The Best Time to Post on TikTok for High Engagement
TikTok is a social media powerhouse. With the average human attention span at 47 seconds, the platform’s short videos are exactly what modern audiences like.
If you’re looking to reach and engage with many people, it should definitely be part of your social media strategy. However, finding success on TikTok isn’t always easy. Sure, creating high-quality videos and staying up to date with the latest trends can help.
But, for many content creators, these alone aren’t enough. You also need to post when your target audience is the most engaged. Otherwise, your videos could get lost in the millions of daily uploads.
In this blog, we look at the best times to post on TikTok and offer additional posting tips to help you maximize engagement.
Does When You Post on TikTok Matter?
Without a doubt. Posting when your target audience is actively using TikTok increases the likelihood they’ll see your content. Posting when they’re offline does the opposite.
Further, posting when users are the most engaged can increase your likes, comments, reposts, and shares. With the TikTok algorithm analyzing these engagement signals when determining which content to show on users’ “For You” pages, maximizing your interactions could be precisely what you need to get more eyes on your content.
Best Days and Times to Post on TikTok
According to social media management platform Sprout Social, Monday to Thursday between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. are great posting times. However, the ideal time typically varies from day to day. Here’s a quick breakdown of when best to post every day:
(Disclaimer: There’s no universal “best” time to post on TikTok. The following information is based on the analysis of billions of engagements globally, but your ideal posting time may be different.)
- Monday: The best time to post on Monday is between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Mondays are a busy day, as many people typically have a lot to catch up on at work. So, they get on the platform in the evening.
- Tuesday: Tuesdays tend to be less busy than Mondays, so they offer a broader posting window (from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.).
- Wednesday: As with Tuesdays, posting anytime between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. can be a great way to increase engagement.
- Thursday: Again, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. is one of the best posting time frames.
- Friday: Fridays offer the longest posting time frame (between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m.). As the week closes, people tend to have more time to scroll. Plus, some see scrolling as a way to unwind and disconnect from their work in anticipation of the weekend.
- Saturday: Contrary to some belief, Saturdays don’t see much social media activity — they offer a two-hour posting window (between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.). This is because people typically focus on real-world activities such as hanging out with friends, enjoying hobbies, and taking trips.
- Sunday: According to Sprout, Sundays have the least user engagement and the shortest posting window (at 8 p.m.). This could be because some people like to mentally prepare for the new week by staying offline. It could also be because they’re tired from Saturday activities.
How to Find Your Best Posting Time
As mentioned before, there’s no way to conclusively say that day X or time Y is the best period for all content creators to post. While the timeframes we’ve discussed above register the highest engagement rates, they may not be ideal for your TikTok account. Here’s a look at how to find what works for you:
Understand Your Audience
Your audience will tell you when to post on TikTok. So, start by looking into their behavior.
Lucky for you, TikTok already provides an Analytics feature that can help. To access this feature:
- Log in to your TikTok account.
- Tap your profile picture, then tap the menu icon.
- Select TikTok Studio.
- Tap the View all link located on the right side of the Analytics box.
- Navigate to the Followers section and scroll down to Most active times.
There, you’ll find a breakdown of your followers’ activity over the past seven days. To identify their most active days, tap the Days tab. For a breakdown of their activity over different time frames during each day, tap the Hours tab and scroll through each day’s activity.
While the Followers section only shows followers’ engagement activity, it can provide a pretty good picture of your general target audience’s behavior. Say your target audience is office workers. Those who already follow you will likely share the same scrolling patterns as those who don’t. So, you can use their engagement data to determine when to post future content.
Another way to find the best posting time is to identify videos with the highest engagement numbers. For this, go to the Content section and tap the Most views and Most likes buttons. Then, check when you posted them to see what time works best for your audience. However, don’t rely solely on data from this section, because some videos get lucky. For reliable insights, consolidate data from multiple TikTok analytics.
Experiment With Different Times
It may be tempting to immediately settle on the posting day and time with the highest engagement after checking your TikTok Analytics. However, just because the latest analytics show that your audience was the most active on Monday at 9 p.m. doesn’t mean this is their typical scrolling time.
Don’t get us wrong; it’s a great time to start with when trying to nail your ideal posting time. But it shouldn’t be your only focus. Remember, TikTok only provides a 7-day engagement breakdown. It could be that your audience was highly active this past Monday, but that’s not their usual engagement time.
To find the best posting time, note down multiple days and times with the highest engagement. If you post six times a week, for example, list your top six highest engagement periods. Then, schedule your content to go out at each of those times.
Monitor Your Videos’ Performance
Post your content at different times over the course of a few weeks, and continually track its performance. Then, analyze the data to identify when your audience is consistently active.
The key metrics to focus on during your analysis include:
- Video views
- Engagement (likes, comments, shares, and reposts)
- Average video watch time
Focus on times with the highest number of consistent video views and engagements, and the longest watch times — they’re your ideal posting times.
What If You Have a Global Audience?
Things can get tricky when you’re targeting audiences in different locations, especially when you’re working with different time zones. After all, 6 p.m. in one time zone could be 10 p.m. in another and 4 a.m. in another.
To effectively navigate this situation, identify general peak times based on your analytics. Then align your posting schedule with different locations’ time zones.
