Can Post Timing Improve Your Instagram Engagement?

The hottest social media trend this fall? Complain about less-than-usual Instagram engagement (especially if you haven’t) Tried roles).

Before we go to the “Did I get Shadowban?“Conspiracy theories, it’s important to note that there are many different reasons social media managers might see a small decline. A likely explanation? When COVID restrictions were relaxed in the fall of 2021, people started using social media in different ways.

With that in mind, now seems like the perfect time to experiment change the timing of posts. It’s a simple way to potentially improve engagement, but it’s a powerful one. So, for my next trick, I’ll see if I’m using the one from Hootsuite recommended time for feature publication for your Instagram posts will improve engagement as opposed to posting at any old time I feel like it.

What if that fails? Well I think it’s a pity for them again Shadowbane community.

Let’s go!

Hypothesis: Posting While Your Audience Is Online Can Improve Your Instagram Engagement Rate

Timing is a small but important part of successful social media campaigns. When your audience is online, they’ll be more likely to see what you’ve posted: It’s that simple!

Finding out when that is, of course, is a whole different story. You can comb through yours Instagram analytics and insights manually to summarize these numbers, but tools like Hootsuite’s recommended time to post the feature automate the process.

For this experiment, we’re taking the Hoot-Bot’s wisdom to heart and putting it to the test.

methodology

My usual method of posting on Instagram is “when I feel like it”. To start this big experiment, I did just that. I prepared a handful of beautiful wedding photos to post on the Instagram account of a wedding magazine I work for (we have around 10,000 followers) and spread them out over a week in a deeply methodical manner.

Wednesday afternoon? Sure, that felt right! 8:35 a.m. on a Thursday? Why the hell not! Let’s call it “intuitive posting”. (Patent submitted!)

The following week I posted another selection of beautiful wedding photos (with similar themed captions for scientific control group purposes), but this time I followed Hootsuite’s advice on the best time to post.

If you use your account regularly enough, the recommendations for publish times will appear when you click Schedule while using the Compose tool.

Otherwise, see the “Analyzes” tab for some suggestions. You can select timing recommendations for each network from the drop-down menu in the top left.

Hootsuite bases these suggestions on when your followers are likely to be on a particular social network and when your account has had the most interactions and views in the past.

It’s math (or … science?) And not a bit of intuition. So: did Hoot-bot or my feminine inner powers know best?

What happened when I posted at recommended times?

Okay, trying this experiment while on vacation was admittedly not the best move scientifically. Overall, social media usage habits are completely out of whack, so predicting how people will behave based on recent actions isn’t entirely perfect.

Notwithstanding: The Hootsuite recommended times have helped my posts continue to perform better, with on average higher impressions, comments and likes than my posting method the week before.

I saw 30% more impressions, from 2,200 the previous week to 2,900 during Hootsuite Referral Week. Likewise, my best performing post this week got 30% more likes than the best performing post the week before.

Not that bad.

Yes, that’s a shameless plug for our tool. But it also proves an important principle: post when your audience is online makes a difference. And your audience’s habits may have changed last fall.

But if you didn’t notice, that’s fine! We all learn and grow together here. The most important thing is that this is an opportunity Get your engagement back to where you want it to be.

What do the results mean?

TLDR: Post when your audience is likely online.

This is a rationale, but it’s worth brushing up on, especially at a time when audience behavior is evolving. You may have had their activity under control in the olden days (aka March), but things are changing!

It’s just so old “Do you know where your children are?“Replace PPE, except for” children “with” Social Media Audience “and, uh,” where “with …” when “, I guess?

Sometimes we are so into creating and executing ours large social media campaignsto keep up with ours Social content calendar or Monitoring our social analytics we’re forgetting that one of the biggest success factors is getting people to see the cool thing you’ve spent so much time on. You don’t just take photos of your CEO’s head this butterfly meme after all, for your own pleasure. (Well, at least not quite.)

Prepare to win on social media by premiering your artwork in front of the largest number of eyeballs possible.

That being said, what does it really mean? Post at the “best time”?

The best time to post is unique to you and your goals.

There are general recommendations for that best time to post on instagramUltimately, every single account will have its own unique audience behavior. They are your special precious babies! It won’t do you much good, say, posting Tuesday morning if your special, precious babies don’t enjoy using Insta on weekdays.

Do some research to see if your target audience is online specifically by your Instagram insights, or tap automated planning tools like Hootsuite for recommendations.

The best time to post will likely change over time

Whatever your recommended release times are today, they will fluctuate over time as audience habits develop, or as your audience itself grows or changes. Add to that the fact that the Instagram algorithm is constantly updated: This will also affect who sees what (and when!).

For this reason, Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish tool also suggests time slots that you haven’t used in the last 30 days so that you can change your posting times and test new tactics.

The final result? Even if you don’t use a recommended time tool like Hootsuite, you’re not committing to anything! Post times are going to be an ever-moving target, so learn to go with the flow and keep testing new times outside of your regular schedule.

The best time to post varies by platform

This very scientific test was only intended for Instagram, but each social media site has its own unique user behavior. And even within a platform, different types of posts can have different posting best practices – for example: Engagement on Instagram Reels may differ from the posts you create for the main Instagram feed.

Never stop learning and analyzing, whether with your own human brain (or with the help of predictive AI tools).

Would you like to try Hootsuite’s planning tool and recommendation feature for yourself? Try it out with a free 30-day trial.

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