When is the best time to post on social media in 2022?

It’s difficult to know when and how often to post across social networks to maximize engagement without trial and error.

Fortunately, your friends at CoSchedule analyzed 37,219,512 social media messages from more than 30,000 organizations to share the best times to post on every social network with you.

This information aims to provide to-the-point facts to help you make social media scheduling decisions as the world continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. You’ll learn the newest information for 2022 with several major twists that make best times to post research from earlier years obsolete.

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Executive Summary: The New Best Times To Post On Social Media In 2022

These are the new best times to post on social media to generate engagement in 2022:

1. Social media (in general): The best times to post on social media, in general, are 7:00 PM, 3:15 PM, and 8:41 AM on Friday, Wednesday, and Monday.
2. Instagram: The best times to post on Instagram are 9:01 AM, 7:59 PM, and 9:00 AM on Wednesday, Friday, and Tuesday.
3. Facebook: The best times to post on Facebook are 7:00 PM, 7:00 AM, and 3:15 PM on Friday, Wednesday, and Monday.
4. Twitter: The best times to post on Twitter are 10:00 AM, 8:38 AM, and 9:26 AM on Wednesday, Friday, and Thursday.
5. LinkedIn: The best times to post on LinkedIn are 12:00 PM, 10:00 AM, and 1:00 AM on Tuesday, Thursday, and Wednesday.
6. Pinterest: The best times to post on Pinterest are 12:00 PM, 6:17 PM, and 8:02 PM on Friday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

What Are The Best Times To Post On Social Media?

Summary:

1. The best times to post to social media in 2022 are 7:00 PM, 3:15 PM, and 8:41 AM in your target audience’s time zone.
2. The best hourlong periods to post on social media are 9:00 AM, 7:00 PM, and 10:00 AM in your target audience’s time zone.
3. The worst hourlong periods to post on social media are 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM, and 1:00 AM in your target audience’s time zone.
4. The best times the top .5% of organizations post on social media are 12:00 PM, 6:00 PM, and 9:00 AM in their target audience’s time zones.

For these findings specifically, we reviewed the most engaged social media posts from every social network as a single grouping—all social messages sent to every social network.

For more information on all of the data we analyzed, read the section at the end of this report “About The Best Times To Post Original Research”.

The following are the top 10 best times to post on social media in order from most engagement to lesser (these are all the best times, so even the last one in this list is still a good time to post).

The following numbered list of best times is literally the exact minute that organizations post on social media, so it is the most specific information for the best times to post on social media than any other source on the internet.

The top 10 best times to post on social media to generate engagement are:

1. 7:00 PM
2. 3:15 PM
3. 8:41 PM
4. 2:00 PM
5. 3:18 PM
6. 8:30 PM
7. 1:00 PM
8. 3:00 PM
9. 4:00 PM
10. 8:00 PM

Key takeaways:

1. When is the best time to post on social media? Research from 37,219,512 social media posts indicates 7:00 PM is the best time to share on social media. The top 10 best times are all in the afternoon and evening. This slightly contradicts original datasets from Sprout Social who found 9-10:00 AM is the best time to post. This also contradicts Hootsuite’s original research that suggests 10:00 AM is the best time to post. For 2022, our proprietary data is pointing to more audience engagement in the evenings versus mornings. This is a significant deviation from morning engagement to late-day engagement when compared to our earlier research published in 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2019. It appears engagement in 2022 is best later in the day.
2. When are the worst times to share on social media? There is no best time in late evening and early morning. The network-specific research that follows in subsequent sections indicates posting overnights when people sleep doesn’t get engagement. Your best bet is to post between 1:00 PM and 8:41 PM. The worst times to post are 8:42 PM to 12:59 PM.
3. How can you stand out? Many of the top 10 times to post are on the hour or quarter hours, such as 7 p.m., 3:15 p.m., and 8:30 p.m. as examples. You could be better served posting slightly after these times (as they undoubtedly become popularized by this proprietary research) such as 7:02 PM, 3:17 PM, and 8:43 PM. for example.

