The Best Time to Post on TikTok For Your Business in 2024 | WordStream (2024)

There are several reports that collectively reviewed thousands of posts to determine the best average time to post on TikTok. Those stats are interesting, but they’re not meant to be the foundation of your long-term TikTok strategy.

Why? Because your business isn’t average.

You have unique customers and followers with their own online habits—stay-at-home parents don’t peruse social media at the same time as most restaurant workers. So what really matters is posting your wonderfully creative content to TikTok when your audience will see it (and love it, like it, and share it!).

And that’s just what we’ll help you do here. By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to make a data-backed determination of the best TikTok posting schedule tailored for your business. Even better, you’ll have a strategy to improve engagement with your posts over time.

Does it really matter what time you post on TikTok?

You bet it does. But only if you’re posting quality content that’s relevant to your audience.

It goes like this. Every time someone opens TikTok, the first thing they see is a curated collection of content from new (to them) creators called the For You Page (FYP). Land a spot on the coveted “For You Page” and your organic reach goes through the roof!

The TikTok algorithm uses two signals to decide what to place on the FYP. The post has to share some characteristics (music, topic, etc.) with content the user previously engaged with. And it needs enough engagement to prove that people will like it.

The second one is where timing comes in. If you post fresh content when your current users are most likely plugged in, it’ll get more early engagement. Then that post has a better shot at being discovered on FYPs.

So don’t skimp on what you post. But make sure to share it at the right time.

What’s the best time to post on TikTok?

The best time to post on TikTok depends on when your unique audience is thumbing through videos. You’ll learn when that is after posting some content (we’ll show you how in a bit).

But where do you start if you don’t have data yet? Let’s use a few recent studies to help us pick times to post your first TikToks.

Each study came up with a slightly different answer. So we’ll triangulate based on all three to get the best options.

Here are the absolute best times to post on TikTok according to each study:

• Hootsuite: 7 p.m. on Thursday
• Sprout Social: 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday
• Influencer Hub: 9 a.m. on Tuesday, 12 a.m. on Thursday, and 5 a.m. on Friday

That’s a pretty big spread. But if you look at where things do intersect, we can draw a few conclusions:

• Weekdays beat weekends by a long shot
• Before work and at the end of the traditional workday are safe bets
• Tuesday and Thursday are the best overall days to post

The results don’t mean you should only post on Tuesdays and Thursdays. TikTok recommends releasing new content up to four times each day, so plan to spread them around a little. Especially as you learn when your audience is most active.

Best time to post on TikTok by day

The Influencer Marketing Hub study is based on 100,000 posts—more than the others. So we’re using it to inform our daily TikTok schedule. Note that these times are all Eastern Standard Time.

Best time to post on TikTok on Monday

6 a.m., 10 a.m., and 10 p.m. are the best times to post on Monday. Seems like people want to wind up their week and wind down their Monday on TikTok.

Best time to post on TikTok on Tuesday

2 a.m., 4 a.m., and 9 a.m. are the top times to post on Tuesday. There’s also particularly high engagement at 9 a.m., so schedule some content then.

Best time to post on TikTok on Wednesday

7 a.m., 8 a.m., and 11 p.m. are the best target times for posting on Wednesday. Similar to Monday, people want to start and end their day watching short-form videos.

Best time to post on TikTok on Thursday

9 a.m., 12 p.m., and 7 p.m. are your best bets for posting on Thursday. Engagement is high at noon, so it’s a good time to catch people dreaming about the weekend.

Best time to post on TikTok on Friday

5 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4 p.m. rank highest for posting on Friday. That makes sense since people are often doing fun stuff instead of watching TikTok on Friday night.

Best time to post on TikTok on Saturday

11 a.m., 7 p.m., and 8 p.m. is when you’ll want to target your first few Saturday posts. Interesting that fewer people are watching early on Saturday. They’re either up and going or recovering from Friday night.

Best time to post on TikTok on Sunday

7 a.m., 8 a.m., and 4 p.m. are the best options for posting on Sunday. That afternoon slot is a good time to help people chase away the Sunday scaries.

Here’s a handy chart to keep it all straight.

When’s the worst time to post on TikTok?

