When is the best time to post on Instagram?
When is the best
time to post
on Instagram?
6 min read
Back in the times of the chronological feed, posting was adjusted to the rhythm of the user’s life. With the transition to an algorithmic feed, this approach became ineffective and not good. Despite the fact that the lifestyle and user activity on Instagram remained the same, the content of each creator began to be ranked individually in the feed.
The more a user interacts with an account (adds likes, writes comments and in Direct messages, saves posts), the higher that account’s posts are displayed for this user. And vice versa.
Many people think that it doesn’t matter when a post is published, because active followers will see it eventually anyway. This is partly true. After publication, the post appears at the start of the feeds of active subscribers. However, it is also important that these active subscribers are online and use the application at this point in time.
It turns out that the best time to publish is indeed when most of your subscribers are online. Everything is fairly simple! By publishing posts during the best times when most of the followers are online, you can not only increase your reach of followers, but also get into the top of the hashtags you use due to the speed of the attainment of likes.
How to find out when subscribers are online
To find out when your subscribers are online, open the tab “Audience” in LiveDune and find the infographic “Followers Online”.
The infographic consists of 168 hour slots, each of which shows a value for the number of followers online at that time. For higher accuracy, specify the time zone of your account in Settings.
A high speed of attainment of likes and reach will help you get into the top posts of hashtags. From our observations, 50% of the likes a post gains in total will be achieved in the first 3 hours, 80% in 6 hours, and 100% in 12 hours. Therefore, you need to choose 12 hours in a row when most of your followers are online. In the graph, the beginning of this best period is marked in pink. If you publish in inactive hours, the speed of achieving likes will be slow, reach to followers will be low, and the chance of getting to the top of hashtags will be non-existent.
Publication of posts in the best “active” hours does not guarantee a large reach if the engagement of your followers is not good and they interact poorly with your account. Play games and polls with your followers to increase engagement.