The top 10 best hourlong periods to post on social media to generate engagement are:

1. 9:00 AM
2. 7:00 PM
3. 10:00 AM
4. 8:00 PM
5. 3:00 PM
6. 11:00 AM
7. 9:00 PM
8. 5:00 PM
9. 8:00 AM
10. 12:00 PM

The worst hourlong periods to post on social media to generate engagement are:

1. 2:00 AM
2. 3:00 AM
3. 1:00 AM
4. 4:00 AM
5. 5:00 AM

We also looked at the best times to post on social media from a different angle. The following list is sorted by the organizations that got the most engagement as a whole first and then the best times for them.

So this is when the top .5% of organizations (who are the best at social media) in the world share on social media.

The best times the top .5% of engaging organizations post on social media are:

1. 12:00 PM
2. 6:00 PM
3. 9:00 AM
4. 8:00 PM
5. 2:00 PM
6. 4:00 PM
7. 10:00 AM
8. 8:00 AM
9. 1:00 PM
10. 11:00 AM

There is currently no other source on the internet that has published data like the above list. This is a completely new, innovative view of when to publish on social media with the mindset of not just getting engagement for a single message at a time but engaging your following consistently.

What Are The Best Days To Post On Social Media?

Summary:

1. The best days to post on social media are Friday, Wednesday, and Monday.
2. The worst days to post on social media are Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday.
3. The days organizations post most frequently to social media are Wednesday, Tuesday, and Thursday.
4. The days the top .5% of organizations post on social media are Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.

Of 37,219,512 social media messages in the sample, these were the best days to post on social media to influence engagement ranked from most to least. The following list is the most engagement of all social messages specifically.

The best days to post on social media to generate engagement are (best to worst):

1. Friday
2. Wednesday
3. Monday
4. Sunday
5. Thursday
6. Tuesday
7. Saturday

The following list is the amount of social media messages the 30,000 organizations scheduled their posts to publish. Essentially, this shows the days you will compete the most for attention against other organizations that are posting.

It may be a good strategy to post on the days which have the least amount of competition in terms of number of social media posts published. The days at the bottom of the following list are the ones organizations take advantage of the least (therefore, the days at the bottom of this list are your greatest opportunity).

The days organizations most frequently post on social media are (greatest to least):

1. Wednesday
2. Tuesday
3. Thursday
4. Friday
5. Monday
6. Saturday
7. Sunday

The following list is the popular days on which the top .5% most engaging organizations post to social media.

The days the top .5% of organizations most frequently post on social media are (greatest to least):

1. Wednesday
2. Thursday
3. Friday
4. Tuesday
5. Monday
6. Sunday
7. Saturday

When Is The Best Time To Post On Instagram?

Summary:

1. The best times to post on Instagram in 2022 are 9:01 AM, 7:59 PM, and 9:00 AM.
2. The best hourlong periods to post on Instagram are 9:00 AM, 7:00 PM, and 12:00 PM.
3. The worst hourlong periods to post on Instagram are 2:00 AM, 1:00 AM, and 12:00 AM.
4. The best days to post on Instagram are Wednesday, Friday, and Tuesday.
5. The worst days to post on Instagram are Sunday, Saturday, and Monday.

The top 10 best times to post on Instagram to generate engagement are:

1. 9:01 AM
2. 7:59 PM
3. 9:00 AM
4. 8:00 PM
5. 7:59 AM
6. 8:01 PM
7. 12:01 PM
8. 8:00 AM
9. 11:01 AM
10. 11:58 AM

The top 10 best hourlong periods to post on Instagram to generate engagement are:

1. 9:00 AM
2. 7:00 PM
3. 12:00 PM
4. 10:00 AM
5. 11:00 AM
6. 8:00 AM
7. 2:00 PM
8. 8:00 PM
9. 5:00 PM
10. 3:00 PM

The worst hourlong periods to post on Instagram to generate engagement are:

1. 2:00 AM
2. 1:00 AM
3. 12:00 AM
4. 3:00 AM
5. 4:00 AM

The best days to post on Instagram to generate engagement are (best to worst):

1. Wednesday
2. Friday
3. Tuesday
4. Thursday
5. Monday
6. Saturday
7. Sunday

When Is The Best Time To Post On Facebook?

