Timing on social media is key – that you probably already know. But timing with short-lived content like Instagram Stories seems to be especially important. Precisely because it’s short-lived. So, how do you reach your audience with your Instagram Stories? Let’s take a look.
- When is your audience online? (And when do they watch your Stories?)
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When’s the best time to post Instagram Stories?
- Best time to post Instagram Stories on Monday
- Best time to post Instagram Stories on Tuesday
- Best time to post Instagram Stories on Wednesday
- Best time to post Instagram Stories on Thursday
- Best time to post Instagram Stories on Friday
- Best time to post Instagram Stories on Saturday
- Best time to post Instagram Stories on Sunday
- How to check the best time to post Stories on Instagram
- How to apply the best time to post Instagram Stories in your content calendar
- How to increase your Instagram Story views and engagement
- So, when’s your best time to post Instagram Stories?
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- Manage & reply to comments and DMs in one place.
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- Analyze performance and monitor hashtags.
- Keep track of your competition.
- Create or schedule in-depth reports in seconds.
When is your audience online? (And when do they watch your Stories?)
When it comes to the best time to post Instagram Stories, that’s the most important question you need to answer. Because for people to see your Stories, they obviously need to be browsing Instagram while you post your content. And with Stories, it’s especially tricky – because they disappear.
Social media algorithms generally promote engagement. The more engagement, the more reach, etc. You know the drill.
So when you post an Instagram Story at a time when nobody’s interested and watching it, you won’t get that initial engagement. (It’s simply impossible if nobody sees it.)
And yes, the Story is technically available for 24 hours. But if its first hours are not exactly productive when it comes to Instagram engagement, the algorithm will have no incentive to keep pushing it to the front of your followers’ Instagram Story queue.
And that may result in them actually never seeing it.
So, what do you do?
First of all, you post at the right time.
(Obviously, timing is just one of the factors, next to the actual content of your Instagram Stories and how it’s executed. But this post is about timing. So let’s focus on that.)
When’s the best time to post Instagram Stories?
Now, that time will obviously be different depending on a lot of factors – like time zone, your industry, and your audience, even what’s currently happening in the world. (Certain popular topics might take over your followers’ attention – whether that’s politics or a Black Friday sale.)
A little later in the article, we’ll look at how to determine the best timing for your business.
But there must be some universal best times to post Instagram Stories, right?
Well, yes and no. Depending on the source, you can find certain general guidelines on the best time to post Instagram Stories. For example, the Digital Marketing Institute states that the time that people are most on Instagram is:
- Wednesday at 11 am
- Friday between 10 am and 11 am.
With the following breakdown recommending posting content by day of the week:
Best time to post Instagram Stories on Monday
The best time to post on Monday is 11 am to midday.
Best time to post Instagram Stories on Tuesday
The best time to post on Tuesday is 11 am to midday.
Best time to post Instagram Stories on Wednesday
The best time to post on Wednesday is 11 am to midday.
Best time to post Instagram Stories on Thursday
The best time to post on Thursday is at midday.
Best time to post Instagram Stories on Friday
The best time to post on Friday is 11 am to midday.
Best time to post Instagram Stories on Saturday
The best time to post on Saturday is 10 am to 1 pm.
Best time to post Instagram Stories on Sunday
Sunday is supposed to be the absolute worst day to post your Instagram Stories. But if you do want to post on Sundays, the best time is between 9 am and 4 pm.
But then there are other sources also mentioning times like:
- Before and after work hours (so, from 6 am till 9 am and from 5 pm till 6 pm.) This makes sense, as people will scroll Instagram on the train to work, and sometimes right after they open their eyes in the morning before they even get out of bed (you know what I’m talking about.)
- Lunch hours (12 pm-2 pm): Again, whenever people have a break between work tasks is when they’re most likely to scroll their Instagram feeds and Stories.
- NOT on the weekends because that’s when people will be least likely to want to hear from brands, busy with their personal lives. (Although, that’s an assumption that could well be inaccurate for your particular audience.)
I myself also wrote about the best time to post on Instagram in general before, with the following conclusions for the best times:
- 4 AM – 10 AM on Tuesdays
- 7 AM – 11 AM on Wednesdays
- 2 PM on Fridays
So, as you can see, a lot depends on the studied audience and content and the time of the study, with consumer habits changing and fluctuating all the time.
Plus, don’t forget that a lot of this research talks about Instagram in general, so another thing to factor in is the types of Instagram content you post on your Instagram account and how it performs. Do you post Stories regularly (and people expect them at a certain time of day), or do you mostly post in the feed, and Stories are an odd thing nobody expects from you? All of this might affect your engagement rates.
