Best Times to Post on Social Media: Updated for 2026
best-times-to-post-on-social-media-2026
Brandon Kim
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Senior Data Analyst
Best Times to Post on Social Media: Updated for 2026
One of the prominent questions in social media, even in 2026, remains: what is the best time to post?
Glad you asked. In this blog post, we will review sources analyzing recent data across platforms and conduct an analysis on the best times to post across major social media platforms.
Sprout Social Analysis on 2025 Data
Sprout Social analyzed billions of interactions across a large profile dataset to identify posting time patterns across platforms. They aggregated the data to produce general windows for optimal posting times across platforms and for individual platforms.
For this analysis, we will focus on Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and LinkedIn - the most common platforms for crossposting activity. Here are their results:
Overall Best Times to Post on Social Media:
Mondays | 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. |
Tuesdays | 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. |
Wednesdays | 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. |
Thursdays | 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. |
Fridays | 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. |
Best days to post: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays | |
Facebook - Best Times to Post:
Mondays | 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. |
Tuesdays | 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. |
Wednesdays | 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. |
Thursdays | 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. |
Fridays | 9-11 a.m. and 2-4 p.m. |
Saturdays | 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. |
Sundays | 9-11 a.m. and 3-6 p.m. |
Best days to post: Monday through Fridays | |
Instagram - Best Times to Post:
Mondays | 1-2 p.m. and 4-5 p.m. |
Tuesdays | 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. |
Wednesdays | 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. |
Thursdays | 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. |
Fridays | 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. |
Saturdays | 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. |
Sundays | 4 p.m. |
Best days to post: Tuesdays through Thursdays | |
LinkedIn - Best Times to Post:
Mondays | 11 a.m. - noon |
Tuesdays | 8 a.m. - 2 p.m. |
Wednesdays | 8 a.m. - noon |
Thursdays | 8 a.m. - noon |
Fridays | 7 a.m. - 2 p.m. |
Saturdays | 7 - 10 a.m. |
Sundays | 6 - 8 a.m. |
Best days to post: Tuesdays through Thursdays | |
Key Takeaways for Best Posting Times
Sprout Social produced these key posting windows per platform by aggregating engagement volume by hour and day. Another key note: all times were recorded globally, so follow these windows relative to your own time zone.
Based on what we see with these three major platforms, we can produce some additional takeaways:
Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn all conclude at least one weekend day as the lowest performing day. This does not mean these are the least engaging periods, but it is a stronger signal of timing misalignment.
Facebook and LinkedIn generally favor early-morning publishing when compared to Instagram. Our hypothesis points to desktop vs. mobile audience differences, as the typical start of the workday (9 a.m.) drives predictable logins, email checks, and tab opening.
Instagram shows more fragmentation in its timing windows for optimal publishing. This indicates users are more likely to log in at uneven intervals throughout the day.
All platforms see their largest overlap between Tuesday through Thursday.
Conclusion
With these resulting windows, use them as a broad starting point for publishing habits, as they reflect aggregated data.
Post engagement performance is contextually nuanced by platform and depends on factors outside the study, including platform algorithms, content type, industry, publishing cadence, and much more.
As with all our social media platform studies, it is best to analyze your own channel data, as results often show variation from broad benchmarks.
Need help optimizing your social media based on data? Chat with our team today!
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