Best Times To Post on Social Media Platforms

Are you ready to dominate social media in 2025? Then, you have to master social algorithms and turn posting time into a strategic advantage.

Forget about one-time-fits-all posts. You’ll find mons on Instagram in the morning or late at night, Gen Z scrolling all day, and fitness enthusiasts checking in during the afternoon. And that’s before getting into platform preferences and demographics. 

Maybe you have already noticed that some posts perform better on specific days or at certain times than others. Why? Your audience follows a social media consumption pattern. Factors like type of content(imagery, text, video and text, or audio), social media platform, day of the week, and specific time slots, all influence engagement.

Sounds too complicated? Well, we’ve done the heavy lifting, reviewed each piece of research, platform recommendations, and suggestions, and even brought our own expertise to help you get your content in front of your target audience at optimal times.

Honest disclosure: Before diving into specific time windows to post on social media, we want to pinpoint that this is not a sure-thing-to-success strategy. If your content is on point, the visuals are sleek, and the message resonates with your audience, specific timeslots will only boost performance and reach. 
 

Algorithms use engagement to put specific content in front of others. It’s like saying, “Hey, this awesome post is getting likes, shares, comments, and saves. Let’s show it to more people”.

Now that we’ve taken the content quality issue out of the way, let’s look at the best days to post on social media. 

Generally speaking, most users are active from Tuesdays to Thursdays between 8 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Why? Users tend to be most active in mid-mornings during the week. People take brief breaks from their work or routines for social media. And that makes it the ideal window to connect with your audience through your content, offers, and deals.

When to avoid posting: Posting early in the morning before 8 a.m. or late at night. During this time, users get ready for the upcoming day or unwind with non-social activities like reading, meditating or binge-watching Netflix. 

Worst days to post: Weekends, especially Sundays, when people are most active outside of their screens. There is one exception to this, though: religious content seems to perform best during these days. Once again, the type of content and quality dictate the scheduling times. 

To maximize engagement, we recommend analyzing past posts’ performance and checking when the most consistent engagement can be noticed. 

It is also highly essential to consider the audience’s time zone when you schedule posts, as your target audience might be located in the opposite part of the globe.

Now that we know the general rules, let’s take a closer look at the posting schedule on each social media platform.

Best Days to Post on Instagram: Weekdays

With over 2 billion users, Instagram has a higher engagement rate early in the morning, during weekdays. Brand accounts gain traction in the morning while personal accounts tend to perform better later in the evening. 

Keep in mind that the time you post on Instagram is also influenced by the niche or industry you are activating.

Best Time to Post on Instagram: from 9 A.M to 2 P.M

According to our research, engagement peaks from 9 a.m. up until 12 p.m on Monday and Thursday. Then, we see that the sweet spot slightly changes on Wednesday and Thursday, with higher engagement at 9 a.m., then 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. And by Friday, that drops to 11 a.m.

Also posts in the  late afternoon on weekdays seem to perform quite well. Usually, these are short coffee or lunch breaks that people take during their work and start scrolling through their feed. 

However, let's not forget users who around 5 or 6 PM are wrapping the working day, heading home, commuting and eager to see the latest on their social feeds.

To drive as much attention to your freshly posted content, besides posting at the suggested time span, you could engage with other’s content right after posting. Likes and comments can bring people to your profile. If your content gets attention right after posting it will signal the platform's algorithm that your  content is of great quality and should be pushed in front of more people.

Best times to post Instagram Reels: from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., and 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Best Times to post Instagram Stories: from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Best Time to Post on Facebook: from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M.

Unlike Instagram users, on Facebook the highest engagement rates are seen a little bit later. Posts published around 10 a.m. get the most reach. Then we notice additional spikes around 1 –2 p.m., during lunch break.

Some studies pointed out that another best time during the day to post on Facebook is from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Many Facebook users are a little bit older so they tend to wrap up the day using the platform to get  an overview of the major events of the day. 

Best days to post on Facebook: Monday through Thursday

One thing is clear: weekdays, especially Monday and Thursday, seem to have the highest engagement among its 3 billion users.

Saturday and Sunday remain the worst day to schedule your posts.

What to consider: More than half of Facebook users are millennials who typically check the platform when commuting, during lunch or coffee breaks, or in the evening.

Location is crucial when scheduling your Facebook posts, and you should check the time zones to make sure your target audience is online and reaches them optimally. 

Last but definitely not least, different industries have different peak times for best engagement. For the technological industry, the best time to post is midweek, Wednesday or Thursday around 11 or 12 am. For the education sector, the best times are around 1 p.m. on Monday or between 5 –6 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Best Time to Post on TikTok: 6 – 9 A.M. & 7 – 10 P.M.

Before we take a closer look at the posting schedule, you can recap your social media usage knowledge by taking a look at these tips for TikTok videos.

Now, for TikTok, timing is everything. You get a scroll and a second to reach your audience, so time is the weapon that will maximize your content’s impact. 

An effective schedule may include posting early in the morning when the early risers sips their coffee at home right before work. But once they wrap up the day and are done with all the errands, homework, kids’s activities, and gym classes, they relax by scrolling through TikTok’s feed later in the evening.

