Search for the best time to post and you get exact times. The problem is that the lists contradict each other. Below we look at why, where on each platform you find your own answer and how often a business needs to post.

The audience is there every day. Svenskarna och internet 2026, the Swedish Internet Foundation’s annual survey, found that 46 percent of Swedish internet users aged 8 and over use Instagram daily and 45 percent use Facebook. So the question isn’t whether anyone looks on a Tuesday, but when your followers do.

The platforms change their menus and advice often, so everything is dated, as of 15 October 2026. Sources are at the end.

Why the lists of posting times don’t fit your business

The most quoted lists are based on data from scheduling tools, meaning posts that the tool’s customers have published. Two large analyses from 2026 come from Buffer and Sprout Social. Put them side by side:

PlatformBuffer, 2026Sprout Social, 2026
InstagramThursday 9am, Wednesday noon and Wednesday 6pm. Worst: Friday and Saturday.Tuesday 1–7pm and Wednesday noon–9pm.
TikTokSunday 9am, Monday 1pm and Sunday 1pm. Lowest: afternoons, noon–5pm.Tuesday to Friday, 2–6pm.
FacebookThursday 9am. Best day: Wednesday. Worst: Saturday.Tuesday and Wednesday, noon–8pm.
LinkedInWeekdays 3–8pm, best Wednesday 4pm. Weakest: Monday and Tuesday.Tuesday to Thursday, 11am–5pm.

Both give local time, so you read the times in your own time zone. Buffer analysed 9.6 million Instagram posts from January 2024 to December 2025, over 14 million Facebook posts, over 7.1 million TikTok posts and 4.8 million LinkedIn posts. Sprout Social analysed nearly 2 billion engagements across roughly 307,000 profiles between 27 November 2025 and 27 February 2026. Both are international datasets, not figures for Sweden or any other single market.

Comparison of the best times to post according to Buffer and Sprout Social in 2026 for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn. On TikTok, Buffer's weakest time, the afternoon, is the window Sprout Social names as best.
Two large international studies from 2026 give different times. On TikTok, one study’s worst time is the other’s best.

Look at the TikTok row. According to Buffer, the afternoon is the weakest time, and the afternoon is exactly what Sprout Social picks out as the best. There are four reasons why neither list is your answer:

  1. They measure someone else’s followers. A lunch restaurant’s customers and an accountancy firm’s clients don’t keep the same hours. An average across hundreds of thousands of accounts says little about yours.
  2. They measure engagement, not customers. Likes are not bookings. For a business, profile visits, clicks, messages and calls are what count.
  3. They change. Buffer itself says the LinkedIn peak used to fall in working hours and has now moved to late afternoon and evening, and that its data can’t tell why.
  4. Feeds aren’t chronological. The platforms rank posts by what each person is likely to want to see, so the hour matters more in some places than in others.

The hour matters more on some platforms than others

  • The Instagram feed: Instagram lists when a post was shared among its feed signals. In Explore, it weighs how many people like, comment on, share and save a post, and how quickly. Here, timing matters.
  • Stories: they disappear after 24 hours unless you save them as highlights. Post them when your followers are awake.
  • Reels and TikTok: according to Instagram, most of what people see in Reels comes from accounts they don’t follow. TikTok describes its For You feed as based on interactions, information about the content and information about the viewer, such as location, time zone and day, but doesn’t mention when the video was posted. That suggests the content weighs more than the hour, although timing isn’t irrelevant. More on that under TikTok below.
  • LinkedIn: in Svenskarna och internet 2026, frequent LinkedIn users in Sweden complain that the feed sometimes shows posts that are weeks or months old. A post can stay alive for a long time.
  • X is the opposite: in the code X has published for its For You feed, posts older than 48 hours are filtered out.
  • Pinterest: according to Pinterest, there is no set engagement window, and a Pin can get engagement hours, days, months or even years after it was first published.

How to find your best time in four steps

The method is the same on every platform. What differs is where the insights live, and we go through that platform by platform further down.

Four steps to find a business's best time to post: see when followers are active in the platform's insights, pick two or three test times, test for four to six weeks and measure profile visits, clicks and messages.
Instagram, TikTok and Meta show when your followers are active. LinkedIn doesn’t, so there you go straight to testing.

A single post tells you little. What counts is the pattern over several weeks, and that requires posting at a steady rhythm while you test.

If you have no data of your own

If you have too few followers for the insights, or a new account, you can choose your first test times where Buffer and Sprout Social overlap. It is international data and not your answer, just a starting point:

PlatformWhere the studies overlap
InstagramWednesday, noon–6pm
FacebookTuesday 7pm and Wednesday 6pm. Buffer’s single best time, Thursday 9am, falls outside Sprout Social’s window.
TikTokAlmost no overlap, only Thursday 1pm. Go by your own insights as soon as you have them.
LinkedInWednesday and Thursday, 3–5pm

Best time to post on Instagram, and for Reels

Where to find your time: open your account’s insights in the Instagram app and tap Total followers. There, Instagram shows your followers’ growth, top locations, age range and the times they’re most active on Instagram. This requires at least 100 followers. Insights can be shown for periods within the past 90 days. If you have fewer followers, go straight to the test and compare your own posts.

