The Best Times to Post on TikTok for Most Views Revealed

Are you disappointed by how many views your brand’s TikTok account is getting? Would unlocking the formula for the best time to post on TikTok help?

Yep, it sure would, wouldn’t it? That’s what we thought. 😉

So, in this article, we’ll tell you the best time to post on TikTok today and how to find the best times for your brand’s unique audience. We'll also offer advice on how often to post on TikTok.

Ready to grow your brand’s TikTok account? Let’s get started! 🙌

Why should brands aim to post at peak times?

So, you might’ve heard that it matters when you post on TikTok–and that’s true. It’s not the only factor to consider, but if you’re posting when your followers are online, you’ll often have better engagement, which leads to these advantages:

• More visibility: When you post during peak times, your content is more likely to get immediate views and engagement because more of your followers are on TikTok.
• Algorithm boosts: If your content is popular immediately, then TikTok will want to show it to more people more quickly. So, posting at peak times can mean your content is more likely to reach people’s For You page.
• Competitive advantage: If you know the right times to post, you’re ahead of your competitors who aren’t thinking about it. These marginal gains add up over time.
• More followers: When your posts get more engagement, you’ll likely also see your follower numbers growing!
• Better ROI: You’ll usually get more for your money (whether you’re trying to increase brand awareness or make sales) if you post at peak times on TikTok.

But knowing the best time to post on TikTok today won’t guarantee that you reach your engagement goals. Let’s talk about the other factors at play here, too, so you can create AMAZING TikToks for your brand that get the attention you’re looking for.

What factors influence engagement?

You want to post when you get the most engagement because audience engagement signals to TikTok’s algorithm that your content is worth watching.

Unfortunately, if getting people to engage with your posts was simply a matter of posting at the right time, every small or medium-sized business could quickly build HUGE followings. But, if you’ve been trying to develop a social media presence for any time, you know it’s not *that* simple.

Here are other things you need to consider to make engaging posts:

• User behavior. Different audiences follow different patterns. So, although we’ll give you some general guidelines later in this article, make sure that you pay attention to YOUR audience and when they’re online. For example, if your audience is high schoolers, it’s probably a bad idea to post at 10:30 a.m. on a weekday, no matter what our article says, since they’ll be in school.Some platforms WILL give you this user data once you have enough followers, but you’ll still want to a/b test different times to see what works for your brand. For example, try running this test: For the next 3 Mondays, post at 12:30 p.m. Then, for the next few Mondays after that, post at 11 a.m. Which one got the most engagement?Ideally, you’ll keep the other variables similar when running these tests. So, for example, if you start with a funny post, keep it along the same lines for all the posts in your a/b test. Don’t change it up because that might skew your results. Controlling every factor involved is hard, especially because social media algorithms can be mysterious. But it’s worth trying to see if you notice a difference!
• Content type. Some types of content will be more popular with your audience than others. And again, some types perform better at different times of the day. For example, your humorous content might do well in the evening as people are winding down for the day. Again, you’ll want to test this and see what works for your brand’s audience. Here are some questions to ask yourself to evaluate the different content types:
  • What kind of content does our audience engage with the most?
  • Is it funny?
  • Is it informational?
  • Is it relational?
  • Does it give practical advice on how to approach things?
  • Is it “relatable”?

• Day of the week. Guess what? Some days just naturally have more activity than others on TikTok. (Instagram is the same way, in case you were wondering). For some brands and audiences, the weekends are quiet. For others, it’s the best time to post. You’ll have to play around with your tests to discover the best days for your content. And once you find something that works, keep it! For example, you might post something funny on Saturdays for a while and find out that your humorous posts get more engagement than ever. Great! Keep posting funny jokes on Saturdays.
• Current trends. Leveraging trending sounds and hashtags can increase your TikTok engagement, especially if you time it well.

How to post on TikTok

If you’re wondering how to post on TikTok, you’ll need to know how to do that before you can post at the right time! Here are step-by-step instructions:

1. Open the App: Launch the TikTok app on your mobile device. (If you haven’t downloaded TikTok yet, do that first)
2. Tap the Plus Icon: Tap the "+" icon at the bottom center of the screen to create a new post.
3. Record or Upload a Video:
   • Record: Press and hold the red button to record a video in the app.
   • Upload: Tap "Upload" to choose an existing video from your device's gallery.
4. Edit Your Video:
   • Add effects, filters, and music using the options on the right-hand side of your screen.
   • Use the "Trim" tool to cut your video to the desired length.
5. Add Details:
   • Write a caption to describe your video.
   • Add relevant hashtags to increase discoverability.
   • Tag friends or other accounts if necessary.
6. Adjust Settings:
   • Choose who can view your video (public, friends, or private).
   • Enable or disable comments, duets, and stitches.
7. Post Your Video: Tap "Post" to publish your video to your profile and the For You page.

