Time for story: Time for a story | Thomas the Tank Engine Wikia
Telling Time in Your Story
Readers Need to Know Where They Are In the Story Timeline
As a writer, you set the timeline for your reader. Time is part of setting, and you need to let readers know what time it is in your scene. In the same way, you ground your reader with setting details like the room in a house or a desert valley; you need to help them understand the flow of time in your story.
If there’s a scene jump, did an hour pass? A day? A month? How do readers know?
Create a Story Calendar
To reference time markers for your readers, you need to know the time in your story. Do this by creating a timeline or calendar for your story.
You can use paper, create a digital file, or use software like Aeon Timeline to order your story events in sequence.
Know the story events and when they happen. Include all story events from the first page to the last. Some writers add backstory events from something a simple as a birthdate to major life events that occurred in the past. You and your reader will know when a past event happened; for instance, your protagonist’s parent died ten years ago.
Add which characters are present at each story event. You will know, and your reader will know who had access to an event. This notation is especially helpful for mystery writers. Who was there at the event and who knows it only by hearsay.
For each story event, include the time of day and weather details. These details will ground you as you are writing the scene and help readers understand the passage of time in your story.
Having a timeline will keep you from overlapping events, or your character traveling in unrealistic time limits, whether they are traveling by horse to Rome from Ravenna or San Francisco to Paris.
Your story calendar will help you insert time markers into a story with a realistic time progression.
Telling Time With A Clock
The obvious way to anchor your reader with time is to announce the day and time. Some stories, especially in crime fiction, use the date and time as chapter headings or subheadings.
Robert Harris starts each chapter of Pompeii with the date and the Roman hour. 22 August – Two days before the eruption; Conticinium [04:21 hours].
In the narrative, a character can glance at a clock or watch. This action builds tension when the character is working against a deadline. This technique works in detective and thriller stories when the protagonist feels the pressure of the clock ticking.
But establishing time works best with a subtle use of time markers that hint at the time without guiding the reader with a clock.
Telling Time Without A Clock
Your story needs time markers, so the reader understands the passage of time. Without time indications, readers become confused, stop reading, and turn back to try to establish the time of the current scene.
As a writer, you can get caught up in the action and dialogue and forget to add time markers. A practical way to help readers is to start each scene with a time reference. Then, in the middle of the scene add a second time marker.
Events
Use references to story events, both past and future, to remind readers of the passage of time. Is the train/ship/plane leaving in hours/days? How close is your sleuth to the deadline?
If you mention that an upcoming event will happen in one week, readers will know a week has passed since the earlier scene when the event happens in the story.
Transitions
Transitions from one scene to the next can be short or long. Exactly 28 hours after Mike received the telegram, or the next morning, or that night are examples of short transitions that help your reader understand time passing.
If there is a long break in time between scenes, a longer passage helps move your story through time. For the next month, Axel discovered nothing. He filled out papers. Caught up on reports and hated what he thought was time-wasting activities. No one called. He’d followed all the leads…
Seasons
Use the seasonal clock with seasons—winter, spring, summer, fall—to ground your reader in time and also provide setting details.
Seasonal details like rain, snow, heat, blooming trees, falling leaves, etc. help your reader see and feel your character’s surroundings. Sports are seasonal and are a good reference for the season. Andy switched from track to cross-country skiing as the days shortened.
Daily Activities
Daily activities are subtle time markers. When a character acts in a natural daily activity, readers instantly know the time of day.
- Eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner
- Heading to school or work
- An evening cocktail
- Children playing after school
- Returning from school or work
- Getting ready for bed
Distance
Your characters need to go from one place to another. When characters and readers, know how far away a destination is, they know how long the journey will take. But readers need to know how your character travels: by foot, car or truck, plane, train, rail, horseback, mule cart.
Indicate your character’s response to travel.
Are they tired, cranky, invigorated at the journey’s end? Michael Connely keeps his characters moving in heavy Los Angeles traffic and by car or plane to outlying suburbs and Las Vegas.
Time Inclusion, Accuracy, and Consistency
Just as you ground characters in the physical setting, include time references in each scene. You’ll help your reader understand the time sequence. They’ll be clear about how scenes relate to each other in time progression.
Keep your time references accurate as they relate to other events in your story. Make sure your characters move in a realistic time frame. You don’t want your reader wondering how your hero got from point A to point B in an unrealistic time frame. Show your reader how your character was delayed or how the flight went smoothly.