Feed posts and carousels: post them near the peak. Instagram lists posting time among its feed signals, and in Explore, how quickly others react matters. A post that goes out while your followers are awake is better placed to get those first reactions.

Stories: they are visible for 24 hours and then they’re gone. Post them when something is happening and your followers are awake, and save what should stay as highlights on your profile.

Reels: the hour probably matters less. Instagram says most of what people see in Reels comes from accounts they don’t follow, and posting time isn’t among the signals Instagram lists for Reels. Buffer gives the evening, 6–11pm, as the best time for Reels, but also says it analysed all post types together. Post Reels at your usual test time and put the effort into the first few seconds.

If Instagram and Facebook are getting the same post, you can schedule them together in Meta Business Suite. More on that under Facebook below.

Best time to post on TikTok

Where to find your time: in TikTok Studio, under Analytics, you’ll find the Viewers and Followers tabs. Both include Most active times, which shows the hours and days your audience was most active on TikTok over the last 7 days. Gender, age and location for viewers appear once you have at least 100 viewers in the selected period. TikTok’s own advice is to use the view to plan when to post, then check back to see what works best.

Because the view only covers the last seven days, look at it several weeks in a row before you decide. A week with school holidays or a public holiday can look different.

How much the hour matters: for most users, interactions weigh the most, such as how long someone watches a video, according to TikTok’s description of its recommendations. Back in 2020, TikTok wrote that neither follower count nor previous high-performing videos are direct factors. At the same time, TikTok says in its advice to publishers that a video that quickly gains views, likes and shares is more likely to be shown in the For You feed. So the content decides most, but a video posted while your audience is active gets a better start. This is also where the international studies disagree most.

Whether the business should be on TikTok at all is a separate question. We cover it in Do local businesses need to be on TikTok?

Best time to post on Facebook and LinkedIn

Facebook

Meta’s description of Facebook Page insights doesn’t mention any view of when your followers are active. They show, among other things, your followers’ top countries and cities, which requires at least 100 followers who aren’t friends.

Where to find your time: when you schedule in Meta Business Suite. Go to Content and Create post, turn on Scheduling options and click Active times. Meta then suggests the times when your audience is most active.

If your Facebook Page and Instagram account are connected, posts, reels and stories are published to both by default. That saves time, but both platforms then get the same hour. If the audiences are similar, that is usually fine. If they differ, untick one of them under Post to or Share to and schedule it separately.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Page analytics are split into content, followers, visitors, search appearances, competitors, employer brand and newsletter. We haven’t found any view showing when followers are active. LinkedIn only advises scheduling a date and time so you reach your audience when they’re most engaged, without saying when that is.

So here, you have to test your way forward. Compare the Page’s posts in content analytics, which can also be exported to a spreadsheet, and see which posting times did best. If you have no data of your own, start where the two studies overlap, Wednesday and Thursday at 3–5pm, and test from there. Bear in mind that a LinkedIn post can keep showing in the feed long after it was published, so the exact hour matters less than on X.

How often should a business post? Guidelines per platform

The platforms rarely give a number. Those that say anything say almost the same thing: regular posting helps. The guidelines below are our view for a local business that runs its own account. They are based on what the platforms themselves say, not on any guarantee of reach.

PlatformWhat the platform saysLowest steady levelGood level
InstagramPosting original content consistently is one of the most effective ways to grow (January 2025).1 post a week2 posts a week, plus Stories when something happens
FacebookWe haven’t found a number Meta recommends for business Pages.1 post a week2 a week, often the same as on Instagram
TikTokNo number for businesses. To publishers: set a daily target you can consistently hit. Those who post several times a day get more views.1 video a week2–3 videos a week
LinkedInCompanies that post weekly see twice the engagement. The figure is undated and comes with no stated method.1 post a week1–2 a week

Two posts a week on Instagram and Facebook comes to about eight a month. If you would rather hand that work over, we go through the price levels in What does social media help cost?, and what our packages include is on the pricing page.

What Buffer’s data says about frequency

Buffer has also analysed how the number of posts relates to reach and views. These are the tool company’s own figures for accounts that use its tool, and Buffer itself calls them a rule of thumb:

  • Instagram: 3–5 posts a week gave about 12 percent more reach per post than 1–2 posts. According to Buffer, the gain was slightly smaller with each step up.
  • TikTok: going from one video a week to 2–5 gave up to 17 percent more views per video. Median views stayed roughly flat, and Buffer’s explanation is that more videos give more chances at one that takes off.
  • LinkedIn: Buffer recommends 2–5 posts a week.
  • Facebook: Buffer gives one to two posts a day for business Pages, citing a study by HubSpot.

