Unlocking the Code: Discover the Best Time to Post on Instagram for Likes

As of January 2023, Instagram recorded over two billion monthly active users. It was also named marketers' second most-used social media channel in 2022. With the continuous rise of users and the increasing number of marketers leveraging the app, Instagram has become a powerful digital marketing tool.

Your Instagram likes are one of the most significant ways to determine your marketing success on the platform. A high number usually means your posts are entertaining or helpful, while a low number could indicate that some aspects need improvement.

Posting times greatly influence your Instagram likes. It involves optimizing the days and specific times you upload content to your Instagram account. This marketing strategy on Instagram aims to attract and engage active users, resulting in higher engagement rates.

If you need to familiarize yourself with Instagram posting times, keep reading to learn its importance, the best times to post, and how to determine the best posting times for your business account.

Key Takeaways

• Posting times are ideal content posting schedules that increase likes and engagement on Instagram.
• Many factors influence them, including algorithms, content, time zones, industry type, and peak online hours.
• When finding your best Instagram posting times, you can use Instagram analytics, perform competitor analysis, and experiment with different hours to see what gives the best results.
• To maximize your best posting hours, employ marketing strategies such as posting stories and reels, paying for Instagram ads, cross-posting or reposting on other social media platforms, and using the appropriate hashtags.

The Importance of Posting Times on Instagram

Instagram posting times are your company's personalized posting schedule based on a content calendar. They matter because they aim to increase your likes and engagements on the app. They are also a critical factor in Instagram's algorithms.

Instagram algorithms help show the most engaging and relevant content to users. They use key ranking signals, including recency and early engagement for Instagram posts, which can be influenced by posting times. For these reasons, knowing the best times to post on Instagram is essential for your business.

Posting at the optimal times can also help you reach a broader audience segment, creating more opportunities to connect, engage, and interact with potential customers or clients. This way, you can build or increase your enterprise's sales, profit, and revenue.

Factors To Consider When Looking for the Best Instagram Posting Times

You can't determine your best posting times on Instagram overnight. Finding the specific time frames is hard work because you should consider many factors. Before you start your Instagram scheduling, here are the following factors you should keep in mind:

Days of the week

There are days when most Instagram users specifically access their accounts. This influx is also known as peak times because many users browse and use their Instagram apps simultaneously. For example, in the early mornings, most people open their phones and check their accounts for messages or updates when they wake up, which is typical during the weekdays.

However, Monday mornings may have low engagement because many people hardly have time to open their phones while rushing to work. Most social media users are active on weekends with more free time, leading to higher engagement. Either way, your chosen days of the week to post on Instagram should be based on your industry and marketing goals.

Lunch breaks

Some people are prohibited from accessing social media on workdays to focus on their jobs. Although this is the rule for some, they still have breaks when they can freely use their social media accounts.

As lunch hours begin, you may find that many people check their Instagram accounts. This time of day usually lasts for an hour. Some people may also slightly lose interest in their work during late afternoons when their shifts are about to end, which could turn their attention to Instagram.
Remember that not all lunch hours are similar. They still depend on location and time zones.

Time zones

Not all countries and localities have the same time zones, making the work week different for various locations. Due to different time zones, Instagram users have different active hours. These time zones can also determine your followers and other users' peak online activity. Some examples are Eastern Standard Time (EST) and Pacific Standard Time (PST).

Wherever your target audiences are, you should follow their time zones, especially when targeting only one location or local area.

Frequency

Posting frequency is crucial on Instagram. How regular are your postings? Are they daily or weekly?

Regular postings can help keep your Instagram page fresh, as followers and visitors know you're keeping the account active. You can post one to three times daily and refine as needed, depending on your Instagram scheduling. Remember to post different content types to avoid being too focused on marketing.

Types of content

There are distinct content types that can gain likes at specific times on Instagram, which is why considering what you'll post is essential. For example, posting about wines is ideal on Friday and Saturday evenings. If you plan to post inspirational content, Mondays are the best days for motivational purposes.

