At Buffer, we just lately launched into an formidable mission: uncovering the very best time to publish 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 very best time to publish on Fb, LinkedIn, and X, we appeared on the timeslots with the very best median social media engagement on every platform. To foretell the very best occasions to publish on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, we checked out median attain and video views.
In each circumstances, we discovered some clear patterns — and might make some clear suggestions on the very best time to publish on social media. Particular timeslots see extra engagement or views than others, which is a crucial consideration in your social media advertising technique.
Use these occasions as a place to begin to provide your content material the very best likelihood of success.
Earlier than we get into this, an vital caveat: sharing your social media posts on the ‘proper’ time shouldn’t be the key sauce for content material success.
(If there have been a secret sauce, it could be consistency. However extra on that in a sec.)
There are literally thousands of indicators that decide content material efficiency all every of the social media platform’s a number of algorithms — engagement, watch time, consumer preferences, location… Publish recency is probably going only one small a part of a fairly complicated puzzle.
Nonetheless, when you really feel such as you’re hitting all the correct notes along with your content material and need to give your social media technique a useful little enhance, it’s value testing the very best time to publish on social media to your platform of alternative.
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That is the place a social media administration device like Buffer actually shines. Experiment by scheduling posts on the really useful occasions and monitoring publish efficiency to see what works finest to your target market.
Is there an total finest time to publish on social media?
There is no such thing as a single finest time to publish 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 inclined to get extra engagement on Tuesdays, whereas Fridays are the very best 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 will not be as particular as we will on a per-platform foundation, we will make broad suggestions which can be largely frequent sense. For instance, social media posts shared on weekends are inclined to get much less attain and engagement, as does content material posted in the course of the evening.
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 finished some mathematical magic to make the really useful time zones universally relevant. In different phrases, no have to convert — take into account all of the suggestions native time. Whether or not you are in EST (Japanese Commonplace Time), PST (Pacific Commonplace Time), or IST (Indian Commonplace Time), the occasions apply to you.
Greatest time to publish on social media: a fast information
Right here’s a cheat sheet for the very best time to publish on social media (it’s value scrolling down for extra choices, too!)
- Greatest time to publish on Fb: 5 a.m. – 7 a.m. on weekdays
- Greatest time to publish on Instagram: 3 p.m. – 6 p.m. on weekdays
- Greatest time to publish on LinkedIn: 7 a.m. – 4 p.m. on weekdays
- Greatest time to publish on TikTok: 4 p.m. – 7 p.m. on weekdays
- Greatest time to publish on YouTube: 3 p.m. – 5 p.m. on weekdays
- Greatest time to publish on X/Twitter: 8 a.m. – 10 a.m. on weekdays
- Greatest time to publish on Threads: 7 a.m. — 9 a.m. on weekdays
The most effective time to publish on Fb
The most effective time to publish on Fb is 5 a.m. on Monday.Fb customers are the earliest birds of the bunch. Early morning posts — particularly in the beginning of the week — are inclined to carry out finest.
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 inclined to rise via mid-morning, peak round noon, and steadily taper off later within the day.
On the subject of the very best day to publish on Fb, Wednesday leads the pack by way of total engagement. Tuesday and Thursday observe intently — and also you’ll discover from the graph beneath that each one weekdays are inclined to boast comparable 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 finest time to publish on Fb to see the optimum occasions for on daily basis of the week, plus the very best kind of content material to publish.
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One factor to bear in mind: Posting occasions usually are not the identical as viewers energetic occasions. So for Fb, it would not essentially imply 5 a.m. is when individuals are seeing your Fb posts. It is probably the content material wants time to percolate on the information feed, and your followers and followers will discover it there once they go browsing to the platform at a extra cheap hour. The identical goes for all of the occasions really useful on this information.
The most effective time to publish on Instagram
The most effective time to publish on Instagram is 3 p.m. on Friday. After analyzing over 2 million posts, we discovered this time slot constantly bought the very 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.
In the event 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. (hi there, lunch time scroll), and hits its stride at 3 p.m. on most days.
Weekends, nevertheless, inform a distinct story. Attain tends to dip on Saturdays, dropping even additional on Sundays. Whereas there are a number of small spikes within the early night, they don’t fairly match the efficiency of weekday posts.
On the whole, weekdays are a secure wager for strong attain on Instagram — however Monday and Friday come out on high, with barely larger engagement than the remainder of the week.
On the different finish of the size? Sunday is the worst day to publish on Instagram, the place we see a notable dip in publish efficiency.
📚 Learn our full information to the finest time to publish on Instagram to see the optimum occasions for on daily basis of the week, plus the very best kind of content material to publish.
The most effective time to publish on LinkedIn
The most effective time to publish 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 — nevertheless (once more!), solely by a smidge.
Posts shared between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays tended to get strong engagement — and there aren’t any prizes for guessing why.