So more can bring more, but not at the same rate, and only if there is something to show. That is why our guidelines are lower than Buffer’s: they have to be sustainable for someone running the account alongside the business. Step up the pace when you have the material and the time to keep it up for at least a quarter.

Do you have to post on TikTok every day?

No. “Post every day for 30 days so the algorithm learns your account” is common advice, but we have found no support for it from TikTok. TikTok says there is no one-size-fits-all answer. In its advice to publishers, TikTok says those who post several times a day get more views, and suggests a daily target you can consistently hit. But publishers have newsrooms and a very different flow of material from a local business. For a local business, two or three videos a week that you keep up for a quarter is a better start than daily posting for two weeks.

A steady rhythm beats spikes

The platforms say the same thing in their own words. Instagram advises posting original content consistently. TikTok talks about steady growth rather than sporadic spikes, LinkedIn about posting weekly and Pinterest about creating Pins frequently and consistently, with original content every week.

There are also three practical reasons.

The test needs it. If your rhythm jumps between zero and five posts a week, you can’t compare times.

It lasts. Choose a pace you can manage even in a week when a lot else is going on, so you don’t have to start over after every holiday.

A break isn’t penalised, but nobody sees you either. We haven’t seen any of the platforms say that they penalise an account for taking a break. But what you don’t publish can’t be shown to anyone. Lower the pace to one post a week rather than stopping altogether. And don’t make up for missed weeks by posting several times on the same day. Spread them out. TikTok, for example, wrote back in 2020 that the For You feed generally won’t show two videos in a row from the same creator.

A weekly schedule to print

A schedule for people running their own accounts. The basic rhythm is two posts a week on Instagram and Facebook. If you’re investing in video, add the right-hand column.

WhenBasic rhythm: Instagram and FacebookWith video: Reels or TikTok
MondayPick the week’s two subjects and take the photos. Look at how last week’s posts did.Record two or three short clips at the same time.
TuesdayPost 1 at your first test time, to both platforms.Video 1
WednesdayReply to comments and messages. A Story if something is happening.Reply to comments.
ThursdayPost 2 at your second test time, ideally a carousel or a Reel.Video 2
FridayA Story ahead of the weekend: opening hours, free slots or news.Story
SaturdayA Story if something is happening, otherwise time off.Video 3 if you have time
SundayTime off. Schedule next week’s posts if you like.Time off
First Monday of the monthInsights check: which time and which post brought profile visits, clicks and messages? Swap out the weakest test time.The same for the videos.

Schedule in the platforms’ own tools: Meta Business Suite for Instagram and Facebook, and scheduling on your LinkedIn Page. Then you don’t need to be at your phone at the test time.

The broader groundwork, such as which platform to choose and what social media actually does for a local business, is in Social media for local businesses.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best time to post on Instagram?

No single time works for every account. Buffer points to Thursday at 9am and Wednesday at noon and 6pm, Sprout Social to Tuesday 1–7pm and Wednesday noon–9pm, both international data in local time. You find your own time under Total followers in your insights, which requires at least 100 followers. Then test two or three times for four to six weeks.

What is the best time to post Reels?

The hour probably matters less for Reels than for regular posts, because most Reels are shown to people who don’t follow the account. Buffer gives the evening, 6–11pm, but hasn’t split its figures by format. Post Reels at your usual test time.

Which day of the week is best for posting?

No day is bad in itself. In Buffer’s 2026 data, Saturday is the worst day on Instagram and Facebook but the best on TikTok. What matters is when your customers look and decide. A restaurant may have good reason to post on Saturday morning ahead of the evening; an accountancy firm probably doesn’t.

How many Instagram posts a day is about right?

A local business rarely needs more than one feed post a day, and for most, one or two a week is enough. Instagram gives no recommended number. You can post several Stories in a day when something is happening, since they disappear after 24 hours.

How often should you post on LinkedIn?

One post a week on the company Page is a reasonable minimum. LinkedIn says companies that post weekly see twice the engagement, but the figure is undated and comes with no stated method. We haven’t found any view in Page analytics that shows when followers are active, so test times yourself.

Do scheduled posts get less reach?

We haven’t found any statement from Instagram, Meta, TikTok or LinkedIn saying that scheduled posts get less reach. Meta and LinkedIn offer scheduling themselves, and Meta Business Suite even suggests times when you schedule. Scheduling makes it easier to keep both your test times and your rhythm.

Sources

All web pages read on 15 October 2026 unless another date is given. The details on menus and insights reflect the situation in October 2026 and may change.