Summary:

1. The best times to post on Facebook in 2022 are 7:00 PM, 7:00 AM, and 3:15 PM.
2. The best hourlong periods to post on Facebook are 7:00 PM, 9:00 AM, and 10:00 AM.
3. The worst hourlong periods to post on Facebook are 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM, and 12:00 AM.
4. The best days to post on Facebook are Friday, Wednesday, and Monday.
5. The worst days to post on Facebook are Saturday, Sunday, and Thursday.

The top 10 best times to post on Facebook to generate engagement are:

1. 7:00 PM
2. 7:00 AM
3. 3:15 PM
4. 10:00 AM
5. 6:00 AM
6. 2:00 PM
7. 12:00 PM
8. 12:30 PM
9. 5:00 PM
10. 9:00 AM

The top 10 best hourlong periods to post on Facebook to generate engagement are:

1. 7:00 PM
2. 9:00 AM
3. 10:00 AM
4. 3:00 PM
5. 8:00 AM
6. 7:00 AM
7. 8:00 PM
8. 12:00 PM
9. 2:00 PM
10. 11:00 AM

The worst hourlong periods to post on Facebook to generate engagement are:

1. 2:00 AM
2. 3:00 AM
3. 12:00 AM
4. 4:00 AM
5. 5:00 AM

The best days to post on Facebook to generate engagement are (best to worst):

1. Friday
2. Wednesday
3. Monday
4. Tuesday
5. Thursday
6. Sunday
7. Saturday

When Is The Best The Best Time To Post On Twitter?

Summary:

1. The best times to post on Twitter in 2022 are 10:00 AM, 8:38 AM, and 9:26 AM.
2. The best hourlong periods to post on Twitter are 9:00 AM, 9:00 PM, and 10:00 AM.
3. The worst hourlong periods to post on Twitter are 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM, and 5:00 AM.
4. The best days to post on Twitter are Wednesday, Friday, and Thursday.
5. The worst days to post on Twitter are Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

The top 10 best times to post on Twitter to generate engagement are:

1. 10:00 AM
2. 8:38 AM
3. 9:26 AM
4. 10:39 AM
5. 5:10 PM
6. 8:41 PM
7. 9:00 AM
8. 9:33 AM
9. 9:35 AM
10. 10:47 AM

The top 10 best hourlong periods to post on Twitter to generate engagement are:

1. 9:00 AM
2. 9:00 PM
3. 10:00 AM
4. 7:00 PM
5. 8:00 PM
6. 6:00 PM
7. 11:00 AM
8. 8:00 AM
9. 10:00 PM
10. 5:00 PM

The worst hourlong periods to post on Twitter to generate engagement are:

1. 2:00 AM
2. 3:00 AM
3. 5:00 AM
4. 4:00 AM
5. 6:00 AM

The best days to post on Twitter to generate engagement are (best to worst):

1. Wednesday
2. Friday
3. Thursday
4. Tuesday
5. Monday
6. Sunday
7. Saturday

When Is The Best Time To Post On LinkedIn?

Summary:

1. The best times to post on LinkedIn in 2022 are 12:00 PM, 10:00 AM, and 1:00 AM.
2. The best hourlong periods to post on LinkedIn are 3:00 PM, 10:00 AM, and 2:00 PM.
3. The worst hourlong periods to post on LinkedIn are 4:00 AM, 10:00 PM, and 11:00 PM.
4. The best days to post on LinkedIn are Tuesday, Thursday, and Wednesday.
5. The worst days to post on LinkedIn are Sunday, Saturday, and Monday.

The top 10 best times to post on LinkedIn to generate engagement are:

1. 12:00 PM
2. 10:00 AM
3. 1:00 AM
4. 2:57 PM
5. 8:00 AM
6. 2:56 PM
7. 3:00 PM
8. 2:00 PM
9. 9:00 AM
10. 10:50 AM

The top 10 best hourlong periods to post on LinkedIn to generate engagement are:

1. 3:00 PM
2. 10:00 AM
3. 2:00 PM
4. 11:00 AM
5. 12:00 PM
6. 6:00 PM
7. 4:00 PM
8. 5:00 PM
9. 1:00 PM
10. 8:00 AM

The worst hourlong periods to post on LinkedIn to generate engagement are:

1. 4:00 AM
2. 10:00 PM
3. 11:00 PM
4. 12:00 AM
5. 2:00 AM

The best days to post on LinkedIn to generate engagement are (best to worst):

1. Tuesday
2. Thursday
3. Wednesday
4. Friday
5. Monday
6. Saturday
7. Sunday

When Is The Best Time To Post On Pinterest?