Alternatively, you can create unique TikTok accounts for each location and schedule content to go out when each audience is most active. Geelark can help you do that.
We provide cloud-based phones with unique device fingerprints, so you can create as many TikTok accounts as you need without investing in physical smartphones. That’s not all. Our AI-powered tools can make it easier for you to keep up with each time zone’s ideal schedule by automating posting. This means never missing peak engagement times, regardless of your location.
What’s more, you can configure each phone’s IP address to align with your target locations. This makes it easier to see content from different target regions, a great way to keep up with the latest trends and challenges in each one.
Is Nailing Timing Enough to Maximize Engagement on TikTok?
While figuring out your ideal posting time is no doubt a great start, it’s not enough. To succeed on TikTok, you not only have to get your timing right but also create content and implement strategies that encourage audiences to engage with you. Here’s a look at what to do on top of posting at peak engagement times:
Create Attention-Grabbing Content
The best-timed content will do nothing for your engagement if it doesn’t capture and maintain your audience’s attention. So, invest in content quality.
Create videos that hook your audience within the first three seconds to stop them from scrolling. You could start with an eye-catching visual, an intriguing question, or a bold statement. Think things like dramatic transformation images, questions like “Ever wondered why your videos don’t get many views?”, and statements like “Here’s how I moved from position X to Y in two months.”
To maintain audience attention and encourage video completion, make sure your content is great as well. Use a high-quality camera, stick to each video’s topic, and keep things light and entertaining.
Find Your Niche
Hopping on every topic isn’t the best way to make it on TikTok. Your content may feel disjointed, reducing the chances of securing a loyal following.
Find something that interests you or your target audience, and stick with it. For example, if your target audience is into health and fitness, create content on topics like dieting and exercise. Doing this can help you build trust and credibility, and consequently, encourage engagement. The more engagement your videos receive, the more likely they are to appear in more people’s FYPs.
Sticking to a specific niche also makes it easier for the TikTok algorithm to understand your focus. It can then recommend your videos to more people with shared interests.
Follow TikTok Trends
TikTok is one of the few places where following the crowd will actually help you grow. While it’s good to maintain your individuality, it doesn’t hurt to participate in popular trends. Using trending sounds in your videos and participating in challenges can get more eyes on your content and encourage people to engage with you.
To keep up with the latest TikTok trends:
- Regularly check the Discover tab: It’s filled with viral videos and trending sounds, so it’s sure to give you some content ideas.
- Follow content creators who align with your niche: They’re often the first to adopt trends.
- Engage with your audience: Look at the trends TikTok users in your target audience are participating in.
Leverage TikTok SEO
Ever heard someone say, “I don’t Google. I TikTok.?” This is the reality for Gen Zs, as many prefer to find information on TikTok rather than Google.
With this in mind, search engine optimization should be a key part of your TikTok growth and engagement strategy. Identify keywords your target audience uses when searching for information, and incorporate them into your captions, hashtags, and on-video text. This way, your videos will show up among the most relevant results when users search for anything related to your content.
Post Regularly
Don’t post a video today and schedule the next one for a week from now. This only increases your chances of getting lost in all the TikTok noise.
Instead, post multiple videos each week to keep your audience engaged. Regular posting also provides more data, which can help you continually refine your posting schedule and content strategy.
This isn’t to say that you should post videos every hour. If you post too much, you not only risk exhausting yourself but also coming across as spammy. The key to maintaining a consistent presence is to find a balance.
If you’re unsure how often to post, start with one video a day and monitor your analytics. Video performance data will show which days and hours register the most engagement, enabling you to create a well-informed posting schedule.
How to Effectively Manage Multiple TikTok Accounts With GeeLark
As mentioned earlier, our platform can take the hassle out of managing multiple TikTok accounts, even when each one has a varying posting schedule. Here’s how to automate posting with GeeLark:
- Sign in to your GeeLark account.
- Navigate to Profiles, then New profile.
- Set up your cloud phones (ideally, one for each TikTok account). To set up your phones, choose the Android system, name each phone, and enter your proxy details.
- Navigate to Automation on the left sidebar to open the GeeLark Marketplace.
- Search for the TikTok video posting template.
- Add the cloud phones linked to your TikTok accounts. For this, tap the Add button, then select the cloud phones, and pick your phones.
- Go to the Select creatives section and upload your videos. Choose the Upload in order option if you want to upload videos in the order you selected your cloud phones; the Bulk upload section if you want to post the same videos to multiple cloud phones simultaneously; and the Single upload option if you want to focus on a single phone at a time.
- Add content details like your preferred TikTok sounds and captions (in the Video script section).
- Set your preferred publishing date and time.
- Tap Confirm publication after making sure everything is in order.
Streamline TikTok Posting Across Multiple Accounts With GeeLark
One of the best ways to grow your following and maximize engagement on TikTok is to post content when users are the most active. So, take time to learn your target audience’s behavior.
Lean on TikTok Analytics, experiment with different posting times, and continually check your content performance and engagement data to identify when best to post on your TikTok account. Then, maintain a consistent posting schedule.
GeeLark can help you stick to your ideal posting schedule by automating content publishing. Whether you run a single TikTok account or multiple accounts in different time zones, our platform has everything you need to ensure every post goes out when your people are most engaged.