Knowing when not to post is as important as knowing when to post. According to Influencer Marketing Hub’s data, the worst times to post on TikTok are:

• 5 p.m., 6 p.m., and 9 p.m. on any day of the week
• 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday through Wednesday
• 12 a.m. to 4 a.m. on Friday through Monday
• Any time after 9 a.m. on Tuesday

Keep in mind that this data is based on worldwide usage. Your results are going to change depending on your audience’s time zone. In fact, there are several factors to consider as you dial in your own TikTok schedule.

How to find the best time to post on TikTok for your business

The averages above will give you a target to use as you start out on TikTok. But the real magic happens as you gather data from your posts. That’s when you learn all about your audience’s habits so you can catch them as they scroll.

Know your audience

This is a must in any social media marketing strategy. It’s also really helpful to picture when your potential customers are likely to view your posts.

Start by creating personas and then imagining their typical day. When are their busy times, downtimes, bored times, stressed times, and social times?

For example, if your target audience is kids, right after school might be prime time for TikTok. But if working professionals are who you want to engage, lunchtime or late at night is probably better.

Knowing this will help you get a ballpark range as to when they’re most likely to be on TikTok, as well as what some of the themes in your content should be.

Access analytics from a Pro account

A TikTok Pro account is free and easy to set up. Go to your profile, tap the hamburger icon in the top right, and select Privacy and settings. Tap Switch to Pro Account.

Once you’re set up, you can access analytics by tapping on that same hamburger icon, then Privacy and settings, then Analytics. These include:

• Overview: video views, profile views, and follower count over the past seven or 28 days.
• Content: views from each video in the past seven days, which ones have been on the FYP, and individual insights for each video (more on that soon).
• Followers: top territories, gender, total count, and the holy grail–peak engagement time.

Learn what time zone your audience is in

If you run a business based in New York but most of your customers are located on the West Coast, you’ll miss the mark posting for the Eastern time zone. While setting your TikTok schedule, make sure you consider where your audience lives.

The answers will come from your own experience. If you’re a local service business or you ship the majority of your product to a particular area, you know which time zone to target.

Using this intel, adjust your posting times to the right time zone.

See when your audience is most engaged

TikTok analytics also make it easy to tell when your current followers are most active.

Source

A word of caution. Just like the research we reviewed before, this data is more of a starting point than a conclusion. Just because your followers are most active at 6 p.m. doesn’t mean you should always post at 6 p.m.

In his YouTube video on TikTok analytics, Owen Video shares his strategy. If 6 p.m. is peak attention time, he’ll post on TikTok around 1 p.m. That gives his video time to collect engagement and then peak at the perfect point.

This is where a little trial, review, and improve comes in.

Track your best posts

They always say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” They were probably talking about using your most successful TikTok posts as a guide to when you should post future content.

But you don’t want to have to check dozens of posts individually.

Luckily, there’s a nifty way to do this en masse using the desktop version of TikTok. Just hover over your profile picture in the top right and click “view analytics.” Then download it all to a spreadsheet.

When you export the data, you’ll get one view to see:

• Day and time posted
• Likes
• Comments
• Shares
• Average watch time
• Views
• Traffic source (FYP or followers)
• Territories reached

Look for patterns in your posts that match up to when they were posted. Bonus: you’ll see which types of content are best, too.

Look at your other social media platform analytics

If you’re just starting out with TikTok, you might not have enough data to work with yet. In the meantime, check out the analytics of your other social media channels to see when they’re most active.

We’ve seen that Instagram and TikTok users are on at different times, so you won’t be able to mimic the schedule for each. Instead, learn about your audience (who they are, where they’re from, etc.) on those other channels. And use that info to make a more educated guess about your ideal times to post on TikTok.

You can also use a social media management tool. Some include recommended times to post based on past engagement and views.

Review your competitors

No two accounts are the same, but you’ll get a general idea of when to post by looking at accounts that are popular with your target audience. Especially if they’ve been around a while.

It’s easy to see when each video was posted and how popular it is.

@mikekruzich How to Spy On Your TikTok Competitors For FREE! 🤫 #tiktokgrowthhack #tiktokgrowthtips #tiktokgrowth ♬ original sound – jenn

These users most likely have their prime posting times nailed down, so ride on their coattails for a bit until you have your own analytics to go by.

Don’t forget about seasons and holidays

Some audiences will behave much differently in summer than in winter—like parents with school-aged children. At the same time, online habits on Memorial or Labor Day may look more like a weekend than most Mondays.