The best times to post on TikTok for 2024

Finally! The part we’ve all been waiting for! Here’s the best times to post on TikTok every day of the week:

• Monday: 9 am and 8 pm - According to the data, mornings are best, but do not neglect evenings. Start with the morning, and then you can adjust it based on the results.
• Tuesday: 5 pm and 7 pm - Tuesday afternoons are generally best, so feel free to start at 5 pm and switch to later, depending on the results.
• Wednesday: 4 pm and 7 pm - Similar to Tuesday, people are fully immersed in their work during the day, so the late afternoon is better.
• Thursday: 10 am, 11 am, and 4 pm - The weekend is coming, so you have more flexibility today! Experiment with mornings first.
• Friday: 8 am, then 4 pm and 5 pm - Start early in the morning before work and school, but feel free also to squeeze in a post when both of these are done and people are ready for the weekend
• Saturday: Between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. - there is a good spike of engagement and views between these times, so it's an excellent place to start. And it makes sense — after that, people go out.
• Sunday: 2 pm and then 4 pm — Sunday afternoons seem better, so take advantage of that!

How did we pick these times? Two ways:

• First, we researched bigger brands who we know are paying attention to this and have the resources and know-how to do great testing.
• Second, we asked our community of Social Cat brands on TikTok what works for them.

Please remember these are general times based on what works for other brands. They should work as a starting point for your brand, but you should ALWAYS keep testing to see what the best time to post on TikTok is for your particular audience. Your brand is unique–embrace that!

How often should I post on TikTok?

TONS of articles say you need to post every day or multiple times per day to grow your brand on TikTok. And sure, that can work–but that’s a case of working harder, not smarter. And if you have limited resources, posting multiple times a day isn’t a viable option. It takes too much money, time, or both.

How often should you post on TikTok as a small or medium-sized business? Let’s take a look at how to find out:

• Consistently post at least 2x per week. There’s no magic number of posts you need per week. But, from our testing at Social Cat, we’ve found it helps to post a MINIMUM of 2-3 times per week on TikTok. The key is being consistent and maintaining at least two posts each week. So, if you’re unsure where to start, start with that.
• Focus on QUALITY. Take enough time with your posts to ensure they’re high-quality and engaging. If you get this right, you’ll be more effective with fewer posts.
• Experiment with this! Try different numbers of posts per week and see what works best for your audience and brand.
• Don’t over-post. Yep–this is a thing! If you post too often, people might get tired of constantly seeing content from your brand (this is known as “audience fatigue”). As a result, they’ll engage less–which will hurt your account overall!

Free tools for scheduling TikTok posts

Of course, posting at the right time doesn’t mean you have to be actively recording and uploading your content on TikTok when the magic hour arrives. No! Instead, you’ll want to use a scheduling tool to get the post up on time. Here are some great options:

• Later: offers a free plan with basic TikTok scheduling features, allowing you to plan and post content at optimal times.
• Buffer provides a free tier that includes limited post-scheduling capabilities for TikTok, which can help you maintain a consistent posting schedule.
• TikTok Pro Account: Although not a tool, upgrading to a TikTok Pro Account offers basic analytics and scheduling features directly within the app, helping you to plan posts more effectively.

Our pick: TikTok Pro. Since it’s integrated into TikTok and is free, this is the best option–unless you want an all-in-one tool that can help you post to other platforms, too.

How to get content for TikTok

This is the elephant in the room, right?

Because it’s ONE thing to know the best time to post on TikTok, how to schedule your posts, and the kind of content you want. It’s another to create a consistent stream of content that helps you build a presence on TikTok.

The good news? Getting content for TikTok isn’t as hard as you think it will be. We’ve made it easy to create a pipeline of amazing content (for TikTok and other channels): work with micro influencers from Social Cat on gifted collaborations.

If you’re unsure, just look at our TikTok and Instagram pages–all of our content is videos from our influencers. You don’t have to do extra editing–just post it raw. Some of the videos we’ve posted have received hundreds of thousands of views, and one of them has surpassed a million views.

Plus, to see more examples of content our influencers created for other brands, check out these examples. Our use cases can also help inspire you since we’ve worked with brands (like 1-800 Flowers) that are champs at getting UGC our influencers!