If you are a regular Instagram user, you might have noticed that all posts do not get the same or expected receptions. Regardless of the content quality, some posts may get more engagement and, some may get lower than you expected. This inconsistency is because your post does not show up on enough timelines for your followers. And this will happen when you run an account for business. The visibility of your Instagram post may be affected. There are many factors behind this, but an important one is the Timing of your posts.
HOW TIME PLAYS THE ROLE
The Instagram algorithm prioritizes the posts that are related to the users. It can be friends, family, or people who contact frequently. So Instagram limits your post reach when there are enough posts available to get prioritized. For that, you have to avoid clashing with those posts. Ok, how can you know about that? You can not, but you can find the best time to post. But before determining your best time, there are some things you need to do better.
CONSISTENCY ON CONTENT
Without proper content, your posts cannot reach the timeline of 5% of your followers. Because without good content, your posts do not get enough interactions. So it would not show up on the feeds of your followers. An okayish content is not enough for this platform anymore. With millions of people creating and posting stuff here, you always need to do better than your previous one. Compelling content that you shape with the audience in mind will always get better engagement rates than just for post sake content.
WORK TOWARDS ENGAGEMENT
Everything you do here is for engagement and It is the reason that you are reading this right now. All things you have learned and applied on this platform are to improve your engagement rate. Whatever the stream is, everyone is doing their best here for more likes, comments, views, or mentions that will decide their post’s visibility on both follower’s feed and explore page. Many people may wonder if there is a chance available to receive Instagram likes automatically on new posts that will give them a boost in their reach. But it's not easy creating such opportunities that demand concentration and creativity with good posting techniques.
UNDERSTANDING AUDIENCE
Another factor you may have to keep an eye on is understanding what people love and staying updated about it. You need to go with the trend and know what is famous and liked by the audience. Then it will connect with them and make them interact with your posts. But these all will go unnoticed when you post them at the wrong time.
FINDING THE BEST TIME
The best time is a myth and cannot be determined. There can never be a specific time for this. You cannot decide the outcome when it is not in your hand but on millions of users. But still, you can calculate some time which gives better results for you in terms of reach. It depends upon when your followers will be most active.
Based on some
studies, these times will give better engagement.
Best time:
● 2 PM - 3 PM on Thursdays
● 11 AM on Wednesdays
● 10 AM on Fridays
Best days: Thursdays and Saturdays are when people seem to be active on Instagram more than on other days.
Start of the day: Usually, people have a habit of checking their phones in the morning, specifically at the wake-up time. It has become routine for most people. So the chance of getting engagement is high during this time.
Break time: This is another period when people scroll their screens. Students and office-going people mostly want to spend their leisure time on mobiles by checking their social media accounts.
Festive days and holidays: These are the times when most people will be active and even post their content. So obviously you have a high chance of getting engagement but also have high competition.
By posting at these times, you can expect your post to get more reach and engagement. But The thing is it will not be the same for everyone. Sometimes These periods will give you worse reach than your worst one before. This is because the time will differ based on the time zones and geographical locations of your audience. To overcome these differences you have to analyze your audience. This can be done by various tools that will be available online but the insights feature Instagram offers gives you enough data and analytics about your users. You can see the most active time of your users along with their demographics and age range. So it will give you a good idea about the best time for you.
CONCLUSION
By knowing the demographics and active time of your target users, you could post your content in a way that encourages interactions like adding catchy captions or using different posting techniques will give you more engagement than your expectations.