Discover the best times to post

Oct 9, 2026
Knowledge

Procedure Steps

Article updated: June 26, 2026

Discover the best times to post

Use the Best time to publish view to see the optimal days and times to publish your posts. Then use those times to extend reach, build awareness, increase engagement, and drive traffic. We personalize your suggestions based on your social results for the last 30 days.

This article describes the new Social OS experience. If you haven't switched yet, select the Classic tab for instructions. Learn more about the Social OS experience.

View suggestions for the best times to publish

Find suggestions for the best times to publish on your Facebook Pages, and X, Instagram Business, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok accounts.

In Social OS, Analytics is built right into each suite product, so you can access your data without ever leaving the product you're working in.

Go to Perch, and then select Explore (under Analytics).
Select the Best time to publish.
Select a social network and a social account, and then select to view suggestions for your best times to post (see following options).
Schedule a post for the suggested days and times. Learn more about scheduling posts in Hootsuite.

Go to Analytics.
Expand Organic reporting, and then select Best time to publish.

Best time to publish navigation in analytics.

Select a social network and a social account, and then select to view suggestions for your best times to post (see following options).
Schedule a post for the suggested days and times. Learn more about scheduling posts in Hootsuite.

View suggestions to extend reach

Reach refers to how many people are exposed to your posts. While this doesn't necessarily mean that people see your content, it does indicate that your posts appear in people's social feeds. Use your suggested times to publish to catch people's attention when they're active on social and more likely to interact with your posts.

Select Extend reach to find out when to post so your content shows up in people's social feeds when they're active and interacting with your brand.
Point to a square to view the number of fans and followers who were online and interacting with your brand on a specific day and time.
Review your suggestions for the best days and times to publish.

View suggestions to build awareness

Brand awareness captures how likely people are to know about your brand. Getting your content in front of the right people and at the right times is key to building brand awareness on social.

Select Build awareness to view suggestions for the best times to publish on social and have your posts seen more often by your audience.
Point to a square to view the average number of impressions for your posts for a specific day and time.
Review your suggestions for the best days and times to publish.

View suggestions to increase engagement

Engagement refers to any form of interaction with your posts on social media. We measure engagement using a range of metrics such as likes, comments, and replies.

To increase engagement, consider using text, images, videos, and GIFs, and publishing them at the suggested times to encourage more people to interact with your content. Learn more about increasing social media engagement.

Select Increase engagement to view suggestions for the best times to publish on social to engage your audience and encourage more people to like, comment, and reply to your posts.
Point to a square to view the average engagement rate or number of engagements for your posts for a specific day and time.
Review your suggestions for the best days and times to publish.

View suggestions to drive traffic

Drive action beyond social by adding links to your posts that encourage people to visit your website or online shop, download a resource, or sign up for your email newsletter.

Select Drive traffic to view suggestions for the best times to publish on social to get more visitors to your website and generate more revenue for your business.
Point to a square to view the average number of clicks for your posts for a specific day and time.
Review your suggestions for the best days and times to publish.

Note: Depending on the social network you select, you may also view suggestions for best times to publish based on when your audience is most active online.

How we calculate your personalized suggestions

We calculate your suggestions using your results for the last 30 days. See the following table for the metrics we use to return your suggestions for the best times to publish.

How social networks and metrics are calculated
Social network	Extend reach	Build awareness	Increase engagement	Drive traffic
Facebook	People online, based on inbound messages (private messages and public comments)	Post views	Post engagement rate	Post link clicks
X	Followers online, based on inbound messages (mentions and direct messages)	Post impressions	Post engagement rate	Post link clicks
Instagram Business	Followers online	Post views	Post engagement rate	-
LinkedIn Pages	-	Post impressions	Post engagement rate	Post clicks
LinkedIn profiles *	-	-	Post likes + Post comments	Ow‌.ly clicks
TikTok	Follower activity	Post impressions	Post engagement rate	-
YouTube	-	Post video views	Post likes + comments + shares	-
Pinterest	-	Post impressions	Post saves	Post outbound clicks

* This feature is restricted to certain plan types. If you don't see this feature, visit the Hootsuite plans page to see if it is included in your plan.

Learn more about metrics in Hootsuite.

Notes:

Suggestions may not be available if you have not published any posts or have had little to no engagement on your posts in the last 30 days. To view suggestions, try publishing more posts and look to use images, videos, and GIFs to get noticed and increase your engagement. For inspiration, check out this list of social media content ideas and examples.
All times are based on the time zone selected in your account settings.

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Discover the best times to post

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