So, how do you know for sure what works best for you, your particular audience, and your content?
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How to check the best time to post Stories on Instagram
The only way to know for sure what works for your time zone, your audience, your brand, and your industry, is to keep checking your Instagram analytics.
You can check the native Instagram Story analytics for some immediate insights. But when you want to take a more strategic look over time and analyze how Instagram Story timings have worked over a longer time period, you’re better off using a social media analytics tool like NapoleonCat.
It’ll let you check information such as, e.g.:
- your follower demographics,
- engagement rates,
- the reach of your Instagram posts,
- the performance of your existing content,
- hashtag analysis,
- Instagram Stories analytics.
And unlike Instagram Insights, you can also define and analyze custom timeframes to figure out the best time to post Instagram Stories in selected periods (for example, for the past two months or just during your most recent marketing campaign).
Check the days your Stories get the most engagement. And steer clear of the times that seem to get the least engagement – instead, concentrate your efforts on the times that do work. (Captain Obvious says, “You’re welcome!”)
Don’t forget – to have reliable data and notice consistent trends, you need to do it on a regular basis and adjust your posting schedule when necessary.
And speaking of your Instagram Stories posting schedule.
How to apply the best time to post Instagram Stories in your content calendar
Algorithms like consistency (you knew that too, right?) So once you nail down your best time to post Instagram Stories (or at least, for now), making sure you do post your Stories consistently at that time is crucial.
And it doesn’t have to mean adding calendar alerts for the times you’re supposed to post your Stories, and then doing it manually every time. (I could see how that could work, but that also seems annoying, if I’m honest. I know you see that, too. Especially if you’re a social media manager.)
Instead, schedule your Instagram Stories ahead of time. Say, for the upcoming week or two. You can absolutely add ad-hoc Stories in the meantime, but since you know which times get the most views and engagement by now, use it to plan your campaign content and all the things you want to make sure your audience doesn’t miss.
Besides the obvious time savings and an infinitely smoother process for planning and publishing your Instagram Stories, using NapoleonCat’s Publisher to do it will also let you do things like:
- Schedule your content to multiple Instagram accounts at the same time
- Schedule Instagram Reels, regular posts, and carousel posts (by the way, let’s not forget that the best time to post Reels might be slightly different than a Story.)
- Schedule the first comment with your Instagram posts (use it to include all your hashtags if you don’t want them in the caption)
- Also, schedule all your other social media content, e.g., for TikTok, Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn.
- And if you work in a larger team, scheduling your Instagram Stories within a content calendar like NapoleonCat’s will be a game changer. You can assign different Stories to different creators, exchange feedback and approve posts, and see the entire content plan for your social media channels in one view.
We’ve also made a short tutorial on how to schedule Instagram Stories with NapoleonCat:
We highly recommend you test NapoleonCat for free here – no credit card required during signup 😉
How to increase your Instagram Story views and engagement
Of course, as I said before, posting times – though crucial – are not the only factor that impacts how many people view and react to your Instagram Stories. Here are a few more tips to help you get and sustain the reach and engagement you’re after:
- Add Instagram Stories to Story Highlights on your profile. This will help them live much longer than 24 hours.
- Categorize the Story Highlight clearly – much like you would pages on your website. That way, people will know what to look for and why to even click your Story Highlights.
- Connect different types of content together. You can, for example, let people know in your carousel post that they can see more in your Stories (for example, some behind-the-scenes content for your current campaign.)
- Add interactive elements to your Stories. Stickers, reminders, polls, and questions – all will help engage your followers in conversations around your content.
- Be consistent. Once you figure out the best time to post on Instagram Stories and stick with it for posting regular content, people will get used to it and will know to expect it (even if it’s not at the top of their Instagram Story queue.) In the best-case scenario, they might even be willing to look for the Stories on your profile themselves.
Simplify Instagram Business
Management with One Tool
- Manage & reply to comments and DMs in one place.
- Monitor ad comments from multiple accounts.
- Automate answers to repetitive questions.
- Schedule posts to multiple accounts, on desktop.
- Analyze performance and monitor hashtags.
- Keep track of your competition.
- Create or schedule in-depth reports in seconds.
So, when’s your best time to post Instagram Stories?
Check your analytics, create your Instagram Story plan and schedule, and share it with your team. Going viral is great and all, but with a consistent, systematic approach to content creation, you should be able to see improvements in your Instagram Story results pretty quickly.
And, what’s even better, they’re more likely to be there for the long term instead of just a one-time fluke. 🙂
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