Any marketer whose even so much as lightly dabbled in the world of social media will have had the conversation of optimal posting times, and I’ve found opinions to be fairly mixed.
Some people swear by a specific day and time when they receive the best engagement, but others are happy to adopt a more go-with-the-flow posting schedule, often receiving similar results. So, is that a point for or against posting times being a crucial part of your strategy?
Well, it’s sort of both.
Social media platforms put a larger push behind content that gets engagement quickly after posting, so posting at a time when your audience is active and engaged can play a large part in your content being seen by a wider audience. But timing is only one cog in the machine, and content and consistency matter more.
You can increase the chance of your audience seeing the content, but it still needs to garner engagement on its own. Posting a poor piece of content at the right time will likely still flop. But conversely, a genuinely great post will eventually find its audience, regardless of the day/time it was posted.
Like most aspects of marketing, you need a nuanced approach that doesn’t rely on one core principle for success. We have plenty of blog posts that cover how to create compelling content, so I don’t need to delve down that rabbit hole here. Instead, let’s look at how to determine the best time to post.
How to find the best time to post on social media
There are plenty of reports out there that claim to have calculated the best time to post (one of which I will touch on later in this post). However, these reports are often generalised across all industries, audiences, and content types, so while they can act as a good starting point, it’s much more valuable to test different days and times for yourself.
Different audiences have different habits. For example, a LinkedIn user searching for informative, professional content is likely to be scrolling during their commute or lunch break, whereas a B2C audience in the market for a new piece of clothing, jewellery, or restaurant idea is more likely to peruse social media during the evening, once their work day has finished. It’s important to understand your audience’s geographical location, as well as their scrolling schedule, to ensure your content is hitting their feeds at the right time of day, as per their timezone.
When starting out with your posting strategy, utilise each platform’s native analytics to see which days and times your followers are most active. Experiment with different posting windows, track your desired metrics (impressions, reactions, shares, link clicks, etc.), and note the days and times that perform best. Remember that the content itself will play a large part in a post’s performance, so use this experiment as a guide rather than gospel.
The best time to post on social media
Let’s say you’re just starting out on social media and don’t have existing data to review, or you need to schedule a bulk of content ahead of time before you get a chance to do any testing. Generic findings can offer a great starting point.
Sprout Social released data on the best times to post in the UK (as of March 2026), which I’ll briefly cover now. All times in GMT.
As a top-level overview, they state that the best time to post across all major social media platforms is 4 – 11 PM, especially on Thursdays. On average, Saturday is the worst day to post. But it’s more valuable to break it down by platform:
The best time to post on Facebook
3 – 9 PM, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
The best time to post on Instagram
5 – 9 PM, Monday through Thursday.
The best time to post on LinkedIn
11 AM – 7 PM on Thursdays, or 9 AM – 5 PM on Fridays.
The best time to post on Pinterest
11 AM – 1 PM, 2 – 5 PM, and 7 – 9 PM on Thursdays.
The best time to post on TikTok
3 – 11 PM on Wednesdays, or 4 PM – 12 AM Mondays and Thursdays.
The best time to post on X (Twitter)
4 – 10 PM on Wednesdays, or 4 – 9 PM on Tuesdays.
Quality is key
I’ll never stop preaching how quality trumps all when creating successful social media content, and I can back this up with both my professional experience and my personal scrolling habits. A mediocre post shared at the optimal time will still underperform, and a brilliant post shared at a completely opposing time to what you would deem ‘perfect’ will likely still succeed.
But I can admit that posting times do serve a purpose, and should be a consideration in any social media strategy. Pay attention to posting times, but don’t let timing anxiety stop you from publishing a great piece of content.
Maintaining quality and consistency will garner more genuine engagement than hitting the exact right moment on the clock ever will.