How to find the best time to post for your brand

A question I see online a lot is "What is the best time to post my social content?"

There are so many resources online that claim to reveal the best time to post on social media.

But those benchmarks aren’t built on your data.

This might sound controversial, but someone has to say it: there is no universal best time to post. 

There’s only the best time for your brand, on your platforms, with your community. And that’s not something a generic study can predict.

Let’s talk about it.

Why “best time to post” depends on your community

You’ve probably seen articles claiming to reveal the best time to post on Instagram, the best time to post on TikTok, or even the best time to post on Instagram for engagement. These studies usually pull data from thousands of accounts across different industries, time zones, and niches. 

And while that kind of data is helpful for spotting general trends, it’s not specific to you.

Your community might scroll during their morning commute, on their lunch break, or late at night when they finally get a moment to themselves. 

A B2B brand targeting marketers will see different behaviours than a local café posting daily specials. Even two brands in the same industry can have completely different peak engagement windows.

So when you optimize based only on industry averages, you’re optimizing for “most brands” – not yours.

If your goal is to truly find the best time to post on social media, you need insights that are tailored to your performance, not the internet’s.

Why testing different posting times is important 

If you always post at 3 p.m., your data will only ever tell you how 3 p.m. performs.

That doesn’t mean 3 p.m. is the best time to post on TikTok or Instagram. It just means it’s the only time you’ve tested.

To uncover real patterns, you need variation. Try mornings for a few weeks. Experiment with early evenings. Mix in a weekend slot. Spread your content across different days and time blocks so you can compare performance in a meaningful way.

The more diverse your posting history, the clearer your engagement patterns become. Over time, those patterns reveal your true best posting windows.

What metrics should you look at?

When you’re trying to identify the best time to post, you should focus on the metrics that align with your goals.

If your goal is social media engagement, look at likes, comments, shares, and saves. If your goal is traffic, analyze clicks. If your goal is awareness, look at reach or impressions.

The key is to stay consistent and measure the same metric across different publishing times so you can compare results accurately. 

Over time, you’ll start to notice trends. Maybe your engagement spikes on Wednesday evening, maybe your TikTok videos perform better on Sunday afternoons. These patterns are your real best times – not the ones pulled from a broad industry study.

Turn your data into action

Once you’ve tested different time slots and built up performance data, the next challenge is actually using it. And let’s be honest, manually combing through months of analytics is not how anyone wants to spend their afternoon.

That’s where our best times to post feature comes in.

Instead of relying on general advice about the best time to post on Instagram or TikTok, HeyOrca analyzes your own tracked posts and identifies when your content has historically performed best. We look at your top-performing posts from the past 3 months.

For X (Twitter) profiles, we use your most recent 100 posts to ensure your suggestions reflect recent trends.

Each suggested time comes with a star rating:

• 1 star = lower-performing publishing time
• 5 stars = highest-performing publishing time.

So now when you’re scheduling content, you can quickly spot higher-rated time slots and publish with confidence, knowing those windows have historically driven stronger engagement for your community.

Learn how to enable the best time to post in HeyOrca so you can start collecting data.

FAQs

What is the best time to post on Instagram?

There is no single best time that works for every brand. The best time to post on Instagram depends on your specific community’s behaviour, your industry, and your content style. The most reliable way to determine it is by testing different time slots and analyzing your own engagement data.

What is the best time to post on Instagram for engagement?

The best time to post on Instagram for engagement is when your community is most likely to interact with your content. That might be early morning, lunchtime, or late evening. By tracking engagement across different publishing times, you can identify the windows that consistently generate more likes, comments, and shares.

What is the best time to post on TikTok?

The best time to post on TikTok varies widely depending on your audience and niche. TikTok behaviour can differ from Instagram, so it’s important to test time slots independently on each platform rather than assuming one schedule works everywhere.

How long should I test different posting times?

Aim to test different time slots consistently over at least a few weeks. The more data you collect across varied days and times, the more accurate your insights will be. Consistency and variation together create meaningful patterns.

Do posting times change over time?

Yes. As your community grows or shifts, their habits may evolve. Seasonal changes, industry trends, and content format shifts can all impact engagement windows. That’s why ongoing testing and performance tracking are so important.

Final thoughts

Instead of chasing every new article about the best time to post on Instagram, focus on something way more powerful: your own results.

When you test strategically and use your performance data to guide your scheduling, you stop relying on averages and start optimizing for your actual community. 

And when you pair that with HeyOrca’s best times to post feature, the whole process becomes simple, scalable, and waaay less overwhelming!

Want to try it out for yourself? Try it for free.

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