You spend a lot of time carefully composing your Instagram posts, and all you can hope for is that they attract a large following.

You need interaction (i.e., likes, comments, and shares). You need to draw attention to yourself so that other people would want to do business with you.

That’s when Instagram comes in handy.

Any respectable online store will have a plethora of stunning product photos and user-created content to share on Instagram.

However, what happens if you accidentally publish at the wrong time? Will anyone actually read your fantastic articles?

How articles can get lost in the algorithm, when studies show is the optimum time to post, and how to find your own optimal posting time are all topics we’ll cover in this article.

What changed that made my Instagram post disappear?

Instagram’s unique algorithm determines which posts are displayed to users, as is the case with all social media.

The goal is to provide users with a positive experience (read: encourage them to spend more time within the app), but what does this mean for brands?

Instagram’s algorithm determines the order in which posts appear in feeds, hashtag results, the Explore page, and elsewhere.

It does this by comparing the captions, alt text, and hashtags of a post to determine the user’s intended meaning.

Whether or not a user sees a post depends heavily on how they connect with your brand (messages, comments, follows), how interested they are in your business (regular interaction), and how timely and relevant your material is to the user (recentness, trendiness of issue).

Recency is the most important of these for our present discussion.
Even if it’s only by a few hours or minutes, new content will outperform older content. If you want to reach them, you need to post while they are online.

This will allow you to replace your rivals as the attendees.

If you don’t have a firm grasp on this material, starting with some broad principles is a good idea. Let’s get started with it.

How often should you post to Instagram?

While it would be convenient to have a blanket response to this issue, the optimal time to post on Instagram really does depend on who you’re trying to reach.

Each company needs to know their target audience inside and out in order to post at the optimal time on Instagram.

However, there are some rules about when to publish, and we’ll go through those so you can get started in the proper direction.

A review of the most authoritative research on when to make Instagram posts
The optimum times to post on Instagram have been analysed by some of the most well-known figures in social media management.

I’ve combined information from Hootsuite, Later, Sprout Social, and Expert Voice (the latter is from 2020) to try to get a clearer picture.

Although there was consensus among some research for particular weekdays, this was not the case for all.

The results from Later stood out the most, with periods between 5 and 6 a.m. being consistently shown across the board.

Similarly to the findings of other studies, they conclude that Saturdays and Sundays are ideal for making posts, while Wednesdays and Thursdays are the worst.

What these studies have found about the best time to post to Instagram is detailed below.
You can get some ideas of when you would want to post for each day of the week, although there are some noticeable conflicts on what time is preferable.

Instagram’s optimal posting times, broken down by day of the week

We analysed the aforementioned studies and determined the optimal posting hours for each day of the week.

There is no ideal time to post on Sunday given the wide window of possibility and the general consensus that it is not the best day for blogging.

Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. is the sweet spot for Instagram posts.
Wednesday at 11 a.m. is the best time to make an Instagram post.
On Thursdays, 11 AM is the sweet spot for Instagram posts.
Posting to Instagram on a Friday between 11 AM and 2 PM is optimal.
Saturdays between 10 and 11 a.m. are ideal for Instagram updates.
There is no agreed upon optimal time on Sundays to make Instagram posts.
Weekends are typically not a good time to make a post.

People are off doing their own thing and using Instagram primarily to share photos from a trip to the beach rather than to peruse advertisements.

There is some unanimity on the optimal day to post, even though your brand is probably not posting only once a week.

With the exception of that one study, Wednesday is the greatest day to post on Instagram. On that day, 11 AM would be the best time to publish.

Instagram’s optimal posting times for different countries

Brands catering to consumers in just a handful of close time zones, like the United States, would do well to follow the aforementioned guidelines as a starting point.

Your posting time will have less of an effect when your audience grows more dispersed around the globe.
If you want to reach people in both the United States and Australia, for instance, you might want to post at different times.

Instagram’s greatest posting times for increasing business awareness

Once you have a sizable Instagram following and have shared a lot of posts, you can begin analysing your data to determine when you are most likely to receive the most engagement.

Fortunately, Instagram provides the metrics you need to begin fine-tuning your social media approach.