Use time markers consistently to keep your reader in the story. Include at least one in every scene, the same way you include setting details. If you skip time markers for several scenes or chapters, your reader may get lost and do the thing you don’t want them to do—stop reading.
From clock time to seasonal references, time markers ground your reader and keep them in the story.
Photo by mana5280 on Unsplash
Story Time | Childtime Learning Center
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Story Time can be one of the most impactful learning experiences a child could have, in part because they naturally make sense of their world through both story and play. Story Time encourages skills like language and literacy, plus cognitive development and social-emotional growth, too.
Our schools receive a curated, bi-monthly collection of books carefully selected to fit each age group. To go along with each book, we’ve built activities and exercises that support children’s ability to read that book by further exploring language and literacy skills.
Beyond that, our Story Time at Home Newsletter provides families with fun facts about language and literacy development, and also gives you awesome ideas for reading at home.
The Power of Reading
A Message From Dr. Susan, Chief Academic Officer
Of all the moments you share with your child each day, reading a story together is one of the most impactful to your child’s development. When you curl up together and open a new or favorite book, you are deepening critical social and emotional bonds with your child and creating a language-rich experience that fuels the developing brain. Why is reading aloud to your child so powerful?
- Stories help your child learn about themselves and others.
- Picture books are filled with rich vocabulary that develops your child’s oral language skills.
- Reading a book together helps your child with critical life skills, such as sustaining focus and attention, controlling impulses, and developing social skills like empathy.
Humans process and organize experience by thinking narratively, about who, what, where, and why things happen around them. Young children know this instinctively and are drawn to storytelling and books, wanting to hear them again and again. When you sit your child on your lap and point to the pictures, make animal sounds, or recite favorite phrases, you’re making connections that last a lifetime!
Story Time
- Infants: Thank You, Bees by Toni Yuly
- Toddlers: Baby Goes to Market by Atinuke
- Twos: Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
- Early Preschool: Who Will I Be? by Abby Huntsman
- Preschool: Snail Crossing by Corey R. Tabor
- Pre-Kindergarten: The All-Together Quilt by Lizzy Rockwell
- School-Age: The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
Story Time
Infants:
Thank You, Bees by Toni Yuly
Nature gives us many gifts that help with our daily lives.
This simple book with repetitive text will help show appreciation to some of the natural gifts we are offered, such as rain and soil for plants.
Sound like a book your child will love? Order your own today.
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Story Time
Toddlers:
Baby Goes to Market by Atinuke
Join this mother and baby as they go to a local market. Watch as they walk through the market gathering items, including some items that the mother didn’t know about! This book also includes many colorful pictures, repetitive text, as well as math concepts to keep young children engaged.
Sound like a book your child will love? Order your own today.
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Story Time
Twos:
Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
This friendly truck makes its way through each page saying hello to all the animals it meets until it comes across a yellow dump truck who is stuck in the mud. Watch what happens as the blue truck tries to help the yellow dump truck!
Sound like a book your child will love? Order your own today.
Buy Now
Story Time
Early Preschool:
Who Will I Be? by Abby Huntsman
A common question often asked to younger children is: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” On this particular day, Isabel was asked this question at school. Not knowing what she wanted to be, Isabel works with her dad to figure out what makes her happy, and how to incorporate that into a future job.
Sound like a book your child will love? Order your own today.
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Story Time
Preschool:
Snail Crossing by Corey R. Tabor
Kindness, determination, and friendship are key themes in this story about Snail as he goes on a journey to get some yummy cabbage. Ride along as he faces obstacles and finds friendships in an unusual place.
Sound like a book your child will love? Order your own today.
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Story Time
Pre-Kindergarten:
The All-Together Quilt by Lizzy Rockwell
What happens when each person contributes something small? Big things can happen! This community works together to create a beautiful quilt that everyone can enjoy.
Sound like a book your child will love? Order your own today.
Buy Now
Story Time
School-Age:
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
This heartfelt story is about a girl named Wanda who was often picked on. There was an art contest at school that Wanda participated in, but she ended up moving away before the winner was chosen. The beautiful drawing Wanda left behind leads her peers to rethink their feelings about her. This story is about kindness, acceptance, and forgiveness that appeals to school-age children.
Sound like a book your child will love? Order your own today.
Buy Now
TOP
“Thomas & Friends” Time for a Story (TV Episode 2010)
Thomas & Friends
S13.E9
All episodes
All
- Episode aired Oct 2, 2010
- TV-YTV-Y
- 11m
IMDb RATING
2.
