When brainstorming which social media networks to implement into your brand’s marketing strategy, it’s quite possible that Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube may be the first options that come to mind. While these apps may be better known when it comes to social media marketing for businesses and are definitely ones that you’ll want to consider using, think about expanding your approach to include other networks as well.
For example, if your target market is made up of a younger demographic, Snapchat may be another excellent tool to boost awareness of your brand, grow your community, and get more traffic to your ecommerce site.
Of course, in order to optimize your presence on Snapchat, you’ll want to be sure that you take a strategic approach and post at the ideal time for your brand. Weekdays? Weekends? Early morning? Tuesdays on your lunch break?
Just like when trying to determine when to share Tweets on Twitter, for instance, it can be tricky figuring out the optimal posting schedule for your Snaps.
Don’t worry—we at WiziShop have got you covered!
Read on to learn how timing can affect your success on Snapchat, the suggested hours and days to post, and how you can determine your unique optimal posting time.
Why is it important to post at the right time on Snapchat?
As with any other social media network, like Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, or Facebook, you want to be sure that you’re optimizing your efforts with the content that you're creating on Snapchat. After all, if you’re putting in the effort to craft high-quality content, you’d like it to be seen by other users and bring you the greatest results possible, right?
For this, it’s a good idea to have an understanding of how the Snapchat algorithm works.
First, it’s essential to know that the algorithm’s goal is to show users the most engaging content that would be most likely to interest them. It aims to provide Snapchatters with a personalized feed that prioritizes Snaps according to their importance and relevance rather than chronological order.
This also means that the more frequently that somebody has viewed and/or interacted with a brand’s content in the past, the better the chances that the brand’s Snaps will appear higher in that particular user’s feed.
Although the timing of your posts may not seem to have an impact at first glance due to Snapchat not displaying content based on chronological order, it can actually be quite an important factor in terms of your brand’s success on the social media network!
This is because you’ll want to ensure that you post your Snaps when your target audience is most likely to see and interact with them. Why? To put it simply, increased engagement is going to boost your brand’s importance and relevance in the eyes of Snapchat, thus earning your content a higher placement in users’ feeds.
What's the best time to post on Snapchat?
Now that you understand why the timing of your posts is significant when it comes to sharing content on Snapchat, you may very well be curious as to know what the recommended posting time is!
If you’ve followed along with our other blog articles on the ideal times to post on social media platforms, you know that there’s a lot of information out there with varying suggestions. What works really well for one brand may not be too successful for another.
Nevertheless, when you’re just starting out with a social media network, it can be helpful to have a general idea of what some of the best practices are.
What makes Snapchat stand out from other social media apps is that the majority of those using the social network tend to be active on Snapchat late at night rather than during the day. For this reason, the generally recommended moment to post on Snapchat is between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m., which is quite different from the suggested best time to post on other types of social media.
Which are the best days to post on Snapchat?
While many sources state that there’s no real “best day” to send Snaps, as users are typically active all throughout the week, BridTV suggests that Friday and Saturday are ideal for posting content online. This is likely due to the fact that those using the app are less likely to have commitments like school or work the next day, allowing them more time to Snap the night away.
Source: BridTV
To better comprehend why these are considered the best days and times to post on Snapchat, it’s beneficial to check out the demographics of Snapchat users.
According to Statista, as of January 2023, the age group making up the largest percentage of Snapchat’s global audience includes people between the ages of 18 to 24 years old, with approximately 38.8% of users being in this group.
Source: Statista
It makes sense then that late-night weekend Snaps, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, may be more successful, as people in this age group generally go to sleep later than others. They’ll be more likely to be online and active on the active and therefore more likely to view and interact with your photos and videos when you post between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m.
In addition, although a specific time zone wasn’t mentioned in any of the studies reviewed for this article, keep in mind that the ideal time zone for your posting schedule is going to depend on where your target audience lives.
If you’re hoping to reach a more global audience, consider that, based on Statista data, as of April 2023, the country with the largest number of Snapchat users was India, with approximately 182.4 million people on the social media platform. This was followed by the United States, Pakistan, France, and the United Kingdom, with 108.8 million, 26.4 million, 25.9 million, and 23.2 million users respectively.
Source: Statista
With this data, you may decide to target Snapchat users in India and/or the US, for example, to boost your chances of reaching the greatest number of consumers possible and boosting engagement. You’d then want to share your Snaps based on a schedule that would most benefit users located in those countries.
What is the best time to upload content on Snapchat for your business today?
Knowing the recommended moment to post on Snapchat is great, but you’ll definitely want to take this a step further and determine your individual optimal posting time. There are numerous factors that can influence what hour or day for sharing content is going to bring a company the best results.
Although the window of 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. may work well for many brands, there’s no guarantee that it'll be successful for yours. Weekdays, weekends, early morning hours, evenings... How do you know what posting schedule will give you the best chance of connecting with users and attracting new customers to your business? Fortunately, there are various actions you can take to find out your ideal time to share Snaps with your audience.
In order to make the most of your efforts as a brand on Snapchat, you’ll want to be sure to create a business account on the social media platform. Having a Snapchat business account will allow you to take advantage of more features to better support your marketing strategy, including the platform’s analytics tool, Snapchat Insights.
With Snapchat Insights, you’ll be able to view a variety of metrics and get a more in-depth look into your brand’s performance on the social media network. Some of the metrics available with this analytics tool will even help you to more easily determine when you should post on Snapchat.
Here are a few of the metrics that are likely to prove to be the most helpful for achieving this objective.
View Time / Story View Percentage
Thanks to the View Time and Story View Percentage metrics, you can discover how long people watched your Snapchat Stories and the percentage of users who watched your Snaps in their entirety.
As you can view the data for these metrics for every day of the week, you’ll be able to better ascertain what day of may be ideal for you to post on Snapchat.
If users generally seem to watch more of your Snaps all the way through on Mondays and Tuesdays, for instance, this tells you that perhaps you should focus on putting out content on those days.
Note that you can also use these metrics to figure out the perfect times to post, but you’ll need to keep track of the times that you posted on the app yourself when comparing the performance of your content in Snapchat Insights, as the feature doesn’t currently offer a way to view performance by the hour.
Reach
This metric informs you of how many users saw your Snaps over the past week, allowing you to see how many views your content received each day. Similar to View Time and Story View Percentage, Reach data can help you to discover what day may be most advantageous for you to post on Snapchat.
Audience Insights
Another important section of the Snapchat Insights analytics tool that you won’t want to miss involves your audience demographics. Here, you’ll be able to discover data such as the percentage of men and women who saw your content, the age groups of viewers, and your audience’s interests.
You’ll also find one of the most relevant insights for determining your optimal moment to post on Snapchat in this section: Popular Regions. This shows you the most popular locations of your audience, allowing you to see which time zone or zones would be optimal on which to base your posting strategy.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with social media posting times
If you’re new to Snapchat, it can take a little while to learn when you should be sharing your Snaps to increase engagement and get more subscribers. In addition to using your research involving the various metrics in Snapchat Insights, don’t hesitate to test different times, even after you think you have a good idea of your optimal time to post.
You’ll then be able to better determine if the amazing results you saw one week when posting online between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, for example, were just a fluke or true indicators of the posting schedule strategy that your brand should implement on a regular basis.
Finally, while the timing of your Snaps will certainly play a role in your brand’s Snapchat success, keep in mind that, as with any of your social media marketing efforts, be they on LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, etc., creating and sharing high-quality video and photo content is the best way to achieve optimal results concerning your professional endeavors on social networks.
If you'd like to learn about the best time to post on other social media platforms, be sure to take a look at our other articles:
