When’s The Best Time To Post On TikTok?

While it’s always a good time to watch TikTok — the average viewer streams 24 hours of content a month on the app — figuring out the best time to post a TikTok is a bit more complicated. For content creators and small business owners alike, sharing videos at optimal times can boost engagement significantly. After all, you work hard on your content, so it makes sense to schedule your posts during peak times when more people can watch. There are multiple factors when figuring out the most opportune times to share content on the platform, and this guide will provide insights into best practices when posting on TikTok.

Is there a best time to post on TikTok?

There have been a ton of studies analyzing the best times to post on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, but because TikTok is a fairly new platform, we don’t have as much data on the app.

Currently, Influencer Marketing Hub is the only company that’s done a deep dive into the best times for posting on TikTok. In 2021, they analyzed over 100,000 posts with the goal of finding the highest engagement rates.

Rather than providing one centralized time – or specific days – that stands out as the ideal posting time, Influencer Marketing Hub suggests the best times to share TikToks for each day of the week. It’s important to note these results are in Eastern Standard Time (EST).

Here are the ideal times to post on TikTok (in EST):

According to the data, the below times will help get your videos the most engagement.

Monday: 6 am, 10 am, 10 pm
Tuesday: 2 am, 4 am, 9 am
wednesday: 7am, 8am, 11pm
Thursday: 9 am, 12 pm, 7 pm
friday: 5 am, 1 pm, 3 pm
Saturday: 11 am, 7 pm, 8 pm
Sunday: 7am, 8am, 4pm

There isn’t a clear pattern in the data. On most days, posting both early in the morning and late at night proves to be favorable. Tuesday stands out as the only day where it seems best to schedule content earlier than the latest suggested time is 9 am EST.

While this study is a great starting point, it can still be confusing as there are several options for each day. We’ll discuss a few other factors to consider when scheduling TikToks that will help you narrow down the best posting time for your business.

At the end of the day, you’re on TikTok because you want others to engage with your content. Whether you post a behind-the-scenes video of your teammates, a TikTok explaining your latest product launch, or are jumping on a funny trend, TikToks are meant to be seen by your community. If you’re sharing videos that aren’t getting any views, you’re missing out on building stronger connections with your customers and increasing brand awareness.

TikTok videos have the highest engagement rate per post out of any other social platform, meaning it could potentially be a great driver of traffic and sales for your brand. Of course, to take advantage of this you need to be posting at the right times to give your followers a chance to like, share, and comment on your TikToks.

Creator Meka Monroe @plannedcreative has a thriving TikTok where she discusses social strategy. In a video, she shares how she was able to gain 40,000 followers through best practices, specifically saying she only posted when her followers were most active.

@plannedcreative

How I gained 40K on tiktok my exact strategy. #growyourtiktok #plannedcreative #contentcreator #contentcreatortips

♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

Clearly, putting some thought into your posting schedule can yield great results for your small business.

The conversation surrounding when to post on social media can sometimes feel a bit reductive, especially considering there’s a lot of conflicting data on the topic. And while the Influencer Marketing Hub study is informative, the results should be taken as helpful suggestions rather than rigid rules to follow.

There are a couple of problems with solely relying on studies for this issue. Trends on social media are constantly changing, meaning research can become irrelevant even after a relatively short period.

Another factor to consider is that no matter how thorough these reports are, they’re based on aggregated data and may not pertain to your audience specifically. So, understanding your best posting times really boils down to understanding your followers’ online habits.

Sync up with your followers

In addition to offering specific times, Influencer Marketing Hub laid out two important questions content creators should be asking themselves:

1. Where is your audience?
2. When are they awake?

Your community is unique and the best times to post TikToks will be dependent on their schedule. Remember, TikTok is a global platform and you’ll most likely have followers from all over the world. In their “best times to post on TikTok calculator,” Influencer Marketing Hub recommends looking at the location of your largest following and using that to configure a schedule.