Keep these temporary changes of behavior in mind when planning the timing and content of your posts. And pay attention to how they affect your results so you’re even better prepared the next time they roll around.

8 other ways to get more engagement on TikTok

Successful TikTok marketing is all about the right content at the right time. We’ve covered the right time, now let’s talk about the right content.

1. Go for creative relatability

People are complicated. We love a surprise but at the same time like familiarity too (more marketing psychology here). And TikTok seems to be the place where the two come together.

In an interview with Agility PR, creator Grace Hayes talks about the “’shareable sweetspot,’ combining relatability with something that’s never been done before. The Internet loves the unexpected.”

2. Use the headline approach

What makes a great headline that draws you in before you skip past it? It strikes a chord by providing just enough information to capture you but not enough—leaving you to want more and click to get it. Headlines that hook tend to be:

• Bold claims
• Questions
• Surprising facts
• Emotional

And since this is video, throw some music, movement, and emotion in there, and you’ve got your viewers hooked.

Source

Here are some headline examples and templates to inspire your TikTok videos:

• X things about ____ you wish you knew sooner
• Why/how to ____ even if you _____
• The truth about ______
• This is why I don’t _______.
• Everything you know about _____ is wrong.

3. Don’t just dance

A study by Semrush found that while popular dance videos receive more plays than other genres, they also receive fewer shares and comments. In fact, “more than 1 in 3 viral TikTok videos focused on a person speaking within the first three seconds.”

4. Shorter is still often better

TikTok continues to increase the allowable length of videos on its platform (it’s now up to 10 minutes). While you can and should experiment with longer-format content, the conventional wisdom—as suggested by TikTok in 2021—is that videos between 21 and 34 seconds are best.

TikTok Live, of course, is an exception. You can learn how to go live on TikTok here.

5. Stay positive

Yes, it’s important to lead with emotion. But on TikTok, that emotion should be happy, positive, or funny. That same study by Semrush found that 58% of viral videos skewed towards humor and happiness.

6. Get into a rhythm (pun not intended)

The more videos you post, the more likely you are to show up on someone’s FYP right? Yes and no. TikTok recommends posting 1-4 times per day. But don’t just post just to post. Find a format, theme, or genre that people like and that you can create variations on. Then only post when you have crowd-pleasing content. You can get even more TikTok marketing tips here.

7. Hop on trends/challenges

Going against the grain isn’t the name of the game on TikTok. Use viral sounds, participate in challenges, do the duets, embrace it all. TikTok songs are like Instagram hashtags. They are portals to endless threads of videos that just may lead a viewer to yours. And use hashtags too.

8. Don’t try too hard

At the end of the day, TikTok is a place for happiness, humor, and relatability. Forcing any one of these things has the opposite effect. Don’t stress, be yourself, and actually have fun. This will reflect in your content and resonate with viewers.

When to post on TikTok FAQs

A lightning round of Q&A to help you pick the best times to post on TikTok.

Does posting time matter on TikTok?

Yes, as long as your content is already good quality and relevant. Posting at the optimal times helps you gain early engagement which increases the chances that your posts land on the TikTok FYP.

How often should you post on TikTok?

TikTok recommends that you post between 1 – 4 times per day. Just like posting times, post frequency will be individual to your business and audience. Test out more and fewer posts to find the sweet spot. But prioritize quality over quantity—posting more bad content will hurt your business faster.

How do you get popular on TikTok?

Picking the right times to post is one step. But for a business to get popular on TikTok you’ll need to follow trends, have a great strategy, and post scroll-stopping content. You’ll get a boost if you also use paid TikTok ads.

When’s the best time to post on TikTok? [Recap]

TikTok has a large audience and high organic reach. To engage as many people on the platform as possible, you’ll need to post the right content, at the right frequency, at the right time.

Finding the right time for your business to post on TikTok will take some testing. But before you have data, you can aim for the best average time, which is Tuesdays and Thursdays, before and after the traditional workday.

After you have some posts gathering interest, use TikTok analytics to find trends and learn about your audience. Test fewer and more frequent posts. Try different days and times. Keep track by downloading the results from your TikTok pro account on your desktop.

But most importantly, just start posting. There’s an engaged audience just waiting for your brand of brilliance…don’t leave them hanging!

Want more best times?

• The Best Time to Post on Instagram [For Every Scenario]
• The Best Time to Post on Facebook (+Why It Matters)
• The Best Time to Post on YouTube