2/10
35
YOUR RATING
AnimationShortAdventure
Thomas ignores some track repair signs and derails his truck of storybooks. Since he can no longer take the books to the children, he decides to bring the children to the books.Thomas ignores some track repair signs and derails his truck of storybooks. Since he can no longer take the books to the children, he decides to bring the children to the books.Thomas ignores some track repair signs and derails his truck of storybooks. Since he can no longer take the books to the children, he decides to bring the children to the books.
IMDb RATING
2.2/10
35
YOUR RATING
- Director
- Greg Tiernan
- Writers
- Miranda Larson
- Sharon Miller(head writer)
- Wilbert Awdry(railway series)
- Stars
- Michael Angelis(voice)
- Michael Brandon(voice)
- David Bedella(voice)
- Director
- Greg Tiernan
- Writers
- Miranda Larson
- Sharon Miller(head writer)
- Wilbert Awdry(railway series)
- Stars
- Michael Angelis(voice)
- Michael Brandon(voice)
- David Bedella(voice)
Photos
Top cast
Michael Angelis
- Narrator (UK)
- (voice)
Michael Brandon
- Narrator (US)
- (voice)
David Bedella
- Victor (US)
- (voice)
Jules de Jongh
- The Teacher (US)
- (voice)
- …
Teresa Gallagher
- The Teacher (UK)
- (voice)
- …
Kerry Shale
- Kevin (US)
- (voice)
- …
Martin Sherman
- Thomas (US)
- (voice)
- …
Ben Small
- Thomas (UK)
- (voice)
Keith Wickham
- The Fat Controller (UK)
- (voice)
Matt Wilkinson
- Victor (UK)
- (voice)
- …
- Director
- Greg Tiernan
- Writers
- Miranda Larson
- Sharon Miller(head writer)
- Wilbert Awdry(railway series)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
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When is the best time to post stories on Instagram: tips
December 25, 2021
4 minutes
Read the article Hide
Does posting time affect reach? Posts that were posted a few days ago may appear first.
This is because a new ranking has appeared in this social network. Posts are ranked according to the principle of the most popular and those who received the maximum number of likes in the first time after publication.
There is a relationship between publication time and coverage. For example, you posted a post during the daytime, when subscribers are active, then more people will view it. Accordingly, coverage will increase.
Principle
If you post stories on Instagram at two in the morning, there will be few users on the network and likes will appear more slowly. Accordingly, the coverage will be less. In the morning, subscribers will start browsing the feed, but your nightly publication will already be lost among new posts. She never gains popularity. Therefore, the timing of the publication of content directly affects the number of likes and views.
When to post stories
Expert opinion
Elnara Petrova
SMM marketer
When to post stories so that they get maximum coverage? This question is asked by many Instagram account holders.
Experts say that stories posted at 10 a.m. on weekends and 6-8 p.m. on weekdays get the most popularity.
It is known that for most bloggers, the activity of subscribers increases from 10 am to 12 pm and from 7 pmuntil 21 pm. We do not recommend posting content between 12 midnight and 7 am.
Recent research at CoSchedule showed that Stories posted from 7 am to 9 am have the highest engagement. It is also effective to post stories from 5 pm to midnight.
An interval between 15-16 hours of the day is considered a bad time to post on Instagram. At this time, the activity of subscribers can not be expected.
When is the best time to post photos to the main feed
The best time to post to the main feed will depend on your target audience. To get started, make a portrait of your client and determine their age, gender, interests and place of residence. For example, you have your own online cosmetics store. Your target audience is girls aged 18-25, mostly students.
Accordingly, the time for posting in the morning is not the best.
It is better to post a post in the feed from 17:00 to 22:00 in the evening. During this period of time, your target audience will just return from work and study, and will be able to carefully examine the products you present in the feed.
If you have a large audience of potential buyers, then experiment. Try posting stories and photos to the main feed at different times.
By following this rule for several weeks, you can track the best time to post.
Pay attention to what time of day your posts get more likes and comments. So even during the working week you can see when the audience is most active.
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How to determine the best time for your account
one
View your account statistics
2
Study your target audience and, based on this, determine when it is most active
3
Create a table and enter data on publications posted at different times of the day.
This will make it clear which publications received the most response from users
A few words should also be said about the time of day:
Morning
At this time, many people go to work or study and scroll through the Instagram feed. For some business accounts, there is no better time to post than this.