Best days to post on TikTok: Tuesday

To be honest, we couldn't find any restrictions regarding the best days to post on TikTok. And that’s totally understandable. TikTok’s 1 billion+ users don’t follow predictable behavior. With over half of its users being under 25 and with a less predictable schedule, other aspects should be taken into account: demographics, interest, behavior, industry, and more. 

However, all researchers pinpoint Tuesday as the best day to post on TikTok. You might also get the highest engagement rate on Sunday afternoon. As for the best-performing content type, it’s probably no surprise here– it’s video. 

The worst day to post on TikTok is by far Saturday.

To optimize your posting time, you could overview your followers' most active times and plan your posts accordingly. 

Look at your previous content performance and see what patterns you can pinpoint from the view count, average watch time, likes, comments, shares, and new followers. This will help you nail down the best posting time for your TikTok content. You can also check out how the TikTok algorithm works to understand your audience better.

Best Time to Post on YouTube: from 3 P.M. to 6 P.M.

There’s a lot to consider when posting on YouTube, and probably the type of content and its quality are probably major indicators of how well a post will perform. And worry not, if you still need some help with this endeavor, you can use these tips for YouTube videos as a great starting point.

However, aside from classic YouTube videos, YouTube shorts definitely have specific posting times that will get your content in front of more viewers. Generally speaking, if you post your videos in the 3 to 6 p.m. timeframe, your content will be seen by more viewers than any other timeframe. This user behavior predictability comes from the fact that over 40% of YouTube users are above 25 years old. Most are working during the day, and prefer to watch longer videos later in the afternoon.

For YouTube Shorts, the posting times are slightly different, with 4 p.m being the best time to post them.

Best days to post on YouTube: Wednesday

If you publish your videos on Wednesday between 3 and 6 p.m, you will get more views than the rest of the week. That is still available for YouTube Shorts.

YouTube Analytics could give you an overview of the best-performing posts(watch time, subscriber growth, unique and returning viewers, and other engagement metrics). Link that to the time they were published, and you might get your sweet spot for posting on YouTube. 

YouTube algorithms might need around two or more hours to process and index your video, so it might be wise to post it three hours before peak time. 

Also, if some posts don’t perform well, it might not be the content quality of posting time, rather than a thumbnail that gets unnoticed by viewers. Research shows that YouTubers who use engaging thumbnails perform far better and are scroll-stopping. When editing your YouTube thumbnail, make sure to include a title, vivid color, and spark emotion through a face and other visuals. 

Best Time to post on LinkedIn: from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M.

LinkedIn has evolved over the past two years from a job-hunting platform into a hub for businesses, professionals, and brands. With over 1 billion users, LinkedIn now offers new ways for brands and professionals to engage with their communities. And that usually happens during the first office hours of the day, during their mid-morning break. People look for the latest industry updates, inspiration, or insights on specific topics.

Best days to post on LinkedIn: Tuesday and Thursday

It’s quite intuitive. Most people check their emails, then seek industry updates or insights, or look to get inspired or get a motivation boost. Monday and Tuesdays seem to be the best days to post on LinkedIn, and reach people when they are more interested in new ideas, insights or updates from the industry. 

The worst days to post on LinkedIn are weekends. Weekends are for entertainment, relaxation, and de-screening time. If it’s non-office hours, people unplug from work mode and turn from professional to personal mode, leading to a huge drop in engagement on LinkedIn. 

As for the best type of content to post these days, in 2025, we can see a shift towards carousels.

Finding the Best Time For Your Video Social Media Posts

After reviewing all of the above it is clear to say that the best time to post on social media varies from one platform to another. What is also fair to mention is that even with all the information above, your scheduling posts depend on your niche.

How to find your best posting time:

• Make each platform insights your starting point in finding the best time for your video social media posts. Audit the results you already have and plan accordingly. 
• See when your audience is online, and most likely to engage with your content. Take content type into account, videos might perform better in the afternoon, while educational carousels do well mid-morning. 
• Know your viewers and understand their social media consumption patterns. Take age, gender, time zones, and other demographics into consideration.
• Use scheduling tools to effectively post across platforms at specific times. Tools like Flixier allow you to create content and then post it on each platform straight from the editor.
• See what competition is doing, which of their posts have the higher engagement rate, can you spot any patterns in publishing time?
   

Test, test, and, yes, test! Take a video, for example, and craft multiple versions of it– an image carousel for Instagram, a short for YouTube, or a meme-style clip for TikTok. Use tools like Flixier to easily repurpose content, optimizing it for each platform. Resize, refine, and analyze – see which version is performing most effectively, gets you in front of your target audience, and drives the most engagement.

Are You Ready to Share Your Videos with Social Media Users?

Now that you know the best times to post on social media, from early morning hours to early afternoons, it is time to bring your video social media posts to life. 

Thankfully, we have the tool to help you do so: Flixier, the online video editor built for speed and simplicity. Drag, drop, resize– position your clips exactly as you see fit within an intuitive interface. Looking to add a dynamic touch? Flixier comes packed with built-in motion titles, transitions, and responsive calls to action, and realistic AI voiceovers, making it easier to create engaging content. Plus, with over 2 million built-in music, video, and image stock files, you can significantly speed up video creation.
 

The best part? Most features are available for free. Start your social media scheduling, level up your video creation game, and create a feed that truly stands out.

Give it a try and start including videos in your social media marketing calendar!