Mediaboss Marketing

Whats the best time to post on Instagram? Hootsuites Senior Social Marketing Manager, Amanda Wood, and her team seek the answer.

Have you ever wondered what the most optimal time to post on Instagram is? We certainly have. Were excited to bring you another round of insights and learnings from our latest social media experiment this month!

As always, we worked with our lovely partner Stacey McLachlan to test the effectiveness of post timing on Instagram engagement rates. In this experiment, we tested Hootsuites recommended time to publish feature to see if it would improve engagement instead of posting at random times.

The ExperimentAs a social media strategist, Ive always been a firm believer in scheduling posts to engage audiences when they are online. So, our hypothesis for this test was that timing would be a component in a successful social media campaign and that posting when audiences are online would improve the overall engagement rate on Instagram.

We also wanted to figure out when was the optimal time to post. Tools like Hootsuites recommended time to publish were useful in helping us automate the process.

Stacey created and posted some wedding photos on Instagram at random times with a non-methodical cadence throughout the week on a wedding magazine Instagram account with roughly ten thousand followers.

The week after, she posted another selection of beautiful wedding photos using similar captions and images but utilized Hootsuites recommended time to publish feature. The way the feature works is Hootsuite bases suggestions on when your followers are most likely to be on a particular social network and when your account has accumulated the most engagement and views in the past using an algorithm.

Key LearningsDuring the two weeks, we monitored the performance of the posts and consolidated the findings. Heres what we found:

Hootsuites recommended times still helped the posts perform better, with higher impressions, comments, and likes on average than the random cadence of posting from the first week. For example, we saw a 30% increase in impressions, from 2,200 the week before to 2,900 during the Hootsuite Recommendation week.

The best-performing post got 30% more likes than the best-performing post the week prior.

Its safe to conclude that posting when your audience is online will generate more engagement on Instagram. While this may seem like a basic principle, its easy to get caught up in producing quality content itself that you dont stop to think about getting the maximized engagement on all your hard work by posting at the best time. So, what does it mean to post at the best time?

First, its essential to recognize that the best time will look different for everyonedepending on your brand, your goals, and the platform that you choose. Secondly, once youve nailed down an optimal time, understand that your audiences habits will evolve over timeand thus, so will your optimal time.

As you build out your social media strategy for the year, consider your goals and the audience you are trying to target. Then, research your audiences social media behaviors and get acquainted with them when they are active on social. You can also tap into your insights natively through Instagram or use Hootsuites automated scheduling tools for recommendations.

I encourage you to analyze test times on different platforms over different times. Every social media platform has its own user behaviors and may have suggestions on the best times to post you may be surprised with your findings!

At Hootsuite, we publish quarterly Digital Reports that include great in-depth data on different audiences and their internet/social media usage habits.

We hope these insights are useful as you schedule your next social posts! You can also check out our Hootsuite blog to read up on some of our other experiments, learn more about digital strategy and keep up with notable industry news!

Shutterstock's Color Trends for 2022 sheds light on global preferences to help marketers catch viewers' attention and align brand messages

Do 'For You' Page hashtags work on TikTok? Hootsuite's Senior Social Marketing Manager, Amanda Wood, and her team seek the

A new UK Bill wants influencers to display a warning logo on altered body images posted on social media to

Pinterest published new insights revealing that the male demographic is not only growing, but also willing to spend more for

Pinterest's latest research reveals interesting insights about Gen Z's attitudes towards trying new products.

What's the optimal number of hashtags to use on Instagram?Hootsuite's Senior Social Marketing Manager, Amanda Wood, and her team lookfor

Hootsuite's Senior Manager of Content, Sarah Dawley, reveals her team's latest research on the future of social media.

This month,Hootsuite's Social Marketing Senior Manager, Amanda Wood, and her team test what happens when you buy followers on TikTok.

A recent study reports that 43% of Americans surveyed blame social media for the decline of empathy in society.

Continued here:
What's The Best Time To Post On Instagram? - We are Social Media