The day I stopped posting at 9am and my reach doubled in 48 hours

For like six months straight I scheduled every Instagram reel and TikTok at exactly 9:00 AM because some guru said that was the sweet spot. Then last Tuesday my phone died and I couldn't post until 11:47 PM, complete garbage hour for my audience. I woke up expecting maybe 40 views but it hit 1,300 by noon the next day and kept climbing to 4,800 total. Turns out my followers are mostly night owls who scroll before bed, not morning commuters. I checked my analytics and the difference was night and day, engagement rate went from 1.2% to 4.7%. Has anyone else found that their 'optimal time' from the charts was totally wrong for their actual crowd? I'm second guessing every scheduling tool now.

2 comments

2 Comments

bettyfox25d ago

...and here I was religiously setting my alarm for 8:55 every morning like some kind of farm rooster with a phone. I figured the gurus knew what they were talking about because they had all those fancy charts and graphs. Turns out my audience is a bunch of night owls who are probably eating cereal in the dark and watching my stuff at 2am. I checked my own numbers after reading your post and sure enough, most of my best stuff went up after 10pm. Makes me wonder how many other things I've been doing wrong because a random guy with a YouTube thumbnail said so. I guess we're all just guessing until our phones break and the universe forces us to change things up.

umathompson24d ago

Did you switch your posting time on both Instagram and TikTok at the same time, or just one? Because I found my IG crowd likes late night but my TikTok people show up at like 6am on Sundays. Different platforms, totally different habits. It makes me wonder if the whole "one magic time" thing is just lazy advice.