When determining your best Instagram posting times, you should identify the type of content, the goal (to motivate, inspire, inform, educate, or entertain), and when it is most helpful to your followers and other users.

Industry type

Different industries operate differently, which can influence marketing strategies and social media management. Most posting times depend on your business's sector. To give you an idea, here are the ideal posting times and days for the following sectors:

• Media companies – Wednesdays at 8 AM
• Finance – Wednesdays at 6 AM
• Educational institutions – Fridays at 10 AM
• Healthcare – Mondays at 1 PM
• Consumers' goods – Saturdays at 11 AM and 1 PM
• Tech companies – Wednesdays at 8 AM and Fridays at 10 AM
• Travel and tourism – Wednesdays at 12 PM
• Food companies – Wednesdays between 10 AM and 12 PM
• Non-profit organizations – Weekdays at 10 AM and 3 PM
• B2C companies - Saturdays every 11 AM and 1 PM

Finding Your Best Instagram Posting Times

Now that you know the importance of posting times on Instagram and the factors you should consider, here are the digital marketing strategies that can help you find the best times to post on Instagram:

Use Archive

Archive is a social media management tool designed for TikTok and Instagram. We have offers and services that can build user-generated content (UGC) for your Instagram posts.

Our solution has a marketing feature focusing on metrics for Instagram followers, likes, and finding relevant content. This integration lets you see your Instagram followers and other users' peak online hours and engagement rates. We can automate and streamline your Instagram marketing tasks and manage all your rights requests in one database. Using our software, you can organize and share content with easy, publicly-accessible links.

Archive also detects every post where your brand is tagged, reducing the time you may consume scrolling. Moreover, we have Instagram Capture, which detects, downloads, and displays your content in one app, which is ideal for content repurposing.

Other significant features Archive can provide are influencer marketing, tracking campaign performance, hashtag monitoring, collaboration and affiliates management, and reputation management.

Study Instagram analytics

Instagram provides data analytics, which you will find on Instagram Insights. Instagram Insights is a marketing feature that allows you to learn more about your overall performance and followers. You can use it to see audience engagement on specific posts, including photos, videos, stories, reels, and live videos, to determine the best days and times to post. This service is free and only available for professional accounts, which are creator or business accounts.

To view your insights, go to your profile, tap the three horizontal lines in the upper right corner, then click Insights from the menu. Choose the metrics under the Overview section. These metrics include Accounts reached, Accounts engaged, and Total followers. For specific content, the metrics have the following:

• Content interactions – Metrics for actions taken to engage with your content, such as comments, likes, shares, replies, and saves.
• Ad – If you use Instagram ads, this section provides information if your sponsored posts have been boosted.
• Plays – A feature that shows the number of times users played your videos. They are counted when someone clicks to play the videos or when they automatically play.
• In the top left corner, there's an option to change the data time frame for up to 90 days. It lets you see performance metrics from the previous week or month.

You can also view insights by clicking the Professional Dashboard on your profile. Besides Insights access, this dashboard provides professional tools and educational information to help grow your business. It is only available on Instagram's mobile version.

Conduct competitor analysis

Staying on top of the competition is vital to business growth. You should employ efficient strategies to outperform your competitors, making competitor analysis significant to Instagram marketing.

Competitor analysis is the practice of identifying your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. It involves assessing similar brands to gain insights into their branding, sales, offers, and marketing strategies. For Instagram, it focuses on analyzing your competitors' activities, posts, stories, reels, and interactions.

Analyzing your competitors' Instagram activities includes looking into their posting frequency and the times and days they post. This research will inform you of the posting days and time frames to leverage. You'll also need to evaluate the content types they publish within these time frames to distinguish their selling points and identify gaps you can fill. This way, you can re-engineer their content and posting strategies for your business.

Competitor analysis can also help you determine your value proposition and its unique selling points, learn market trends, establish a benchmark, and identify potential follower demographics, interests, and locations to reach more consumers.

