Are you tired of huge differences in engagement between your posts? One post drives a ton of users to your profile and gets lots of website clicks. The next post gets numbers so tiny you can barely see them. It’s frustrating! But if you follow this guide on how to read your own Instagram analytics, you can ease your frustrations and get more consistent engagement with those posts you worked so hard on. All you have to do is pick the perfect times to post.
According to Later.com the average best times to post on Instagram are:
Monday: 6am, 10am, and 10pm EST Tuesday: 2am, 4am, and 9am EST
Wednesday: 7am, 8am and 11pm EST Thursday: 9am, 12pm, and 7pm EST
Friday: 5am, 1pm, and 3pm EST Saturday: 11am, 7pm, and 8pm EST
Sunday: 7am, 8am, and 4pm EST
While those are great guidelines, Later also says that using your own personal analytics to find out when your followers are online is a more effective way to go - and we totally agree! Let’s get started on how to figure this all out.
Reading Your Analytics For When to Post
1. First off, to view your analytics on Instagram you need to turn your account into either an Instagram Creator account or an Instagram Business account.
2. Once you’ve made this switch, a button will appear on your profile that says “Insights”. Click on this button to discover a treasure trove of info.
3. We want to focus on when your followers are on Instagram. So next, click on the words “Total Followers” under the Overview.
4. Scroll all the way to the bottom until you see the words “Most Active Times”. This is where we can discover the best time for your post to get in front of your followers. Make sure to tap on the blue bars to make the numbers appear.
5. Let’s start with the Hours section. In the Hours section, you can click through the days of the week and see which hour your followers are most active in. Take note of each hour and its corresponding day.
6. Now click on the Days section to discover which day your followers spend the most time on Instagram. If you have a big announcement coming up, plan to post it on the day with the biggest number.
Okay so what to do if your best posting times are smack dab in the middle of your work day when you can’t hop on your phone to post? Luckily, there are tons of great apps that do the work for you. Consider using platforms like Planoly, Later, or Hootsuite to schedule your posts during your follower’s high activity windows.
Reading Your Analytics For What to Post
1. Again, click on the "Insights" button.
2. Instead of clicking on "Total Followers", we want to click on "Posts" under "Content You Shared".
3. This next step will differ between what kind of engagement you want to get. Are you hoping for comments? Or wanting to get in front of as many accounts as possible? Click on the middle metrics button. It defaults to the "Reach" metric.
4. Switch in between different metrics and look at which posts end up near the top of your page. These are the posts that are receiving the most engagement. Try and create content that has similar themes and hashtags as these top posts.
Hot Tip 🔥
If you're looking to see exactly what time you posted on Instagram (because the app only shows you what day you posted as opposed to an exact time), navigate to instagram in a browser. Right click on the date of the post and click inspect. There you will find an exact time so that you can better understand when you posted and what is working!
Happy posting! We can’t wait to see your engagement roll in.
