At Buffer, we lately launched into an bold undertaking: uncovering the perfect time to put up on social media in 2025 — throughout all main platforms.
We pored over tens of millions of posts, reels, TikToks, shorts, movies, and extra to pinpoint when the best-performing content material was printed.
We analyzed the info right here in one among two methods: To foretell the perfect time to put up on Fb, LinkedIn, and X, we appeared on the timeslots with the best median social media engagement on every platform. To foretell the perfect instances to put up on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, we checked out median attain and video views.
In each instances, we discovered some clear patterns — and might make some clear suggestions on the perfect time to put up on social media. Particular timeslots see extra engagement or views than others, which is a vital consideration in your social media advertising technique.
Use these instances as a place to begin to present your content material the absolute best likelihood of success.
Earlier than we get into this, an essential caveat: sharing your social media posts on the ‘proper’ time isn’t the key sauce for content material success.
(If there have been a secret sauce, it might be consistency. However extra on that in a sec.)
There are literally thousands of alerts that decide content material efficiency all every of the social media platform’s a number of algorithms — engagement, watch time, person preferences, location… Submit recency is probably going only one small a part of a fairly advanced puzzle.
Nonetheless, when you really feel such as you’re hitting all the correct notes together with your content material and need to give your social media technique a useful little enhance, it’s value testing the perfect time to put up on social media to your platform of alternative.
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Is there an general greatest time to put up on social media?
There isn’t a single greatest time to put up on social media that applies to all social media platforms. Why? They’re all used for various causes, by very totally different customers.
For instance, in contrast to different social media platforms, LinkedIn is used for skilled networking and thrives throughout working hours. TikTok is extra centered on leisure — so movies and carousels there usually tend to get views after hours. Posts on X are likely to get extra engagement on Tuesdays, whereas Fridays are the perfect days for Instagram.
As you’ll see from all our graphs, there’s not a lot overlap, particularly throughout all main social media platforms.
So, whereas we won’t be as particular as we will on a per-platform foundation, we will make broad suggestions which might be largely frequent sense. For instance, social media posts shared on weekends are likely to get much less attain and engagement, as does content material posted in the course of the night time.
With all that in thoughts, you’re much better off with a digital advertising plan and social media calendar with a novel posting schedule for every platform. Let’s get into our suggestions for all of them.
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What time zone? To make this information simpler to know, our information scientist Bufferoo has executed some mathematical magic to make the advisable time zones universally relevant. In different phrases, no must convert — take into account all of the suggestions native time. Whether or not you are in EST (Jap Normal Time), PST (Pacific Normal Time), or IST (Indian Normal Time), the instances apply to you.
Finest time to put up on social media: fast information
Right here’s a cheat sheet for the perfect time to put up on social media (it’s value scrolling down for extra choices, too!)
Finest time to put up on Fb: 5 a.m. – 7 a.m. on weekdaysBest time to put up on Instagram: 3 p.m. – 6 p.m. on weekdaysBest time to put up on LinkedIn: 7 a.m. – 4 p.m. on weekdaysBest time to put up on TikTok: 4 p.m. – 7 p.m. on weekdaysBest time to put up on YouTube: 3 p.m. – 5 p.m. on weekdaysBest time to put up on X/Twitter: 8 a.m. – 10 a.m. on weekdays
The very best time to put up on Fb
The very best time to put up on Fb is 5 a.m. on Monday.Fb customers are the earliest birds of the bunch. Early morning posts — particularly at the beginning of the week — are likely to carry out greatest.
That pre-sunrise slot on Monday tends to get essentially the most engagement, however Tuesday at 5 a.m. and Thursday at 7 a.m. aren’t far behind.
On the whole, the morning hours are the place the magic occurs on Fb. Engagement ranges are likely to rise by means of mid-morning, peak round noon, and step by step taper off later within the day.
In terms of the perfect day to put up on Fb, Wednesday leads the pack by way of general engagement. Tuesday and Thursday observe intently — and also you’ll discover from the graph beneath that each one weekdays are likely to boast related efficiency on Fb.
The weekends are one other story. Engagement takes a noticeable dip on posts on social media on weekends, with Sunday coming in because the quietest day on the platform. Posts shared on Sundays see round 15% much less engagement than these shared midweek, and Saturday about 10%.
