Content

These Are the Best Days and Times to Post on Social Media

Daniel

|August 10, 2026

Deepnetic Social is a social media tool where you can schedule and publish content on the best days and times.

We analyzed more than 1M posts in Deepnetic. Friday evening and the weekend often win overall, but the best posting times still differ by weekday and platform. Here are the tendencies and how to use them.

Quick Tips 🚀

Use Friday evening and the weekend as your default for your feed
Plan LinkedIn early on weekdays, not on weekends
Treat TikTok’s early afternoon as a stable slot and validate with your own insights

What more than 1M posts reveal about timing

The question of the best posting times is part of every solid social media strategy. Gut feeling rarely gets you far enough. That is why we analyzed more than 1M posts in Deepnetic and looked at weekdays, hours and platforms.

The short answer first: overall, Friday evening plus Saturday and Sunday stand out. For many feed channels, weekend plus Friday evening is a strong default. At the same time, the best slot still depends on the day and especially on the network. That is why the charts and heatmaps below matter.

Important for SMEs: these figures are tendencies from a large dataset, not an automatic rule for every account. Use them as a starting point and compare them with your own social media insights.

Overall picture: Friday evening and the weekend lead

Across all posts we reviewed, clear windows emerge. Friday from late afternoon into the evening looks especially strong. Saturday delivers solid chances in the morning and afternoon. Sunday shows strong phases early in the morning and across longer parts of the day.

Midweek stays quieter on average. Night hours in the early morning should be avoided if visibility is your goal. The chart of times by weekday makes the tendencies visible at a glance.

What to take from the overall picture:

Friday evening as a strong default window for many feed posts
Plan Saturday and Sunday deliberately for reach
Use Wednesday and Thursday more for maintenance or test content
Avoid night windows unless your audience is clearly active then

Similarities and differences across platforms

As soon as you filter by network, the picture shifts. Facebook and Instagram benefit strongly from weekends and Friday evening. LinkedIn stays a weekday channel. TikTok is surprisingly stable in the early afternoon. YouTube shows clear weekend windows and a few strong weekday slots.

The platform chart compares days and times. The heatmaps follow below in the order Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube.

If you are unsure which channels should come first, start with choosing the right social media platforms. Timing only helps when the channel fits the audience.

Overview of the best days and times per social media platform from the Deepnetic analysis.

Facebook: Peak on Friday evening

In our analysis, Facebook has a particularly clear peak on Friday evening. A lot of visibility potential concentrates there. Sunday stays solid across the day. Weekdays during daytime are often weaker, while evenings work noticeably better.

For SMEs with a community focus, that means: put announcements, events and high-reach posts into the strong evening windows. Updates from everyday work can sit in quieter slots. The heatmap makes the Friday evening peak especially easy to spot.

Heatmap of the best posting times on Facebook by weekday and hour.

Instagram: weekends and Friday evening

On Instagram, Saturday plus Sunday and Friday evening are among the strongest days. Sunday afternoon and evening windows look especially promising, as does late Friday evening. Tuesday also shows a late evening slot that is worth testing.

Wednesday, Thursday and early morning stay weaker. If you plan for Instagram reach, move strong creatives into weekend and Friday evening windows. The heatmap shows where the tendency is clearest.

Heatmap of the best posting times on Instagram by weekday and hour.

LinkedIn: Classic on weekdays

LinkedIn remains the classic weekday channel. Strong phases typically sit between morning and afternoon from Monday to Friday. Weekends barely matter. Peaks appear among other things early on Monday, around midday midweek, and in selected afternoon and Friday windows.

Heatmap of the best posting times on LinkedIn by weekday and hour.

TikTok: Stable afternoon, plus selected morning and evening windows

TikTok looks surprisingly consistent in the analysis: early afternoon is among the strong phases on most days. There are also morning windows on selected weekdays and evening windows later in the week. Thursday and Friday look somewhat stronger overall than Monday.

In practice: if you need one reliable slot, start with early afternoon. Test morning or evening variants deliberately. The heatmap helps you read patterns instead of single values.

Heatmap of the best posting times on TikTok by weekday and hour.

YouTube and how to apply this in your editorial plan

YouTube follows a different logic than pure feed networks. Saturday afternoon and a clear Sunday window are among the strongest phases. During the week, selected Friday windows and occasional early Tuesday slots pay off.

So do not plan uploads and community posts with the same schema as Instagram. Use the heatmap to align premiere and publish times with the visible clusters, then compare with your own view and retention data.

With Deepnetic Social you schedule these windows per channel and let posts go live automatically at the chosen time. Timing becomes a relevant part of your process instead of a daily gut decision.

Start with the tendencies from the heatmaps, measure impact over a few weeks and adjust. Teams that steer timing and engagement together often get noticeably more visibility from the same creatives.

Heatmap of the best posting times on YouTube by weekday and hour.

Use timingUse Deepnetic Social to publish your content at exactly the right time for your best chance of visibility.

Summary

Use Friday evening and the weekend as your default for your feed
Plan LinkedIn early on weekdays, not on weekends
Treat TikTok’s early afternoon as a stable slot and validate with your own insights