Instagram Posting and Engagement Heat Map

What's your favorite time to post to get great engagement?


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Vyxion

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Has anyone come across a heat map that explains the best and worst times to post on Instagram for getting engagement? Looking for stats for each day of the week with different time zones. I've got a general idea, but it would be great to see that actual stats behind it.

Thanks!

I'll include a poll for people to vote on their favorite times to post on the weekdays. These times will be based on USA - Pacific Standard Time
 
You can find different data regarding to this. It can depend on the source you're reading, whether the niche is SFW or NSFW, just to mention something obvious.

You need to know your audience too. Are they adults working 9-5 jobs, stay at home moms/dads, college kids, night owls? You also need to know the location of your audience. In big countries with multiple time zones it's not enough to know the country, you'll need more precise data to be able to find out the top time zone(s).

And when you think you figured out the most busiest hours to post, you aren't done yet. There's another thing to consider: those are the hours when most of the posts occur, so you need to compete with a lot more posts than if you'd be posting in less busy hours. It's very similar when particular eBay sellers schedule their listings to end in night hours, because there's less competition, although there are also less buyers.

Different studies show that most of the posts occur between 15:00 and 16:00. What does this mean? That you should avoid posting in that time slot.
Most people sleep 7-8 hours a day (let's say from 00:00 to 07:00), that 1/3rd of the day is not a good time to post, the other 2/3rd is a go generally. Experiment. Start posting at 07:00 EST (04:00 PST) and stop at 00:00 EST (21:00 PST).

There seem to be a consensus on the best days to post and those are Wednesday and Thursday. I can't attest to this, but multiple studies came to this conclusion, so there must be some truth to it.

The best time to post can depend on the media type too. Most of the data what you can gather applies to picture posting (unless stated otherwise), but not video posting. It's different, videos should be posted in the evening hours or at night, because people like to watch those in full with sound at home (after work/school).

The best you can do is experiment with your audience and note engagement patterns.
 
You can find different data regarding to this. It can depend on the source you're reading, whether the niche is SFW or NSFW, just to mention something obvious.

You need to know your audience too. Are they adults working 9-5 jobs, stay at home moms/dads, college kids, night owls? You also need to know the location of your audience. In big countries with multiple time zones it's not enough to know the country, you'll need more precise data to be able to find out the top time zone(s).

And when you think you figured out the most busiest hours to post, you aren't done yet. There's another thing to consider: those are the hours when most of the posts occur, so you need to compete with a lot more posts than if you'd be posting in less busy hours. It's very similar when particular eBay sellers schedule their listings to end in night hours, because there's less competition, although there are also less buyers.

Different studies show that most of the posts occur between 15:00 and 16:00. What does this mean? That you should avoid posting in that time slot.
Most people sleep 7-8 hours a day (let's say from 00:00 to 07:00), that 1/3rd of the day is not a good time to post, the other 2/3rd is a go generally. Experiment. Start posting at 07:00 EST (04:00 PST) and stop at 00:00 EST (21:00 PST).

There seem to be a consensus on the best days to post and those are Wednesday and Thursday. I can't attest to this, but multiple studies came to this conclusion, so there must be some truth to it.

The best time to post can depend on the media type too. Most of the data what you can gather applies to picture posting (unless stated otherwise), but not video posting. It's different, videos should be posted in the evening hours or at night, because people like to watch those in full with sound at home (after work/school).

The best you can do is experiment with your audience and note engagement patterns.
Very detailed reply. I appreciate it.

My biggest audience is male and female in the age 24-30 range. It's a landscape photography niche of my own work. (Professional camera and editing) I expect that my audience has jobs and work 8-4/9-5 jobs. and I also can see that they are mostly from the West Coast of the USA. (That's why I said PST time zone) If most people post at a certain time, wouldn't this mean that more users are on Instagram? I've done a lot of my own experimenting and found that afternoons/early evenings have worked best for me, but I also have noticed a HUGE drop in engagement in the last 10 days. My pictures averaged 2300-2700/post in 48hrs and now I'm only getting 1400-1700 in 24hrs. If anything, the picture quality has gone up, I'm targeting the exact same audience, and using the same schedule, with similar hash tags. I wonder if things have changed.
 
If most people post at a certain time, wouldn't this mean that more users are on Instagram?
Yes, but it also means that it's the most busy time to post, so you need to compete with a lot of other posts opposed to posting in a less busy hour. But if you tested it and you found that it's the best for you, then i guess you should be posting in the most busiest slot.

I also have noticed a HUGE drop in engagement in the last 10 days
The engagement drop can be a penalty too and has nothing to do with the time slots you use to post.
 
Yes, but it also means that it's the most busy time to post, so you need to compete with a lot of other posts opposed to posting in a less busy hour. But if you tested it and you found that it's the best for you, then i guess you should be posting in the most busiest slot.


The engagement drop can be a penalty too and has nothing to do with the time slots you use to post.
Surely it's difficult to know the answer, but what sort of penalty might I be incurring? Yes, I'm using a bot. I do feel like I have it set up very well however. I'm liking only my own followers content, so that it shows I engage with my followers, and I'm following and unfollowing 700-900 accounts per day with a 4 day wait in between on accounts that interacted with my target niche big accounts. I am using 30 hashtags in each post and have been doing that from the beginning. It seems like there's talk around that 30 is too many now and that IG is viewing it negatively. I'm going to try posting an image with only 10 today and see if that changes anything. (My competition posts with 30 hashtags, has 1k less followers, and is getting 4,000-6,000 likes/post with lots of comments)
 
hi again, haha

I post between 7-9am PST and so do the majority of my successful IG photographer friends
 
hi again, haha

I post between 7-9am PST and so do the majority of my successful IG photographer friends
thanks for the feedback. What niche is this for?
 
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