The best time to post on social media — and how to find yours

Search 'best time to post on social media' and you'll get confident charts — 'Tuesdays at 10am!'. The problem is those numbers are averages across millions of unrelated accounts. Your audience isn't the average; the only best time that matters is your best time, and you can find it.

Why generic 'best times' are unreliable

A bakery's audience, a B2B software brand's audience and a fitness creator's audience are awake, scrolling and buying at completely different times. An average across all of them describes none of them. Worse, if everyone posts at the 'best time', that slot is the most crowded — sometimes the quieter hour wins.

How to find your best time

1. 1Check your own analytics — most platforms show when your followers are online. Start there.
2. 2Test deliberately — post similar content at different times over two to three weeks and note what performs.
3. 3Look at engagement, not just reach — the time that gets replies and saves beats the time that gets passive views.
4. 4Lock in the winners — once a pattern is clear, schedule your best content into those slots.

A rough starting point (until you have data)

If you're brand new with no data yet, mid-morning and early evening on weekdays are reasonable first guesses for many consumer audiences, and business hours for B2B. Treat these as a place to start testing from — not an answer.

The thing that matters more than timing

Posting consistently at a decent time beats posting sporadically at the 'perfect' one. Timing is a small optimisation on top of showing up regularly — don't let chasing the perfect slot become a reason to post less.

Post at the right time, automatically

Optimate suggests strong times from your own performance and schedules your posts to hit them, so you're not manually posting at 7am. Start free — 14-day Pro trial, no card.