Summary:

1. The best times to post on Pinterest in 2022 are 12:00 PM, 6:17 PM, and 8:02 PM.
2. The best hourlong periods to post on Pinterest are 6:00 PM, 8:00 PM, and 12:00 PM.
3. The worst hourlong periods to post on Pinterest are 4:00 AM, 5:00 AM, and 1:00 AM.
4. The best days to post on Pinterest are Friday, Tuesday, and Thursday.
5. The worst days to post on Pinterest are Sunday, Saturday, and Monday.

The top 10 best times to post on Pinterest to generate engagement are:

1. 12:00 PM
2. 6:17 PM
3. 8:02 PM
4. 8:00 AM
5. 9:10 AM
6. 10:29 AM
7. 4:58 PM
8. 6:30 PM
9. 7:14 PM
10. 7:50 PM

The top 10 best hourlong periods to post on Pinterest to generate engagement are:

1. 6:00 PM
2. 8:00 PM
3. 12:00 PM
4. 4:00 PM
5. 9:00 PM
6. 7:00 PM
7. 5:00 PM
8. 10:00 PM
9. 3:00 PM
10. 10:00 AM

The worst hourlong periods to post on Pinterest to generate engagement are:

1. 4:00 AM
2. 5:00 AM
3. 1:00 AM
4. 2:00 AM
5. 6:00 AM

The best days to post on Pinterest to generate engagement are (best to worst):

1. Friday
2. Tuesday
3. Thursday
4. Wednesday
5. Monday
6. Saturday
7. Sunday

About The Best Times To Post Original Research

The following information provides clarity as to how we collected and analyzed the data to provide the findings throughout this report.

1. The definition of a successful social media post for this analysis was high engagement rates. Engagement metrics included clicks, links, shares, and comments. CoSchedule’s software development team built a proprietary weighting factor designed to score each engagement metric uniquely depending on the type of engagement (e.g. comments are weighted higher because comments take more effort from a follower to engage with a brand versus simply hitting the like button, as an example).
2. The total number of messages included in the total sample was 37,219,512. We further narrowed samples to review the top .5% of all messages by engagement rates in some instances. We also narrowed samples by social network when appropriate. We did this to analyze only top-performing messages along with their sent times. Additionally, we cross-referenced the total sample with the .5% of specific organizations that rule at social media—some of the best-performing organizations in the world that are influencing social media engagement. All of this was in effort to exclude anomalies from the data sets and provide proprietary insights published by no other business or publication in the world.
3. The data is all analyzed from the time zone of the organizations that sent their messages (so their own native time zones). For example, if an organization was from Minnesota and sent a message at 3:00 PM, we simply looked at 3:00 PM CT for that message. If an organization sent from Colorado at 3:00 PM, we looked at 3:00 PM MT. In both of these instances, the data is compiled for 3:00 PM. We took the liberty of assuming most businesses operate within the time zones in which they are based. Obviously, we would recommend sending messages in your target audience’s time zones. While the times noted in this research are noted in 12-hour clock format, the audience of organizations participating in this research are global.
4. The 30,000 participating organizations that provided samples operate in 107 countries across the globe in B2B and B2B. Many vertical datasets including healthcare, software, finance, and more are included in this research. Our perspective with this information is that social media users operate as individuals and therefore the datasets would be best represented as a whole instead of separately for specific vertical segments.

Historical Best Times To Post Research & References

CoSchedule has curated, researched, and analyzed the best times to post on social media since 2016. Here is the history of the progress made to 2022.

The Best Times To Post On Social Media In 2016

Instagram:

Instagram audiences were engaged throughout the week. Mondays would get a little more attention.

1. Monday and Thursday at any time other than 3–4 p.m.
2. Videos any day at 9 p.m.–8 a.m.
3. Experiment with 2 a.m., 5 p.m., and Wednesday at 7 p.m.

Facebook:

The best time to post on Facebook was 1–4 p.m. late into the week and on weekends.

