Best Time to Post on Social Media in 2026 (Based on 52 million posts)

Get Buffer free ► https://join.buffer.com/duKH2Tn We analyzed 52 million posts across every major social media platform to find the best time to post in 2026 — and the data threw up some genuinely surprising patterns. 9 a.m. is a cross-platform magic hour. Wednesday wins almost everywhere (except TikTok, which broke the rules entirely). And LinkedIn has completely changed. In this video, I walk through the best time to post on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, X, and Threads — plus the four patterns that save you from memorizing eight different schedules, and how to load all of these times into your Buffer calendar automatically. 👉 Try Buffer free and load these times into your calendar in about a minute: https://join.buffer.com/duKH2Tn 📚 Read the studies here: https://join.buffer.com/K8vF5Np ⏱ Chapters 0:00 Intro 01:37 The big picture — 4 cross-platform patterns 04:22 Get these times automatically with Buffer 06:14 Best time to post on Facebook 07:01 Best time to post on Instagram 07:54 Best time to post on LinkedIn 08:55 Best time to post on TikTok 10:14 Best time to post on YouTube 11:42 Best time to post on X 12:23 Best time to post on Threads 13:01 Recap and reality check 📌 Key takeaways → 9 a.m. is a magic hour. It's the single best slot on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads (Thursday) — and on X (Tuesday). Four platforms, same hour. → Wednesday wins on five platforms. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and Threads all peak midweek. TikTok is the exception — Wednesday is its worst day. → LinkedIn has shifted into the afternoon. The single best slot is now 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Morning posts are underperforming, and Mondays and Tuesdays now do worse than the weekend. → TikTok and YouTube are weekend platforms. Saturday and Sunday outperform the rest of the week — a completely different rhythm to the rest of the list. → Timing is an easy box to tick, but it's not the box that saves a post nobody wants to read. Content that actually reson