Regardless of LinkedIn changing into somewhat extra informal and creator-friendly in recent times, it’s nonetheless a work-first platform. Most individuals scroll their feeds throughout working hours.
Evenings, however, are usually quieter. Not like platforms like Instagram or TikTok, engagement on LinkedIn sometimes trails off as individuals wrap up their workdays and sign off.
On the subject of the very best day to publish 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 bought a whole lot 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 finest time to publish on LinkedIn to see the optimum occasions for on daily basis of the week, plus the very best kind of content material to publish.
The most effective time to publish on TikTok
The most effective time to publish 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 choose up within the early afternoon, with most peak viewing occasions 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 investigate. Whereas platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn have comparatively constant engagement patterns tied to the workday, TikTok viewers conduct is totally different — presumably as a result of individuals scroll of their downtime, not simply between conferences.
Wednesday is the very best day to publish 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 publish 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 finest time to publish on TikTok to see the optimum occasions for on daily basis of the week, plus the very best kind of content material to publish.
The most effective time to publish on YouTube
The most effective time to publish on YouTube is Wednesday at 4 p.m. Movies printed at the moment noticed the very 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 wonderful window to your posting schedule. Movies shared late afternoon constantly outperformed different time slots, probably 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 very best days to publish on YouTube. These three had been tied for high 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 finest wager — and price experimenting with when you’re presently posting on weekends.
📚 Learn our full information to the finest time to publish on YouTube to see the optimum occasions for on daily basis of the week, plus the very best kind of content material to publish.
The most effective time to publish on X (previously Twitter)
The most effective time to publish on Twitter/X is 9 a.m. on Wednesday. That’s when content material sees the very best engagement, in keeping with our evaluation of over 1 million posts.
The following-best occasions are Tuesday at 8 a.m., adopted intently by Monday at 8 a.m.
On the whole, although, weekday mornings are your finest wager. Engagement begins choosing up early — sometimes 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 very best day to publish on Twitter/X. Posts shared on Wednesday and Thursday additionally carry out properly — making the center of the week a good time to indicate 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 number of time slots nonetheless maintain up, you’re usually higher off maintaining your strongest content material for the workweek.
📚 Learn our full information to the finest time to publish on X to see the optimum occasions for on daily basis of the week.
The most effective time to publish on Threads
The most effective time to publish on Threads is 7 a.m. on Wednesday. Posts printed then had the very best median engagement — that’s likes, replies, and reposts — throughout all the info we analyzed.
The following-best occasions had been 7 a.m. – 9 a.m. on weekdays, particularly Tuesday via Friday. Usually talking, most weekday mornings are nice home windows to intention for.
An attention-grabbing ‘outlier’ time that popped up in our examine was 1 a.m. on Sunday. As you possibly can see from the heatmap graph above, it ranks within the high 5 posting occasions for Threads.
It’s proof that, whereas the hours with the very best median engagement charges have a tendency to be between 7 and 9, it might nonetheless be value experimenting with different posting occasions to see what works finest for your viewers.
Wednesday is the very best day to publish on Threads, based mostly on total engagement. It’s adopted intently by Friday and Thursday — midweek is clearly prime Threads time.
On the flip aspect, Sunday sees the bottom engagement total, with Saturday not far behind. In the event you’re batch-scheduling content material for the week, you may need to give these weekend posts a second thought.
📚 Learn our full information to the finest time to publish on Threads to see the optimum occasions for on daily basis of the week.
The best way to discover your finest occasions to publish in Buffer
I can’t promise that posting your content material at exactly these occasions will assure social media success — if solely it had been that straightforward! It’s vital to keep in mind that viewers conduct can differ. For instance, optimum posting occasions for Buffer’s social media viewers most likely received’t work for my private target market, and vice versa.
Utilizing your social media metrics to information you may be actually useful right here. Some social media platforms, like Instagram and YouTube, will embrace high-engagement occasions 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 finest time to publish on social media.
Click on on the platform-specific guides I’ve linked above to seek out step-by-step directions that will help you entry all of them.
After all, there may be a neater approach. Any social media administration device value utilizing will do the exhausting be just right for you. Buffer’s analytics will crunch the numbers of all of your historic information and advocate the next:
- The most effective time/day of the week so that you can publish
- The most effective content material format to publish (picture, video, textual content, or hyperlink)
- How typically to publish 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 advocate the very best days and occasions for Instagram posts and the very best days to publish 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). Be aware that if this channel has simply been related to Buffer, it might take a couple of week for us to collect all of the required information.
- Click on on the Head to the Analytics tab on the high 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 all the 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 very best time to publish 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 occasions in your chosen social media platforms is a straightforward field to tick, however your time and power are finest spent on ensuring your content material resonates along with your target market and can nudge you towards your social media advertising targets.
Unsure the place to start? This is our information to constructing a strong social media technique from scratch — together with a template to get you began!
What have you ever discovered most useful when figuring out your finest time to publish on social media? Tell us @buffer on all our social media accounts!