1. Saturday and Sunday at 12–1 p.m.
2. Thursday and Friday at 1–4 p.m.
3. Wednesday at 3 p.m.

Twitter:

The optimal times to tweet were 12–3 p.m., with a peak best time at 5 p.m. During the workweek was the best, though some niches had more active audiences on the weekend.

1. Wednesday at noon and 5–6 p.m.
2. Monday–Friday at 12–3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
3. Experiment with 2–3 a.m., 6–7 a.m., and 9–10 p.m.

LinkedIn:

Midweek posting was optimal from 5–6 p.m.

1. Tuesday at 10–11 a.m.
2. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 7:30–8:30 a.m., 12 p.m., and 5–6 p.m.

Pinterest:

Saturdays were your best bet for reaching Pinterest users—and later at night.

1. Saturdays at 8–11 p.m.
2. Fridays at 3 p.m.

The Best Times To Post On Social Media In 2019

Instagram:

Here were your best times to post on Instagram in 2019 broken down by industry (according to internal research by CoSchedule).

• B2C: 8 am, 1 pm, and 9 pm.
• B2B: 12 pm-1 pm, 5 pm-6 pm, 8 pm-9pm.
• Software Services: 11 am, 1 pm, 5 pm.
• Healthcare: 10 am and 2 pm.
• Media: 9 am, 12 pm, and 3 pm.
• Higher Education: 5 pm – 6 pm

Facebook:

When the CoSchedule team crunched the data, the following times and ranges appeared to drive the most activity in 2019.

1. B2C: 9 am to 10 am, 12 pm – 1 pm, 4 pm to 5 pm.
2. B2B: 9 am to 4 pm, with 3 pm to 4 pm being the best.
3. Software Services: 9 am to 5 pm, then it drops off. 9 am, 3 pm, and 5 pm are the best.
4. Healthcare: 6 am-7 am, 9 am, 11 am-Noon.
5. Media: 7 am, 11 am, 6 pm.
6. Higher Education: 8 am, Noon, 3 pm.

Twitter:

This was the Twitter network summary from 2019.

1. B2C: 8 am-10 am, Noon, 7 pm-9 pm
2. B2B: 7 am-8 am, 11 am, 6 pm, 9 pm
3. Software Services: 10 am, 2 pm, 6 pm
4. Healthcare: 9 am, 6 pm
5. Media: 6 am-7 am, 11 am, 7 pm-8 pm, 10 pm
6. Higher Education: 8 am, 5 pm, 7 pm, 9 pm

LinkedIn:

The biggest takeaway here was that people use LinkedIn for professional development. So, the best times to reach people here were when workers in the industry you targeted were taking breaks in their workday.

1. B2C: Noon
2. B2B: 8 am, 10 am-Noon, 6 pm
3. Software Services: 9 am, 11 am-Noon, 5 pm-6 pm
4. Healthcare: 10 am, Noon-2 pm
5. Media: 8 am
6. Higher Education: 10 am

Pinterest:

From curated research, these times served as solid posting guidelines in 2019:

1. 8–11 pm with 9 pm peak
2. 2–4 am and 2–4 pm
3. 1–3 pm

The Best Times To Post On Social Media In 2022

Instagram:

1. 9:01 AM
2. 7:59 PM
3. 9:00 AM

Facebook:

1. 7:00 PM
2. 7:00 AM
3. 3:15 PM

Twitter:

1. 10:00 AM
2. 8:38 AM
3. 9:26 AM

LinkedIn:

1. 12:00 PM
2. 10:00 AM
3. 1:00 AM

Pinterest:

1. 12:00 PM
2. 6:17 PM
3. 8:02 PM

This research piece was originally published April 13, 2016. It was updated June 29, 2017; October 16, 2017; October 27, 2018; and June 17, 2019. The version published today launched May 20, 2022.

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A handy feature in Marketing Calendar and Marketing Suite that saves time and ensures maximum engagement is Best Time Scheduling.

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• Collision proof your messages! Best Time Scheduling takes into account the whole day and everything you already have scheduled. It’s constantly re-working the schedule so your messages don’t feel spammy or get sent out too close to one another.
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The post The Best Times To Post On Social Media In 2022: An Analysis Of More Than 35 Million Posts [Original Research] appeared first on CoSchedule Blog.