Creating a TikTok strategy for a brand takes legwork. Aside from figuring out the best type of content to post, you’ll also need to find the best time to post on TikTok to maximize engagement.
Luckily, data can help make sense of this, so you can reach the right audience at the right time.
Below, learn the best times to post for each day of the week. We’ll also walk through how to analyze your own TikTok data to discover the optimal posting schedule for your target audience.
Table of contents
Best time to post on TikTok USA (in EST)
- Monday: 6 a.m., 10 a.m., 10 p.m.
- Tuesday: 2 a.m., 4 a.m., 9 a.m.
- Wednesday: 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 11 p.m.
- Thursday: 9 a.m., 12 a.m., 7 p.m.
- Friday: 5 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m.
- Saturday: 11 a.m., 7 p.m., 8 p.m.
- Sunday: 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 4 p.m.
According to a study by Influencer Marketing Hub, the best time to post on TikTok overall is on Tuesday at 9 a.m., Thursday at 12 a.m., and Friday at 5 a.m.
To determine the best times to post listed above, Influencer Marketing Hub analyzed more than 100,000 TikTok posts and looked for engagement trends. Below, take a look at the best times to post on TikTok, broken out by day.
Best time to post on TikTok on Monday
The best time to post on TikTok on Monday is at 6 a.m., 10 a.m., or 10 p.m. This suggests people are looking at TikTok videos before school or work, before lunch, and right before bed.
Best time to post on TikTok on Tuesday
The best time to post on TikTok on Tuesday is at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., and 9 p.m. This suggests people are checking social media platforms in the early morning, when they wake up in the middle of the night, and right before bed.
Best time to post on TikTok on Wednesday
The best time to post on TikTok on Wednesday is at 7 a.m., 8 a.m., or 11 p.m. If you post video content on TikTok during these times, you can catch people on the platform before work or school and then right before bed.
Best time to post on TikTok on Thursday
The best times to post on TikTok on Thursday are 9 a.m., 12 p.m., and 7 p.m. Thursdays are the best days to post TikTok content right around the lunch hour. If you have a restaurant business, for example, Thursdays could be a great day to post dinner specials at noon to let your customers plan ahead.
Best time to post on TikTok on Friday
The best times to post on TikTok on Friday are 5 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m. Share content early for the before-work and -school crowd, then after lunch and mid-afternoon. More engagement in the early evening suggests viewership reduces at night, when people are out on the town. Post on TikTok earlier in the day when more of your audience is likely checking social media platforms.
Best time to post on TikTok on Saturday
The best time to post on TikTok on Saturday is at 11 a.m., 7 p.m., or 8 p.m. There are fewer early risers on Saturday as people recover from the night before or choose to sleep in after a busy week. If you post on TikTok in the late morning and later in the evening, you can draw the most eyeballs to your TikTok content.
Best time to post on TikTok on Sunday
The best time to post on TikTok on Sunday is at 7 a.m., 8 a.m., or 4 p.m. Schedule video content to go out early on Sundays to capture people who wake up early for a morning workout, jump on social media before grabbing breakfast with friends, or scroll while still in bed.
Use third-party data as a jumping off point
This data is certainly interesting and not a bad place to start when first crafting your content strategy and understanding the best time to post on TikTok. However, it won’t be long before you can get personalized analytics, and that’s when you’ll find out what’s truly the best time to post on TikTok for your specific target audience.
You should also note that the best time to post on TikTok may not be the same for other platforms. As the audiences and content types differ, check your analytics across each social media platform to find the optimal times to post content.
💡 Learn more: Uncover the Best Time To Post on Instagram
The best time to post on TikTok by location
The huge caveat to the data above is that, to make these numbers useful for you when you post on TikTok, you need to consider your own time zone and location of your viewers. If you have a global audience, you’ll want to pay special attention to posting when people are online across multiple time zones.
Calculate the time difference to get the optimal times to post for your audience’s location. If Tuesday at 9 a.m. is the best time to post, and your audience is primarily located in London and you’re located in Toronto, Canada, the best time for you to post is Tuesday at 2 p.m.
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Start selling on TikTokHow to find the best time to post on TikTok for your business
There’s a reason TikTok posting times matter. Like on other social media platforms, you’ll get the most engagement with your TikTok posts if you share content when your target audience is online.
There’s a method right in the TikTok app for finding when your audience is the most active, and we’ll walk you through the steps to get there.
1. Create a TikTok Pro account (or Business account)
First, you need to make sure you have a TikTok Pro account or Business account on the app. It’s free and simple to switch. Just go to Settings and Privacy, then Manage Account, and tap Switch to Business Account. This will give you access to analytics, as well as other features.
2. Open your TikTok analytics dashboard
Next, you’ll want to take a look at your TikTok analytics. You can get there by clicking the menu at the top right of your profile screen, clicking Creator Tools, then Analytics. That opens TikTok’s analytics dashboard in your Pro account, which offers all kinds of insight into your account and your followers.
Here is where you will understand insights like average watch time of video content and other TikTok audience analytics that will help you determine when to post videos across multiple time zones.
3. Find your follower activity
If you’re looking to find the best time to post on TikTok, you’ll want to find the Followers tab at the top. From there, scroll down and you’ll see a pane called “Follower activity.”
