Instagram in 2023
Instagram is a perfect place for brands to connect to their content: strengthen your visual identity with high-quality photographs or demonstrate what you have done for material like infographics and statistics reports by demonstrating your brand’s graphic design efforts. Instagram Live emerged as popular in 2020 as its Facebook cousin as a method to keep people connected immediately and in a less refined fashion. Rollers also provide shorter, more viral content to complement your feed content.
Is your photographs and videos getting more views, likes and comments really the main effect of the optimum time of day to upload on Instagram? Sounds tricky right? Throughout 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, social media has become more crucial than ever to keep people connected, find new trends and interests and stay up-to-date with current events.
Brands needed to flourish on a digital transition that was unexpectedly swift, and social marketers had to deal with burnout as demands for message and social interactions grew.
It can be a little tough to figure this out. Given this, it is no surprise that our analysis of the best times to be published on social media revealed numerous significant changes in 2021, with increased and changing involvement across platforms and industries. Both brands and customers have continuously adapted to their online operations and have created new patterns of social media interaction and commitment.
First of all, as Instagram is viewed largely via a mobile device, users can take their feed from virtually anywhere quickly. Posting, viewing, and engagement patterns tend to be very different from other social networks on Instagram, making it a little harder to determine when users are most active.
Engagement Should Always Be Your Number 1 Priority on Instagram!
Though each firm varies, most businesses aspires to build as much engagement as possible on their Instagram account. Traditional Instagram engagement comprises likes and comments. In the present day, people have begun to incorporate views, shares, and direct messages as well. Then, you can further add the above types of engagement of Instagram spin-offs, such as Instagram Stories and IGTV.
This means that there is no longer a general rule of thumb for engagement, but it does include all interactions between your audience and your business on Instagram.
What is the Difference Between Content and Compelling Content?
Amongst the most crucial facts to acknowledge is that there is minimal point in creating content for the sake of it. Compelling content can perform excellently and garner exceptional engagement rates. Run-of-the-mill content is scarcely worth the effort of creating it.
Having said that, you must add posting times into the mix. You might create compelling content, buy if you share it at the wrong time, nobody will see it. If people don’t see it, they can’t like it, share it, or comment on it. Then there is no point creating and posting it in the first place.
There will have undoubtedly been much amazing content shared on Instagram over the years that have vanished without a trace, simply because nobody got the opportunity to see just how good it was. This is even more relevant now with the current Instagram algorithm.
Instagram Algorithms and How it Works:
Recall when posts in chronological order are displayed in Instagram? Surely that is no longer the case.
At a presentation in June 2018, Instagram disclosed the secrets of its algorithm and pointed out that the three main elements which affect a post in the user’s feed include:
Interest:
Posts with user content are shown to be more often near the top of the stream.
Recency:
Recent entries take precedence over posts aged days or weeks.
Relationship:
The feeds will appear closer to the top from friends, family members and individuals with more interactions overall.
You have posted photos after photos but never had more than 25-40 likes. If the topic is a little monotonous and uncomfortable, the lack of commitment could be explained. However, the response may depend in the times you post if your content is eye-catching. If in the dead zone, when most of the people are in deep slumber, you will certainly be less likely to see your post.
Naturally, if you have a business profile, you can learn what your best posting hours are via Instagram Insights. So here comes the million-dollar question.
When is the Best Time to Post on Instagram in Malaysia especially?
Fashion & Beauty:
Thursday: 5 to 8 pm
Friday: 10 am to 2 pm, 5 pm
Saturday: 5 to 8 pm
It seems that on weekends evenings people would have fun browsing fashion and beauty.
Tech:
Thursday: 10 am to 2 pm
Friday: 9 am to 1 pm, 6 to 8 pm
Tech lovers are seen very much active on Thursdays and Fridays during their lunch hour.
Food & Beverage
Thursday: 10 am to 3 pm
Friday: 7 am to 10 am
Anyday, anytime, Malaysians are hungry! So food business owners have nothing to worry about as long as these times are followed.
Film, TV, and On-Demand Streaming
Monday: 3.30 pm to 5 pm, 6 to 7pm, 9 pm
Wednesday: 4pm to 7 pm, 9 pm
Thursday: 8.30 am to 1 pm, 4 to 7 pm, 10 pm to 11 pm
Sunday: 11 am
Film lovers search about movies on weekends as @disneymalaysia and @mbocinemas’ feeds had the most answers, respectively, between 10 to 11 am and 11 am to 14 pm..
Financial Services
Monday: 6.30pm-10.30 pm (Maybank and CIMB)
Wednesday: 3 pm
Who knew Malaysians love checking their finances during midweek and Monday mornings. This was a shocker but it is what it is.
Non-Profit
Wednesday 1pm-4pm
Instagram is a wonderful addition to your overall social media strategy for nonprofits. From the data above, it appears that audiences are more likely to engage with non-profit-related content mid-week.
Education
Wednesday to Saturdays 10am-8pm
Generally speaking, students are more active later in the day, so the best time to post on Instagram for education is as stated.
Healthcare
Monday to Fri 9am-3pm
Tuesday 8am
Social Media isn’t a high priority for many healthcare practices. While this is the case, due to a large number of users on the platform in general, posting on Instagram is still crucial and worth improving on for those in the healthcare scene.