📚 Learn our full information to the greatest time to put up on Fb to see the optimum instances for day by day of the week, plus the perfect sort of content material to put up.
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One factor to bear in mind: Posting instances aren’t the identical as viewers energetic instances. So for Fb, it does not essentially imply 5 a.m. is when persons are seeing your Fb posts. It is doubtless the content material wants time to percolate on the information feed, and your followers and followers will discover it there after they go online to the platform at a extra affordable hour. The identical goes for all of the instances advisable on this information.
The very best time to put up on Instagram
The very best time to put up on Instagram is 3 p.m. on Friday. After analyzing over 2 million posts, we discovered this time slot constantly received the best attain.
That mentioned, there was not a lot distinction within the attain of posts shared between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. on most weekdays.
Should you have a look at the heatmap above, you’ll discover a reasonably predictable sample: attain begins to construct from round 6 a.m. on weekdays, picks up steam round 11 a.m. (howdy, lunch time scroll), and hits its stride at 3 p.m. on most days.
Weekends, nonetheless, inform a distinct story. Attain tends to dip on Saturdays, dropping even additional on Sundays. Whereas there are a couple of small spikes within the early night, they don’t fairly match the efficiency of weekday posts.
On the whole, weekdays are a protected wager for stable attain on Instagram — however Monday and Friday come out on prime, with barely larger engagement than the remainder of the week.
On the different finish of the dimensions? Sunday is the worst day to put up on Instagram, the place we see a notable dip in put up efficiency.
📚 Learn our full information to the greatest time to put up on Instagram to see the optimum instances for day by day of the week, plus the perfect sort of content material to put up.
The very best time to put up on LinkedIn
The very best time to put up on LinkedIn is 10 a.m. on Tuesday.
Within the greater than 1 million LinkedIn posts we analyzed, this time slot tended to see essentially the most engagement — nonetheless (once more!), solely by a smidge.
Posts shared between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays tended to get stable engagement — and there aren’t any prizes for guessing why.
Regardless of LinkedIn turning into a bit extra informal and creator-friendly lately, it’s nonetheless a work-first platform. Most individuals scroll their feeds throughout working hours.
Evenings, however, are typically quieter. Not like platforms like Instagram or TikTok, engagement on LinkedIn usually trails off as individuals wrap up their workdays and log out.
In terms of the perfect day to put up on LinkedIn, Thursday comes out tops, intently adopted by Wednesday and Tuesday. However once more engagement is pretty robust throughout all weekdays — so that you’ve received a number of flexibility.
The weekend tells a distinct story. Posts shared on Saturday and Sunday get noticeably much less engagement, with Sunday coming in because the slowest day of the week. Once more, that checks out — most individuals aren’t firing up LinkedIn on their days off.
📚 Learn our full information to the greatest time to put up on LinkedIn to see the optimum instances for day by day of the week, plus the perfect sort of content material to put up.
The very best time to put up on TikTok
The very best time to put up on TikTok is Sunday at 8 p.m., with Tuesday at 4 p.m. and Wednesday at 5 p.m. coming in simply behind.
Movies, carousels, and even text-based posts shared throughout these slots tended to tug in essentially the most views throughout the week.
Usually, we discovered that TikTok engagement begins to select up within the early afternoon, with most peak viewing instances occurring from 1 p.m. onwards.
TikTok is a little bit of an outlier in comparison with different social platforms — making it all of the extra fascinating to research. Whereas platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn have comparatively constant engagement patterns tied to the workday, TikTok viewers conduct is totally different — probably as a result of individuals scroll of their downtime, not simply between conferences.
Wednesday is the perfect day to put up on TikTok, with Thursday and Friday tied for second place, so mid-to-late week is a good window so as to add to your schedule.
The worst day to put up on TikTok is Saturday — the info reveals a noticeable dip in views for content material shared then, with Sunday not too far behind.
📚 Learn our full information to the greatest time to put up on TikTok to see the optimum instances for day by day of the week, plus the perfect sort of content material to put up.
The very best time to put up on YouTube
The very best time to put up on YouTube is Wednesday at 4 p.m. Movies printed at the moment noticed the best common views of the week — with Thursday and Monday at 4 p.m. shut behind.
