The Best Time To Post On Social Media (2025 Guide To Popular Networks)

What is the best time to post on social media?

Influencers and content creators may be able to post whatever they want whenever they want, but brands cannot rely on that technique for their own social media success.

A smart brand will choose their posting time for all social media networks carefully to maximize their engagements.

In this post, we analyzed data for multiple social platforms to determine the best times to post to each one.

You’ll find some additional tips throughout this post. With answers to important questions at the end.

The best time to post on social media

We took a look at data from 12 different studies on the best times to post on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

According to that data, the absolute best day of the week to post on social media is Monday and the absolute best time of the day to post is 3PM.

These two figures received the highest number of engagements across all studies.

Friday also received the most engagement across all studies as did the hours of 2PM, 10AM, 7AM and 4PM in that order (from most engagements to least engagements).

In general, social media activity is highest on weekdays and lowest on weekends.

It also tends to be highest between 9AM and 5PM.

These are the absolute best times to post on each individual platform according to each source:

Facebook

Buffer says the best time to post on Facebook is Friday at 10AM
Hootsuite: Monday at 10AM

Instagram

Buffer: Weekdays at 7AM
Hootsuite: Monday at 9AM

TikTok

Buffer: Monday at 2PM, Wednesday at 4PM and Saturday at 8AM
SocialPilot: Midweek from 10AM to 12PM, 2PM to 4PM, and 6PM and 10PM

YouTube

Buffer: Friday at 3PM
SocialPilot: Weekdays from 2PM to 4PM

Twitter (X)

Buffer: Monday and Friday at 11AM
SocialPilot: 8AM to 10AM and 6PM to 9PM on weekdays

LinkedIn

Buffer: Weekdays from 9AM to 5PM
Hootsuite: Monday at 1PM

Will these times work for your social media strategy?

The short answer to this question is maybe. There’s no guarantee that following a single one of these schedules will work for your own social media strategy.

Here’s why. Notice how different the outcomes of these studies are?

They’re all conducted by reputable social media scheduling application companies who analyzed millions upon millions of social media posts. You’d expect their results to be a little more aligned, wouldn’t you?

That’s the nature of social media. It’s one of the most unpredictable platforms for advertising.

Not only do different target audiences use their chosen platforms differently, they also have different reasons for using them.

Plus, each platform has their own set of rules, algorithms and trends that affect how content performs.

That said, they do provide you with a rough benchmark when you’re just getting started. And that’s how this data should be treated – as a starting point only. Nothing more.

How to really determine the best time to post

The most effective way to determine the best time to post on a specific social media platform would be to run your own tests.

If your target audience can be defined by specific demographics, you may be able to determine when they’re most active on social media by researching that demographic.

Demographics can be defined by things like age, gender, race and nationality but also things like identified groups, such as “developers,” “gamers” or “entrepreneurs.”

Some social media platforms also have analytics that let you know when your audience is most active.

Plus, some tools for social media management can define recommended posting times for you based on your target audience’s social media use and your brand’s social media use.

SocialBee, Sendible, Metricool, Iconosquare, etc. They’ll all do this for you.

We’ll list specific tips for each individual platform in each section below.

Does your posting schedule matter?

Your posting schedule is important and unimportant for different reasons.

It’s mostly important for your active audience. These are followers who consume your content as soon as it’s available. They have notifications enabled for your profiles and regularly engage with your brand.

Because these followers are more likely to engage with your brand than casual social media users are, they’re also more likely to purchase any new products you promote.

Therefore, it’s best to post when these followers are most likely to be active on social media.

So, then, why might your posting schedule not matter at all?

Those who do not follow you will likely find your content through the algorithm. That is, they’ll stumble across your content naturally as they browse social media.

There’s no set timeframe on when a particular social media platform may recommend your content to potential new followers, so in this case, your posting schedule doesn’t matter.

Bonus tip: When you’re just getting started, focus on scheduling content at the peak times for each network. This will give your content the largest opportunity to be seen and get recommended by the algorithms.

The best times to post on social media

These are the best times to post on…

Facebook
Instagram
TikTok
YouTube
Twitter (X)
LinkedIn

The best time to post on Facebook

We examined two studies to determine the best times to post on Facebook. These studies were conducted by Buffer and Hootsuite, two prominent social media management tools who specialize in scheduling.