On the flip side – your followers may be scattered across the world, so considering all the different time zones and finding overlap with your community is crucial to successfully plan content.

Experiment with different times

After you’ve studied your audience’s schedule and nailed down a few options for posting, it’s time to put your research into action and see whether these times actually work. Play around with scheduling your TikToks at various periods during the day to see which video performs the best.

This is where analytics comes into play. Analyzing the data — total views, comments, likes, and shares — of each video is the best way to evaluate whether your content is being discovered by your audience and if it resonates with them. You’ll find the analytics dashboard on your TikTok account under “creator tools.” From there, you’ll be able to deep dive into three sections: overview, content, and followers.

Overview

Overview provides a breakdown of some of the basic metrics pertaining to your account. You can see your total video views, your follower growth, your likes, comments, and shares over time. There is also an engagement tab within this section that goes more in-depth into your video performance.

content

The content tab provides a much more detailed analysis than overview does. Here, you can break down key metrics for each of your TikToks. Along with looking at the likes and comments, you’ll also be able to see the average watch time of each video and the percentage of people who watched the entire TikTok. Keep in mind that the content tab only accumulates data for the last seven days.

You’ll also get insights into how your followers found your videos and your various audience – which as we’ve discussed territories earlier, is important to factor in.

followers

This section is key for figuring out the best posting times as it highlights your audience location, when they are most active, and also tracks the fluctuations in your follower growth. Pay attention to when your follower activity is the highest and try to post around the same time. Another useful metric here is seeing the other content your followers engage with.

For more detailed metrics, you can also get a TikTok Pro account. While keeping an eye on your analytics is key to harnessing your TikTok’s potential, try not to get too caught up in the numbers, because, well, data always tends to fluctuate. Social media algorithms are constantly shifting and it’s impossible to completely predict user behavior.

You should feel more confident about which times and days work best for your audience after analyzing this data. Once you’ve established your TikTok calendar, you can use Buffer’s TikTok reminders to easily schedule your videos.

Think about your own schedule

As a content creator, burnout can be very real. While posting consistently is important, you don’t want to do too much at once and exhaust yourself. When thinking about how often you should post and what the best times are, make sure you’re also factoring in whether the workload feels reasonable for you. To create good content that is engaging, informative, and thoughtful, you need to feel inspired, so take care of your physical and mental health and take breaks whenever needed.

Implementing a social media calendar into your routine can greatly reduce the stress of planning and posting content. A calendar will provide an organized way to lay out all of your videos, and help you be more consistent. Once you have a solid overview of your posts and when to schedule them, you can also start planning and filming TikToks in advance and even batch create content.

This guide has focused primarily on scheduling, but really, your content should always be your number one priority. Sure, finding the best times to post can get your work in front of more eyes, but you want to make sure you’re always presenting your A-game to customers with material that is engaging and informative.

Tiktok Tips

Tiktok is inherently a creative space, so there are a ton of different ways to share content successfully with your community. While it’s great to diversify your videos, it’s also helpful to find your niche. Oftentimes, users will follow an account for a certain aesthetic or because they share a specific type of content, so figure out what your strengths are and stick to them.

Still, be open to experimenting with trending content – ​​whether that means trying out a specific challenge going around, or incorporating popular audio into your TikToks. Many accounts have gone viral from engaging with popular content, so be flexible. Whatever you post, make sure to always use hashtags, engage back with your audience, and be consistent.

Emulate your favorites

There are so many great influencers and small business owners creating fun and exciting content on TikTok. Watching their videos is a great way to brainstorm ideas for your brand. You can use their work as a jumping-off point and then tailor the content to fit your brand. If you’re in need of some inspiration – check out this list of innovative TikTokers.

Hopefully, this guide will help you nail down some best times to post on TikTok! Ensuring your videos get seen by as many people is the next step in attracting more customers to your brand and building a stronger online community.

What are your favorite times to post on TikTok? Let us know on Twitter or Instagram!