Try experimenting

Knowing your best posting times on Instagram is often a matter of trial and error. What works this week may not work the next. Although it can be time-consuming, experimenting with different posting times and days helps you know the best times to post on the app.

You can experiment with varying time frames every quarter or half a year. If you have yet to determine your best posting times, this is an ideal way to start. If you already have an established content calendar, keep your best posting times, delete the underperforming ones, and add a few experimental ones. You may keep an 80:20 ratio of 80 percent tested and 20 percent experimental.

Schedule your posts

You will not always be online during peak activity hours. Whether you're in the experimenting phase or not, scheduling posts for several weeks when you know you will be unavailable is helpful. Planning your posts can also provide enough data to find your best posting times.

Depending on your engagement and trial needs, you can set this schedule daily or weekly. Once you return, check your insights and refine your approaches when necessary. You can streamline your Instagram scheduling and create templates using scheduling tools like Hootsuite.

Remember that your best posting times could fluctuate as your following and engagement grow. Always keep track of your data analytics to see what needs adjustments. You can use an analytics tool like Sprout Social to expand your engagement metrics.

Other Strategies To Drive More Instagram Likes

Best Instagram posting times are not just about the time of day, work week, and creating quality content. Other marketing aspects also influence them. To help you maximize your best posting times, here are the other marketing strategies you should practice:

Utilize Instagram stories, highlights, and reels

Instagram stories, highlights, and reels are valuable features that could boost your likes and audience engagement.

Instagram Stories

Launched in 2016, Instagram Stories is how Instagram users share their favorite moments of the day. When they share multiple photos and videos, they become a slideshow called Your Story.

The good thing about stories is that you can post them whenever you like, and viewers can view them within 24 hours. You can make them engaging by embedding interactive tools such as texts, filters, polls, music, Q&As, stickers, countdowns, and GIFs.

Instagram Highlights

Instagram Highlights are a way to feature stories on your profile and share them longer. They appear on your profile below the bio section.

To create highlights, tap the New icon under your profile picture, choose previously posted stories, select a cover, and create a name. Once done, they'll show up as standalone stories that will stay until you remove them.

To edit or remove highlights, press and hold them, then tap Edit highlight or Delete highlight.

You can use highlights as a social media strategy by grouping them with similar cover designs showcasing your brand.

Instagram Reels

Instagram Reels enable you to publish short-form videos. You can use them to make 15- to 90-second videos with engaging audio, effects, and creative tools. You can post reels on your Instagram feed and make them available in the Explore section to expand your audience.

Some examples of content types you can use for reels are displaying your skills, showing your business operations, and creating tutorials.

Cross-post or repost on multiple social media channels

Not all social media users have Instagram. If you want to let more potential customers know about your Instagram page, cross-post or repost your content on other social media platforms.

Cross-posting is sharing similar content on multiple social media channels. Rather than creating different content for different mediums, you can do this to save time. Before you post on Instagram, the menu will show Share to Facebook or Share to Twitter options. You will enable them to cross-post content on the said platforms. You can also post Instagram content on your TikTok business account.

Meanwhile, reposting is commonly known as re-sharing other users' content, but you can also do this for your business. It is ideal for old content to reach a broader audience segment. With so much content published daily, your Instagram followers are unlikely to see every piece of content you post. This is how reposting allows Instagram users to see old content they haven't seen.

If you plan to repost TikTok content on Instagram, remove TikTok watermarks first because Instagram algorithms can't promote reels with watermarks.

Leverage Instagram ads

Instagram ads are sponsored content that promotes your products, services, and offers. They can appear as photos or videos on feeds, stories, and reels that will help boost your brand awareness, traffic, leads, and conversions. Since they resemble typical Instagram posts, make them eye-catching and engaging.

You can run Instagram ads using the following three methods:

• Directly from Instagram – All professional accounts can create Instagram ads by boosting their feed posts, reels, and stories.‍
• From Facebook page – If you have a Facebook page, link your Instagram account to create ads. That way, when you create ads, they can all appear on Facebook and Instagram.‍
• Ad campaigns through Meta Ads Manager – Meta Ads Manager has comprehensive tools to help you create Facebook and Instagram ads.