In Buffer’s study, the company analyzed 1 million Facebook posts that were published through Buffer by businesses, influencers and creators.

They found engagement to be highest on the weekends with an all-time high on Friday at 10AM.

The company theorizes that because Facebook’s largest demographic are adults between the ages of 25 and 34, they primarily browse the platform at the start of their workdays.

These are the absolute best times to post on Facebook, according to Buffer:

Monday at 10AM
Tuesday at 9AM
Wednesday at 9AM
Thursday at 10AM
Friday at 10AM
Saturday at 9AM
Sunday at 9AM

And these are peak engagement times for Facebook, according to Buffer’s study:

Monday: 8AM to 1PM
Tuesday: 9AM to 11AM
Wednesday: 9AM to 11AM
Thursday: 9AM to 10AM
Friday: 9AM to 4PM
Saturday: 9AM to 10AM
Sunday: 9AM to 10AM

The second study we looked at was Hootsuite’s.

Their data pool was much smaller as they only analyzed thousands of posts published through Hootsuite compared to Buffer’s millions, but that data is still quite valuable and offers a different perspective.

According to Hootsuite, the best time to post on Facebook is Monday at 10AM.

This is a common trend Hootsuite discovered for the rest of the week:

Monday at 10AM
Tuesday at 10AM
Wednesday at 10AM
Thursday at 11AM
Friday at 11AM
Saturday at 8AM
Sunday at 10AM

You can see how similar absolute peak times are from both studies. This is a strong indicator that the best time to post on Facebook is early morning when social media users are heading to and getting started with work.

How to determine your own brand’s best time to post on Facebook

The easiest way to determine when to post on Facebook would be to use a social media analytics tool.

You can use a dedicated social media analytics tool or a publishing tool that includes social media analytics.

SocialBee and Sendible, for instance, both offer recommended posting schedules based on your target audience and past performance.

You can also use Facebook’s own Insights tool to compare your most successful posts against your least successful posts.

Facebook keeps a record of when each post was published, so you’ll be able to pinpoint trends on whether or not certain posts performed better or worse depending on when you published them.

Bonus tip: As far as social media engagement goes, Buffer’s study revealed that video posts perform the best on Facebook, then image posts followed by text posts. Link posts perform the worst.

The best time to post on Instagram

For Instagram, we relied on data from Buffer and Hootsuite again.

In Buffer’s study, the company analyzed 5.5 million Instagram posts that were published through the company’s publishing app.

There wasn’t a single day that stood out in the study, but Buffer did determine that the best time to post on Instagram was weekdays between 7 and 8AM.

These are the absolute best times to post on Instagram, according to Buffer:

Monday at 7AM
Tuesday at 7AM
Wednesday at 7AM
Thursday at 7AM
Friday at 4PM
Saturday at 7AM
Sunday at 7PM

Instagram also has additional peak times when the general social media population is active:

Monday: 4PM to 8PM
Tuesday: 6PM
Wednesday: No additional peak time
Thursday: 4PM
Friday: 7AM
Saturday: 4PM to 8PM
Sunday: No additional peak time

Hootsuite analyzed 30,000 Instagram posts in their study. That study revealed Monday at 9AM as being the absolute best time to post on Instagram.

Here are the best times to post on Instagram for the rest of the week, according to Hootsuite:

Monday at 9AM
Tuesday at 9AM
Wednesday at 9AM
Thursday at 8AM
Friday at 9AM
Saturday at 10AM
Sunday at 10AM

One common trend to note from these two studies is how Instagram content performs best when you upload in the morning on weekdays.

How to determine your own brand’s best time to post on Instagram

If you already post to Instagram, you should be able to view quite a bit of data in Instagram Insights.

There’s a section of the Insights dashboard that lets you view your audience’s most active times by hour and day.

You can also use social media analytics tools to view this data or use a scheduling tool that will create a recommended posting schedule for you based on your Instagram activity and audience.

Bonus tip: According to Buffer’s study, Instagram Reels are the best type of content to post to Instagram if you want to increase your social media presence on the platform. Carousel posts and image posts also perform well, though they receive fewer engagements than reels.

The best time to post on TikTok

For TikTok, we’ve collected data from Buffer and SocialPilot.

Buffer analyzed over 1 million TikTok posts that were published through the Buffer publishing app.

Their study revealed three best times to post on TikTok: Monday at 2PM, Wednesday at 4PM and Saturday at 8AM.