Extra broadly, posting between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays is a superb window to your posting schedule. Movies shared late afternoon constantly outperformed different time slots, doubtless as a result of viewers are winding down after work or examine and have time to settle in with longer-form content material.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are the perfect days to put up on YouTube. These three had been tied for prime efficiency in our information, particularly when paired with that late-afternoon posting window between 3 and 5 p.m.
Sunday was the lowest-performing day, adopted intently by Saturday. So when you’re planning your content material calendar, weekdays is likely to be your greatest wager — and price experimenting with when you’re at the moment posting on weekends.
📚 Learn our full information to the greatest time to put up on YouTube to see the optimum instances for day by day of the week, plus the perfect sort of content material to put up.
The very best time to put up on X (previously Twitter)
The very best time to put up on Twitter/X is 9 a.m. on Wednesday. That’s when content material sees the best engagement, in keeping with our evaluation of over 1 million posts.
The following-best instances are Tuesday at 8 a.m., adopted intently by Monday at 8 a.m.
On the whole, although, weekday mornings are your greatest wager. Engagement begins selecting up early — usually round 6 or 7 a.m. — and hits its peak between 8 and 9 a.m. From there, exercise tends to taper off into the afternoon as individuals shift gears into the remainder of their workday.
Many of the top-performing time slots land on this morning window, so when you’re trying to get extra eyes in your tweets, attempt scheduling them earlier than lunchtime.
Tuesday is the perfect day to put up on Twitter/X. Posts shared on Wednesday and Thursday additionally carry out properly — making the center of the week a good time to point out up on the platform.
Once more Engagement tends to drop off on posts shared on the weekend. Sunday is the quietest day on Twitter, with Saturday not far behind. Whereas a couple of time slots nonetheless maintain up, you’re usually higher off retaining your strongest content material for the workweek.
📚 Learn our full information to the greatest time to put up on X to see the optimum instances for day by day of the week.
The right way to discover your greatest instances to put up in Buffer
I can’t promise that posting your content material at exactly these instances will assure social media success — if solely it had been that simple! It’s essential to do not forget that viewers conduct can range. For instance, optimum posting instances for Buffer’s social media viewers in all probability received’t work for my private target market, and vice versa.
Utilizing your social media metrics to information you could be actually useful right here. Some social media platforms, like Instagram and YouTube, will embrace high-engagement instances of their native analytics. For those that don’t, you are able to do a little bit of guide work by analyzing your best-performing posts to make some educated guesses in your private greatest time to put up on social media.
Click on on the platform-specific guides I’ve linked above to search out step-by-step directions that can assist you entry all of them.
In fact, there may be a neater approach. Any social media administration software value utilizing will do the exhausting give you the results you want. Buffer’s analytics will crunch the numbers of all of your historic information and suggest the next:
The very best time/day of the week so that you can postThe greatest content material format to put up (picture, video, textual content, or hyperlink)How usually to put up per day or week
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Buffer Analytics is on the market in our paid plans for Fb, Instagram, Twitter/X, and LinkedIn Pages. Our Solutions function can suggest the perfect days and instances for Instagram posts and the perfect days to put up for Fb, Twitter/X, and LinkedIn Pages.
To search out them:
Make sure the social community you need to analyze is related to Buffer (right here’s a information to connecting all our out there channels). Observe that if this channel has simply been related to Buffer, it could take a few week for us to collect all of the required information.Click on on the Head to the Analytics tab on the prime left.Right here, you’ll discover your Analytics Overview. You’ll see how your content material has carried out over the interval you set with the date dropdown on the highest proper.Click on on the Solutions tab. You’ll discover the entire suggestions I discussed above on this window.
Select the platform you need solutions for within the column on the left.
Timing issues — however it is not all the things
As touched on above, discovering the perfect time to put up on social media may assist enhance content material efficiency, however it’s not the magic bullet that can have your content material going viral.
Utilizing optimum posting instances in your chosen social media platforms is a straightforward field to tick, however your time and vitality are greatest spent on ensuring your content material resonates together with your target market and can nudge you towards your social media advertising targets.
Unsure the place to start? Here is our information to constructing a stable social media technique from scratch — together with a template to get you began!
What have you ever discovered most useful when figuring out your greatest time to put up on social media? Tell us @buffer on all our social media accounts!