Instagram ads also have links that direct users to take action on your site. Examples include:

• Buying products
• Sending inquirie
• Using vouchers or discounts
• Learning more about your business through the Learn More button

Go for influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a popular marketing strategy on Instagram. It involves collaborating with influencers to market products and services and aims to improve brand recognition.

Going for influencer marketing means teaming up with the right influencers. Unlike celebrities, you can find influencers anywhere. They have different niches and can be anyone with a large social media following. Some major influencer niches are fashion, beauty, travel, lifestyle, sports, animals, gaming, health and fitness, and technology.

Finding the most suitable influencers for your business can be tricky. Here are the five types of influencers to help you identify who you need:

• Nano influencers: They have 1,000 to 10,000 followers and are often excited to collaborate and create content for brands.
• Micro-influencers: They have 10,000 to 50,000 followers with a niche focus and intimate connection with their followers for higher engagements.
• Mid-tier influencers: They have 50,000 to 500,000 followers and are usually experienced in creating content because of their hard work.
• Macro influencers: They have 500,000 to a million followers who can be celebrities, thought leaders, and TV personalities.
• Mega influencers: They have more than a million followers who are considered A-list celebrities, but their engagement rates can be low.

Remember to choose influencers aligned with your branding. This way, talking and working with them is easier because you understand each other.

Host giveaways and post teasers

Giveaways and teasers are interactive ways to increase Instagram likes and achieve higher engagement. They are fun, engaging, cost-effective, and easy to do, which helps increase your followers and brand awareness. They can also help establish stronger customer relationships with existing followers.

You should provide action guidelines to encourage engagement and interaction when hosting giveaways. They include sharing, commenting, liking, tagging friends, reposting with hashtags, and posting photos or videos. Additionally, you should pick prizes that Instagram users will love.

To expand your reach, you can repost the giveaway on your other social media accounts and ask them to go to your Instagram page for more details.

On the other hand, teasers are sneak peeks or hints of new releases to make Instagram followers anticipate them. They can boost engagement because users can revisit your profile to check for updates or announcements. They may also share the teasers with their friends, which helps increase followers.

Use appropriate hashtags

Hashtags are phrases, keywords, or sentences with a pound (#) symbol. They are also significant ranking signals for Instagram algorithms, so you should optimize them.

Instagram users click on hashtags relevant to their interests. Since they browse specific hashtags, you must use the appropriate ones to ensure your posts reach your target audience. Appropriate hashtags are relevant and aligned with your brand.

Did you know? Instagram launched the Instagram Collab in 2021. This feature allows two professional accounts to share one Instagram post. Since one post shows up on two professional profiles, these businesses can reach and engage with different audiences, which increases their views, likes, comments, shares, and profile visits.

Boost Your Instagram Likes and Engagement With Archive

Finding your best posting times to reach the highest engagement rates and likes on Instagram is hard work. You shouldn't just post whenever you like and expect many Instagram users to like your content.

Reach out to Archive today and learn how we can provide an adept Instagram marketing campaign for your business. We have solutions that can upscale your Instagram scheduling and content creation.

Increase your Instagram engagement through Archive. Request a demo to learn more about how we can boost your content's likes and shares today.

FAQS on The Best Times To Post on Instagram for Likes

When's the worst time to post on Instagram?

There are no best or worst days to post on Instagram, as success depends on various factors. However, the worst times are generally when most people don't use their smartphones. They include too-early mornings, too-late evenings, and specific time slots during work hours, weekdays, and weekends.

Does Instagram have post limits?

No, Instagram doesn't have post limits. You can post as much as you like, but you should post wisely.

What happens when you constantly post on Instagram?

Instagram algorithms may detect constant postings as spammy, which can result in warnings and account suspensions or locks. The platform can also block you from commenting, liking, or sharing posts. Always follow Instagram's Community Guidelines.