These are the best times to post for the entire week:

Monday at 2PM
Tuesday at 10AM
Wednesday at 4PM
Thursday at 4PM
Friday at 10AM
Saturday at 8AM
Sunday at 10AM

And these are peak engagement times for the week, according to Buffer:

Monday: 1PM to 5PM
Tuesday: 8AM to 12PM
Wednesday: 3PM to 7PM; smaller engagement peak at 9AM
Thursday: Largest engagement peak at 4PM; smaller peak between 10AM and 2 PM
Friday: 9AM to 11AM
Saturday: 8AM to 10AM as well as 2PM to 6PM
Sunday: 10AM to 1PM

SocialPilot analyzed content posted by 50,000 TikTok accounts for their study.

They found the best times to post to be midweek from 10AM to 12PM, 2PM to 4PM and 6PM to 10PM.

These are the absolute best times to post on TikTok, according to their data:

Monday at 6AM, 10AM and 10PM
Tuesday at 2AM, 4AM and 9AM
Wednesday at 7AM, 8AM and 11PM
Thursday at 9AM, 12PM and 7PM
Friday at 5AM, 1PM and 3PM
Saturday at 11AM, 7PM and 8PM
Sunday at 7AM, 8AM and 4PM

Because SocialPilot’s study lists several best times to post, there’s no clear pattern between these two studies.

How to determine your own brand’s best time to post on TikTok

The best way to determine when you should post videos to TikTok is by viewing your own analytics within the TikTok app.

It has data on when your followers are most active.

Alternatively, SocialBee provides some extremely deep insights into TikTok analytics, including post times. You can also change how the post times are determined by changing your target metric to shares, impressions, likes, comments, etc.

The best time to publish YouTube videos

To determine the best time to publish YouTube videos, we looked at data from Buffer and SocialPilot.

Buffer analyzed over 1 million YouTube videos in an attempt to determine the best time to post on YouTube.

According to their data, the absolute best time to post videos on YouTube is Friday at 3PM but engagement is high between 2PM and 5PM on this day.

Here are the best times to post on YouTube for the rest of the week, according to Buffer:

Monday at 5PM
Tuesday at 2PM
Wednesday at 9AM
Thursday at 6PM
Friday at 3PM
Saturday at 4PM
Sunday at 11AM

These are additional peak engagement times for every day of the week, according to Buffer:

Monday: 3PM and 11PM
Tuesday: After 11AM
Wednesday: 2PM and 4PM
Thursday: 9AM and 3PM
Friday: 2PM to 5PM
Saturday: 3PM and 5PM
Sunday: 2PM and 3PM

Like TikTok, SocialPilot analyzed videos published by 50,000 YouTube channels for their study.

These are peak engagement time slots for every day of the week, according to their results:

Monday from 2PM to 4PM
Tuesday from 2PM to 4PM
Wednesday from 2PM to 4PM
Thursday from 2PM to 4PM
Friday from 2PM to 4PM
Saturday from 9AM to 11AM
Sunday from 9AM to 11AM

There aren’t many obvious similarities between these two studies, but we can see how the mid to late-afternoon hours tend to be the best times to publish YouTube videos throughout the week.

How to determine your brand’s best time to publish YouTube videos

The best way to determine this is to look at your own analytics within the YouTube Studios dashboard.

There’s data in the Audience tab that lets you know when your viewers are most active on YouTube by the hour.

You’ll see a graph for days of the week with blocks for each hour. Each block has a color. The darker the color, the more activity that hour receives.

In terms of paid tools, SocialBee can provide you with this kind of data. It’s a nice option because the data you get is more customizable.

The best time to post on Twitter (X)

To determine the best time to post on Twitter (X), we borrowed data from Buffer and SocialPilot.

Buffer analyzed over 1 million tweets that were published through the app’s scheduling tool.

They discovered optimal times to tweet to be Monday at 11AM and Friday at 11AM.

These are the best times to post throughout the rest of the week, according to their findings:

Monday at 11AM
Tuesday at 11AM
Wednesday at 12PM
Thursday at 12PM
Friday at 11AM
Saturday at 10PM
Sunday at 7PM

And these are additional peak engagement times for every day of the week:

Monday: 4AM and 4PM
Tuesday: 9AM and 4PM
Wednesday: 3PM and 4PM
Thursday: 10AM and 11AM
Friday: 12AM and 1PM
Saturday: 8PM to 10PM
Sunday: 12AM and 3PM

SocialPilot analyzed tweets posted by more than 50,000 Twitter accounts for their study.

