The Best Time to Post on Instagram on Saturday and Other Days of the Week: What Do the Latest Trends Indicate?

A good content strategy must leverage the best times to post on Instagram, especially on Saturdays when users have more free time to spend on social media. You must also know all the hours that are optimal for content posting for each day of the week.

For personal accounts, random and spontaneous content posting is perfectly okay. It is, perhaps, the most organic approach to content creation there is. While the organic model should always be at the heart of any content strategy, unplanned posts are not recommended for business accounts. But having a carefully planned content schedule does not mean compromising your authenticity. It involves mapping out high-traffic times to maximize your audience reach and content exposure.

Let’s take a look at the latest trends in optimized content scheduling.

The Best Times to Post on Instagram on Saturdays: Why It Pays to Know

Why should you know the best times to post on Instagram, whether it’s Saturday or any other day of the week? Because the main point of posting content is to let your audience see it.  Instagram’s algorithm determines which posts are relevant to each user based on their interests and measurable online behaviors, among many other factors. There are ways to make Instagram’s algorithm work in your favor, and one of them is by posting content during the optimal times for your target audience to capture the maximum audience size possible.

People commonly go online at certain times throughout the day. You’ll see them immersed in their phones while drinking their coffee in the morning or having breakfast; during their train commute; during lunch time; and before going to bed. Spending time on social media is part of the daily norm, but a variety of factors determine the different traffic volumes over a 24-hour period.

Research regarding optimal times for content posting on Instagram has consistently found that Saturday is not an optimal day for posting content, but there’s still a moderate level of user activity that you can take advantage of. If your competitors are not publishing content on Saturdays because most users spend less time on the platform, this creates an opportunity for you to reach those users who go online on this day without having to compete for their attention.

Determining the Best Times to Post on Instagram on Saturdays and Other Days

Knowing your target audience is the most critical factor when determining the best times to post on Instagram. Here are a few more pointers to help get you on the right track.

• Learn from your posting history. Analyze and compare past posts and how each one performed. Take note of the hours of every day and the days of the week when your post/s received the most likes and engagement. 
• Test your audience at various times. You may have to spend a few weeks testing different hours for each day for content posting. And don’t forget to also confirm your results with additional tests. 
• Determine the best times to post on Instagram for different types of content. The best times for regular posts, Stories, Reels, IGTV, and Live may vary. This means performing separate scheduling tests for each type of content to figure out when the best time is to post them.

The Best Time to Post on Instagram on Saturday Morning, Afternoon and Evening

Is it the best time to post on Instagram on Saturday morning, afternoon, or evening? It may seem counterintuitive, but Saturday is actually not the best day of the week for content posting. For many users, Saturday is an opportunity to take a deep and refreshing breath of real-world air, so to speak. The weekend is for family, self-care, and rest; it’s the time to log off so they can recharge.

Saturday is also not the worst day of the week to post content, however. There may be different trends for different industries, of course, but across all industries worldwide, the best time to post on Instagram on a Saturday morning is between 10 am and 1 pm. There’s a decent level of user engagement between 7 am and 10 am and between 1 pm and 4 pm, and engagement levels get lower from 4 pm to 10 pm.

While Saturday is not an optimal day for posting content, you should still take advantage of the optimal hours for posting on this day. The competition for a spot on people’s news feeds is also less intense, which gives you an opportunity to capture a bigger slice of the pie. The “pie” may be smaller, but you may still be able to claim a percentage of it that’s comparable to the same number you can get when posting on a day with both higher traffic and competition.

The best time to post on Instagram on a Saturday is also a great time to boost your engagement metrics. Remember that the higher your engagement metrics are, the higher the likelihood that Instagram’s algorithm will give you a more prominent place in people’s news feeds on all days of the week.

Ideal Instagram Post Times on Saturdays vs Other Days for Reels, Igtv, Stories, and Live

It’s also extremely helpful to know the best times to post on Instagram according to the type of content. Here are the results according to research conducted by Status Brew. Times with an asterisk (*) are the optimal times for posting. Take note that there are no optimal times for posting on Saturday for these types of content, but you still have a small window for IG Reels which you should take advantage of.

Type of Content	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
IG Reels	5 am, 9 am, 9 pm	1 am3 am*8 am	6 am7 am10 pm	8 am *11 am6 pm	*4 am12 nn2 pm	10 am6 pm7 pm	6 am7 am3 pm
IGTV	8 pm to10 pm	8 pm to10 pm	*8 pm to10 pm	8 pm to10 pm	Not ideal	Not ideal	Not ideal
Stories	9 am to4 pm	9 am to4 pm	9 am to4 pm	9 am to4 pm	9 am to4 pm	Not ideal	Not ideal
Live	*12 nn7 pm to 9 pm	*12 nn7 pm to 9 pm	*12 nn7 pm to 9 pm	*12 nn7 pm to 9 pm	*12 nn7 pm to 9 pm	Not ideal	Not ideal

The Best Time to Post on Instagram on Saturday: Scheduling Your Content

You can start taking advantage of the best times to post on Instagram on Saturday and on other days of the week based on the aforementioned results. But it’s also important to figure out the optimal times for your specific industry and your brand’s target audience. Keep the following pointers in mind.

• Identify your content strategy goal. Is it to generate more page views or to increase brand awareness? Do you want to boost your follower numbers, engagement rates, or sales? If increasing sales is your top priority, for example, you should post content more frequently during peak seasons.
• Identify your target audience. The specific demographic group/s your target audience belongs to will determine when they’re most active online. You should also do some research to find out their usual online behaviors 
• Take applicable time zones into consideration. If your target audience spans the entire U.S., for example, you’ll have to post the same content at different times of the day to coincide with the peak hours for each time zone.  
• Post regularly but not too often. Avoid posting too frequently as this might be flagged as spamming by the platform’s algorithm. Your audience might also find the high number of posts annoying and they might opt to unfollow you or see less of your content. Once you figure out the best times to reach your audience, create a content schedule and post regularly during these hours to keep your feed fresh and to stay active and visible.

• Determine the best type/s of content for your industry and brand.  
• Learn about your competitors’ social media activities. You would want to remain visible when your competitors are most active with their content posting. At the same time, you should also take advantage of their downtimes when you can have greater visibility.
• Learn as much as you can about Instagram’s algorithm. This will take a lot of time and effort, but it’s worth the work. Determining the best times to post on Instagram on Saturdays and all other days of the week based on user activity levels is just the start. IG’s algorithm still comes into play as it decides your content’s relevance and its prominence on people’s feeds. Regularly analyze your content performance using Instagram Insights

Final Thoughts: A Perfectly Timed Post Is an Optimized Post

For business growth, having amazing content is not enough. You have to know how to reach your target audience. It will take a while and a lot of trial and error to determine the optimal times to reach the highest number of users possible, as well as when they are most likely to engage with your content. But knowing the best times to post on Instagram is a great place to start.

Take advantage of the established best times to post on Instagram on Saturdays and other days of the week, even if the results are generalized across all industries. And then you can narrow down the results to identify the best times for your industry and brand by testing out the times listed above and analyzing your content’s performance.

The best way to achieve lasting organic growth is through an effective content strategy. You may want to consider getting professional help from a trusted growth service, like Path Social. It’s important to only work with a growth service company that ensures the organic content promotion and advanced audience targeting to keep your account safe from bots and fake accounts. Path Social uses a proprietary AI targeting algorithm to track down real people and only those who are most likely to be interested in your content. Their in-house team of experts performs organic content promotion to reach these people so you can expect quality followers and engagement. Start growing and gaining instagram followers today!