This is what it looks like on mobile.
This TikTok analytics pane will show when your personal followers are most active.
As you can see above, the data shows that the activity of the followers of this account ramp up through the day and peak at 10 p.m. UTC. TikTok always displays these times in UTC, so you’ll need to convert to your local time zone. For this account, for example, 10 p.m. UTC converts to 5 p.m. ET. From that, we can determine that this account should aim to post around that time for the best chance at maximum engagement.
You can also find this information on a desktop by logging into your account and selecting “View analytics” under your profile. This gives a more detailed view, like below. You can also download your data from the desktop dashboard.
This is invaluable information because it shows not just when TikTok users are generally active, but when your own followers are active. This can help you figure out the best posting schedule for your brand.
This matters because your followers and your customers may have different peak activity times compared to others. If your target audience and customer base is parents, for example, their activity might peak in the evening when they have more free time. If your target is students, their activity might peak after school hours.
📈 Learn more: How To Market Your Business on TikTok
This is the method Shopify’s TikTok team uses to determine the best time to post. Our community of entrepreneurs are most active in the late afternoon but, again, this might be different for you.
The dashboard will also show where your followers are located. If, for example, you’re based in the US but notice you have a lot of followers in the UK, you may want to split your posts to target different time zones.
4. Check your activity on individual TikTok posts
Seeing when your followers are most active gives you a good idea of when they’re most likely to engage with your content in the form of likes, comments, and watch time. To drill down further, navigate to the Content tab in your analytics dashboard.
From here, you can see data on individual posts from the past seven days, including total play time, average watch time, how many people were reached, and whether they found the video via your profile or the For You page.
This also includes information on the exact time and date you posted your video. By combining your follower analytics with this data, you can figure out if your strategy for when you post TikTok videos is working. You may even find that certain content does best at a particular time of day compared to others. Again, it’s all highly individual, so digging into your personal dashboard is key to finding the best TikTok posting times for your business.
💡 Get inspired: How to Make and Sell Merch on TikTok
The best time to post on TikTok is now
As you can see, the analytics dashboard is much more helpful than external data can ever be in terms of establishing the best time to post on TikTok for your brand.
The downside here is that this information doesn’t start to get detailed until you’ve reached 100 followers and, of course, you have to post content to get any analytics at all. The information in this post will help you start off with some insights, but building your audience is key for getting the best analytics, especially since the TikTok algorithm will likely keep changing over time.
That means if you’re just starting a TikTok account for your business, the most important thing is simply to start posting.
TikTok recommends that businesses post one to four times per day and focus on authentic, engaging content. You can check out our guide on TikTok marketing for tips on how to create the best content for TikTok.
The more you post on TikTok, the more data, feedback, and followers you’ll gain, and the more you’ll be able to pinpoint the best time to post on TikTok for your business.
Best time to post on TikTok FAQ
Does posting time matter on TikTok?
Yes, posting time does matter on TikTok. TikTok's algorithm prioritizes recent and relevant content, so it's best to post on TikTok when your audience is most active and engaged. This will increase the chances of your content being seen and engaged with by more people.
It's recommended to experiment with different posting times and analyze the performance of your videos to find the optimal posting time for your specific audience. The best time to post on TikTok will differ for each audience.
Is Sunday the best time to post on TikTok?
In terms of engagement, there is no specific day that is considered the best for posting on TikTok. The best time to post on TikTok depends on your target audience and their time zone. You can experiment with posting at different times and analyze when your videos get the most engagement.
Additionally, some research shows that weekdays may generally have higher engagement rates, as people are often busy with other things on weekends. Ultimately, consistency and quality content are more important than the specific day or time of your TikTok posts.
Why does my TikTok get no views?
There are several reasons why your TikTok videos may not be getting any views. Here are a few possible reasons:
- Inappropriate content: TikTok has community guidelines and certain types of content are prohibited, such as nudity, hate speech, and violence. If your content goes against these guidelines, it may not be recommended to users.
- Low-quality content: Good quality videos and audio are likely to get more views than videos that are poorly shot or have low-quality sound.
- Lack of hashtags: Hashtags help increase the visibility of your video to a wider audience. If you don't include relevant hashtags in your video, it may not show up in popular searches.
- Timing: Posting your content at the right time is important. If you post when most of your followers are asleep or busy, your video may not get as much engagement as you'd like. The best time to post on TikTok depends on your audience’s time zone and your own, as well as data in TikTok analytics.
- Lack of engagement: To grow your account, you need to engage with other users, respond to comments and create content that encourages conversation and engagement.
- Limited audience: TikTok’s algorithm may limit your content to a particular audience and not show it to large audiences, which would lead to it having lower views.
Is it better to post TikTok videos at night or in the day?
There isn’t one simple answer to this question. The best time to post on TikTok—night or day—depends on a number of factors, including your audience’s location, your time zone, the multiple timezones of your followers, and the most popular times to post on TikTok, according to data.
How do I analyze my target audience behavior through my TikTok account?
Your audience on other social media platforms will differ from your TikTok audience. Even if you understand the engagement behaviors of your Instagram audience, it may not be the same for TikTok. As you post on TikTok, you will gain access to insights that will help you determine when to post on TikTok. Open a TikTok Pro account, navigate to Insights, and check your Follower activity.