They discovered the best times to tweet to be between 8AM and 10AM as well as 6PM and 9PM on weekdays.

These are other best times to tweet, according to SocialPilot:

Monday from 7AM to 9AM
Tuesday from 10AM to 12PM
Wednesday from 6AM to 8AM
Thursday from 10AM to 1PM
Friday at 8AM
Saturday at 8AM
Sunday at 8AM

These two studies prove that the best time to tweet tends to be on weekdays during the later morning to early afternoon hours.

How to determine your brand’s best time to post on Twitter (X)

The best way to determine when you should tweet is by using a social media management tool that recommends a schedule for Twitter based on your activity on the platform.

SocialBee, Sendible, and Metricool offer this feature, but other social media scheduling tools may as well.

Bonus tip: According to Buffer’s study, video and text-based tweets receive the most engagements on Twitter. Retweets come in third in terms of content types that receive the highest number of engagements on Twitter, but they receive far fewer engagements than videos and text-based tweets. Link and image posts come in fourth and fifth place.

The best time to post on LinkedIn

For our final social network, LinkedIn, we looked at data from Buffer and Hootsuite again.

Buffer analyzed over 1 million posts their users published through Buffer.

Because the social media platform is designed for professional use, it’s not surprising to learn that based on their data, engagement on LinkedIn is high between 9AM and 5PM on weekdays.

However, these are peak engagement times:

Monday: 2PM to 4PM
Tuesday: 2PM and 4PM
Wednesday: 2PM to 4PM; 12PM; 1PM to 3PM
Thursday: 2PM to 4PM; 11AM
Friday: 11AM to 3PM
Saturday: 4PM; 7PM; 10PM
Sunday: 7AM; 12PM; 5PM

Hootsuite’s study revealed the best time to post on LinkedIn as being Monday at 1PM.

Here are the best times to post throughout the rest of the week:

Monday at 1PM
Tuesday at 10AM
Wednesday at 3PM
Thursday at 10AM
Friday at 10AM
Saturday at 12PM
Sunday at 8AM

There aren’t any clear patterns between these two studies, but we can see how the later morning and afternoon hours are prime times for posting on LinkedIn.

How to determine your brand’s best time to post on LinkedIn

SocialBee has analytics for LinkedIn that includes data on when you should post based on your performance on the platform.

Bonus tip: Buffer’s study revealed video posts as being the best type of content to post to LinkedIn in terms of engagement followed by image posts, then PDF posts, then text posts and finally link posts.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best time of the day to post on social media?

Monday 3PM may be the absolute best time to post on social media based on studies from multiple sources on different social media platforms.

However, all audiences and platforms are different, so there’s no true universal best time to post on social media.

Generally, social media users are most active on weekdays and less active on weekends.

What is the best time to post on Instagram?

The best time to post on Instagram is 7AM to 8AM on weekdays, according to Buffer, who analyzed over 1 million Instagram posts published through Buffer to discover this statistic.

Hootsuite’s own study revealed the best time to post on Instagram as being Monday at 9AM.

What is the best time to post on Facebook for maximum exposure?

The best time to post on Facebook is Friday at 10AM, according to a study conducted by Buffer that involved analyzing over 1 million Facebook posts.

Hootsuite analyzed thousands of Facebook posts and determined the best time to post on Facebook to be Monday at 10AM.

Should I post on all platforms at the same time?

No, you should not post on all platforms at the same time if you want to maximize your marketing efforts.

Studies show that social media users are active on each platform at different times throughout the day.

Plus, if your audience follows you on multiple platforms, you risk overwhelming them with the same content or having them miss that content by publishing it to various social media platforms at the same time.

Final thoughts

If you truly want to determine the best time to post on social media, you’re going to have to conduct your own tests.

You can look at your past posts right now and see if you notice any patterns based on when you post and what your performance is.

If not, choose a publishing schedule, and stick to it for several weeks.

Then, choose a different publishing schedule, and stick to that one for several weeks.

Compare your engagement metrics for each timeframe to determine your best time to post.

Take a look at our post analyzing the general population’s social media use for more tips.

Sources:

X Facebook LinkedIn

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