Last Updated: 6/14/23
As an independent artist, you put so much time, money and effort into your art and the content you create to promote it. Naturally, you want every post to have as much reach and engagement as it possibly can, regardless of the platform. The hope is that there’s a magic time that we can all just aim for and not have to worry if people will see it. Unfortunately, with how the algorithms work on social media platforms these days, it’s providing to be more challenging then ever.
So what are the best times and days to post on social media to maximize your post potential?
BUT…
There are recommended days and times that top marketing experts have found through research and analysis. The best times I put together below account for all industries, not specifically for musicians and artists. The most recent research that I use below comes from social media management platform Hootsuite. They analyzed thousands of social media posts on all the major social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter) to come up with these conclusions.
Keep in mind: The drawback to posting at these “best times” is that other people, who share this knowledge, are doing the same thing. This means there’s increased competition for attention in the news feed, which can decrease your post’s chances of getting noticed.
Here are some ideal times and days to test out for each platform. Even though it says PST (Pacific Standard Time), use your time zone or even more importantly, the time zone of your audience.
New for 2023:
- Monday: 9am PST *
- Tuesday: 9am PST
- Wednesday: 9am PST
- Thursday: 8am PST *
- Friday: 9am PST
- Saturday: 10am PST
- Sunday: 10am PST
* Best for the week
Previous best times: 8:00am – 9:00am and 5:00pm – 6:00pm
Previous best times on each day:
- Sunday at 5:00pm
- Monday at 7:00pm (Worst day of the week)
- Tuesday at 10:00pm
- Wednesday at 5:00pm (Best day of the week)
- Thursday at 7:00am and 11:00pm
- Friday at 1:00am and 8:00pm
- Saturday at 12am, 2am
TikTok
- Monday: 1pm PST
- Tuesday: 2pm PST
- Wednesday: 1pm PST
- Thursday: 7pm PST *
- Friday: 2pm PST
- Saturday: 9am PST *
- Sunday: 1pm PST *
* Best for the week
New for 2023:
- Monday: 10am PST *
- Tuesday: 10am PST *
- Wednesday: 10am PST
- Thursday: 11am PST
- Friday: 11am PST
- Saturday: 8am PST
- Sunday: 10am PST
* Best for the week
Previous best days and times:
- Best days and times: Mon to Fri at 1:00pm – 4:00pm
- Traffic generally builds up: 9:00am until lunch
- Top day and time: Wednesday at 3pm
- Worst times: 8:00pm – 8:00am
- Saturday & Sunday best times: 12:00pm – 1:00pm
New for 2023:
- Monday: 7am PST
- Tuesday: 7am PST
- Wednesday: 10am PST
- Thursday: 11am PST *
- Friday: 9am PST *
- Saturday: 9am PST
- Sunday: 9am PST
* Best for the week
Previous best days and times:
- Best days and times: Mon to Fri at 12:00pm – 3:00pm
- Best general times: 12:00pm – 1:00pm and at 6:00pm
- Traffic generally builds up: After 11:00am
- Traffic generally fades: After 3pm
- Top day and time: Wednesday 5:00pm – 6:00pm
- Most popular time: 12:00pm – 1:00 pm
- Highest tweet volume: Between 11:00am – 1:00pm
- Fewest tweets sent: Between 3:00am – 4:00am
- Worst times to tweet: 8:00pm – 9:00am
- Times to avoid: After 3:00pm on Friday
Alternative Strategy: Use these times as a guideline, not as law. Experiment with posting outside the “best times.” Generally, there are going to be two social media traffic rushes in a typical workday – the lunch rush and after-work rush. I would definitely encourage testing out the evenings after 8:00pm or even early mornings, like 7:00am. After all, people often check their social media accounts when they wake up as well as before before bed. For one artist I work with who is based in California and has a predominate fan base on the west side of the United States, we found good results with posting around 7pm on Monday through Thursday. Although there may be fewer people on, there is also less competition for attention and your post has a greater opportunity to gain momentum on Facebook or Instagram. In other words, don’t let the “best times” limit the possibilities.
Other Factors to Consider
If you want to get a more accurate estimate for your own specific audience, here’s the long answer.
The problem is there are a lot of variables that go into what makes a good social media post reach its full potential. When you post is only one variable in the equation.
Here’s a list of other factors that influence post reach and engagement:
- Type of post (image, text, video)
- The quality of the post (Does your content interest your audience)
- Platform you post on (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)
- What you write as a caption or tweet
- The day of the month or year (accounting for seasonality)
- When your competitors are posting. When I say competitors, I don’t mean just other music artists. Competition can be any other businesses, friends and family all fighting for your fans’ attention.
- Geography (Do you have fans in other time zones to account for?)
- The platform’s algorithm
I know we all want shortcuts to save time, but here’s the mindset you need to understand if you want to maximize your social media potential.
Every audience or fan base is going to be different no matter how similar the music or genre is. Of course, there is going to be overlap and patterns relating to geography, demographics and lifestyle. Start with the recommended times above but also think about who your fan base is and their lifestyle characteristics.
As an oversimplified example, if your fan base is high school kids in the same time zone, chances are you may want to post around 3:00pm when school gets out during the weekday.
If your fans tend to be working adults that work 9 – 5 jobs, you may want to test posting during lunchtime or in the evening after 6pm.
Ultimately, the best way to go about finding your best day and times for your audience is to experiment with different posting times each day and track the results. Use the analytics and insights these social media platforms offer to help you figure this out.
How to Find Best Posting Times Using Meta Business Suite
If you want to find the best days and times to post on Facebook and Instagram, you can use Meta Business Suite. They will provide the most active time for a particular day based on your audience activity. This is assuming you have a Meta Business Manager account linked to both your Facebook page and Instagram account. You’ll likely need to use a desktop to access this information as I have not been able to use their app due to an error.
1. Go into your Meta Business Suite account and create a post. Under ‘scheduling options’ right before you can post, select the ‘schedule’ tab and you should see a button that says ‘active times’.
2. Click the ‘active times’ button and a window will pop up to give you suggested days and times that your audience is most active for the platform you’re trying to post on. If you selected both Instagram and Facebook to post, it will show recommended times for both platforms.
How to interpret this:
At the very least, you want to use the active days/times they provide as a starting point for testing. Also, try posting an hour before or after the suggested active times to see what happens.
