like Audience Insights will show you graphs that represent the best times you can post based on your audience activity.

The key to posting when your audience is active is recency. Your followers are looking for the most up-to-date information they can find. Also, social media algorithms prioritize the most recent content that you post. That means when your followers start scrolling through their feeds, they’re more unlikely to see your posts from the day before. That’s why posting close to the same time your followers are active plays to the benefit of the algorithm and the interests of your followers. You can use a social media calendar to keep you on track and posting at the ideal time to reach your followers.

Frequently asked questions about the best time to post on social media

Publish your posts on time with Birdeye Social

Sharing content is just the first step to making a meaningful impact on social media. Posts need to be frequent and on time to keep followers engaged with your business. With Birdeye Social’s visual calendar, you can:

• Centralize social media management dashboard
• Use AI to automate AI content creation 
• Get real-time engagement tracking and response
• Detailed analytics for actionable insights
• Efficient post-scheduling across platforms
• Enhanced, personalized audience interaction
• Seamlessly integrate with 3,000+ CRM systems 

And much more! Read how integrating Birdeye Social into their CRM benefited Valley Veterinary Care: 

Our customers, their stories: 

“We totally depend on Birdeye's social media calendar. We schedule out our content in advance, which is super helpful. And although we like to say we pride ourselves on each practice operating independently for things like holiday hours, we do create bulk messages and posts that can be used across multiple locations. This saves us a ton of time. It creates a consistency and it's super convenient to log into one dashboard and see everything that's scheduled across different platforms.”

Meghan Bingham, Senior Operations Manager, Valley Veterinary Care

Want to manage all your social platforms effortlessly? Discover the power of Birdeye Social.