Best Time to Post Instagram Reels
Instagram’s Explore page in Malaysia continues through 2023 with additional features like Reels to improve stories and boost discovery. It was also a perfect platform for social media audiences to find and share new hobbies with lockdown measures. Instagram Reels also does rather well to compete with TikTok. Similar to Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, Instagram’s top hours have extended compared to the prior years in 2020. Midday engagements during the weekdays grew significantly denser with high hours over 11:00 to 14:00, and evenings and weekends were more likely to be involved.
Recency as mentioned earlier is obviously the component that you will want to focus on when you try to post. You will wish to examine the following if rectification is important:
Instead of posting less frequently. More common postings mean those shown more recently. Post at peak times of the day or week in particular. If your post has been done recently when users are usually more active, it will be seen more probably.
Other Ways to Acquire Instagram for Your Best Time to Post
Option #1: Find your top time zones & see when you are online with your followers
It is important to consider the time zones of your followers on Instagram when it comes to the optimal time to publish on Instagram. To identify your perfect post time for Instagram, the greatest thing you can do is to investigate your audience utilizing the native analysis tool of Instagram, Instagram Insights.
You can check what your followers are, their gender, their age and especially when they’re the most active on Instagram. Instagram Insights delivers everything you could wish for. Please remember that you must set up an Instagram business profile or Instagram creator profile to access Insights.
Option #2: Posting and measuring your progress Experiment
You can make a table to see how many engagements you obtain when you post at different times during different days if you prefer to cut your numbers manually. Start by picking and monitoring five distinct periods over the week.
Option #3: Post More during off working hours, rather than daytime:
In general, lunchtime (11am-1pm) and evenings are the ideal time to post on Instagram (7-9pm). Pluttle Instagram posts during your working day so that you don’t have to worry about them during spare time, instead of uploading while you’re at your desk.
Factors to Consider When It Comes to Instagram Posting
Instagram’s latest algorithm gives priority to new posts over older ones, thus you must know when most of your followers use the application, so that you may publish during the period. In order to choose your personal optimal time to post on Instagram, please take a look at some important aspects that are either capable of making or breaking your commitment.
a) The demographics of your intended followers:
Instagram is more common for adults working typically 9-to-5 in the morning, although school kids who stay late and draw out nights on Instagram during those off-hours might be somewhat more active. Identification of your target audience can be a first step in determining when to check Instagram every day.
b) Day of the Week
Do expect some variation in Instagram engagement, even at the same time of the day on different days of the week. To exemplify, people may be active on as early as 5am. The reason being that people often check their phone for messages as soon as they wake during the working week. This means that people are more likely to check their Instagram early in the morning Monday to Friday than at weekends. However, even Monday can have lower engagement, as people are rushing to get the week started, and have less time to look at Instagram before work on a Monday.
c) Breaks in Between Work
You will find that many people check their Instagram during their work breaks, precisely during lunchtime. Similarly, people’s interest in their work flags in the late afternoon and quite a few turn their attention to Instagram instead.
d) Differences in the time zone:
If you have followers or target audiences all across the world you may not obtain the same results at specific times of the day as if you have followers that reside largely in the same time zone.
e) You saw the recurring patterns:
Be careful when you publish at certain times of the day if you are increasing interaction. Regardless of the studies or what the experts say to you about the optimum times and days to post, the behaviour of your own followers ultimately matters.
f) Your observations into your business profile:
You may get the metrics for printing, reach, web clicking, profile visualization, post-commercial followers, stories and more if you have a business profile. This gives you crucial information on the times your audience can best post.
g) Pay Close Attention to Your Targeted Audience
Suppose you have a Business Instagram account, you can access to Instagram Insights. Simply go to the Followers section of Instagram Insights, and you will discover information about when your audience is most active on the platform. It makes sense that you structure your posting practices in accordance with this.
h) Consider When Your Competitors are Posting
Depending on your field of interest, your competitors may be doing some of the same calculations and experiments as you are. Social listening (or even a full social competitive analysis) is helpful for keeping an eye on what may be working for audiences in your industry.
i) Frequency of Posting on Instagram
It is important that you post regularly if you want your Instagram account to appear fresh. This can be as much as one to three posts per day. Share a combination of different post types, ensuring that you don’t come across as overly interested in just generating sales. You need to focus on producing quality posts ahead of bulk quantity, nevertheless.
j) A decent Instagram scheduling tool:
Install a social media management service, like Later or Apphi, to plan your posts in one go, instead of trying to recall publishing manually at specified times. You may either utilize a third parties app or use the Facebook Business Suite, which will link your Facebook profile and provide you with a simultaneous scheduling tool. This facilitates this so much because both platforms are published simultaneously.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Instagram is a fantastic platform for everyone, whether it is companies to reach their marketing objectives, or even small business owners but it won’t be enough to upload content in 2023, as long as you feel like it. End of the day, everything is in your hands. We hope this guide was very helpful for you.
You can increase commitment, drive traffic and attract new supporters and customers by preparing and scheduling your posts in advance on Instagram for the ideal moment possible! For future use, save this article!