Afternoon
The best hours for posting and stories on Instagram are 12-15 hours. Most of the lunch breaks fall on this interval and people take out their phones
Evening
May be the best option for accounts that work with an adult target audience . It can be cafes, bars, restaurants
Night
Experts do not recommend publishing posts at this time of day, since most users are not active . For example, the standard Instagram statistics only show the 8 most active hours. To see the “picture” in a day, you need to use an additional program. We recommend you use these services to choose the best posting time:
LiveDune
InstaHero
Pur Ninja
Picalytics
How often to post new posts
The frequency of posts on Instagram affects their reach.
However, this does not mean that posting 20 posts every day will increase the number of subscribers. The frequency of publications depends on your page:
Business accounts
They can add photos to Instagram 4-5 times a week. For example, Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Let your content be not only selling, but also informative and entertaining
Blogs
Posts in different blogs can be posted daily. So your page will be more often full of content in the feed and attract new customers. However, it is recommended to post no more than 2 posts per 24 hours
Personal Profiles
Can post as often as they like. If you want to increase the number of followers, then post high-quality and interesting content
Total
There is no need to focus on the time of publication of posts on Instagram, because the quality of the content is much more important. If you have unique and outstanding content on your page, then subscribers themselves will want to stay with you for a long time.
They will wait for your every post in the feed and stories, regardless of the time of day. Read our other articles on related topics: How to hide hashtags on Instagram, TOP hashtags on Instagram, How to correctly add hashtags on Instagram under a photo.
Try uploading stories and photos to the main feed at different times
If you want to see extended statistics of your account, you need to download separate applications for this
Stories posted from 7 am to 9 am have the maximum engagement
How often do you post new ones posts?
Frequently asked questions
What are the activity peaks?
Some experts believe that the first peak of activity on Instagram is from 11 am to 4 pm, and the second peak is from 5 pm to 11 pm.
Which posts have the worst activity?
Posts posted at 5 am have the worst activity.
When is the best time to post stories?
Effectively posting stories from 5 pm to midnight.
The best time to post on Instagram 2021 | Instagram promotion
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How many seconds of stories on Instagram – video story length, story length
Sooner or later, everyone comes to such a wonderful feature on Instagram as stories.
These are short videos in which you can introduce subscribers to your surroundings, as well as advertise a product.
Before starting to shoot such “short films”, any user thinks: how many seconds are stories on Instagram? Is there enough time to present your idea to the profile readers? Stay tuned, we’ll figure it out together.
Allowed time for one story
So, how many seconds does an Instagram story last? The system of this social network creates time limits for each video. First of all, this is necessary for the convenience of followers. After all, what kind of subscriber would like to watch three-hour “movies” of his idol.
One story can go up to 15 seconds. “And how do you fit them?” – you ask. The developers went forward and increased the limit to 60 seconds, but with one amendment. More about her in the next section.
Making a story out of a big video
If the length of the video you want to upload is more than a quarter of a minute, do the following:
- Open any video editor.
- Add required material.
- Divide it into mini-rolls of 15 seconds. The total duration of the videos should not exceed 60 seconds.
- Save the result.
- Launch the Instagram application on your gadget.
- Log in to your account. To do this, use your login (nickname/email/mobile phone number) and password.
- Swipe the screen from left to right and enter story editing mode.
- Swipe up from the bottom of the gallery and select those same 15-second mini-rolls in the gallery.
- Filter them if necessary.
- Review the result and click the Next button.
- Decide on the category of subscribers who will have access to your one-minute video sequence.
- Tap “Share”.
Done. Your story is now displayed in the feed section at the very top of the screen.
For your information. To select multiple files from the gallery, hold down one of them with your finger and check the boxes for the rest.
Is it possible to repost a video longer than one minute
The maximum duration of a video in Stories should not exceed 60 seconds. Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to “surpass” this bar. The developers do not plan to increase the limit in the near future.
However, if you still cannot do without a long video, then here’s a note for you:
- allowed video file length on IGTV – up to 10-15 minutes;
- the allowed length of a video file in a general feed post is up to 1 minute.
Good to know. In the general feed, you can post several “short guys” at once for 60 seconds in different posts.
Do not forget about the live broadcast, which, in total, lasts up to 1 hour.
How to increase the duration of stories
But what about Instagram without tricks? There are a couple of tricks that can show your followers the right time for the video.
This can be done in three ways.
First:
- Log in to the Instagram app.
- Open story capture mode. To do this, you need to swipe the screen from left to right.
- Add a link to your long IGTV video in the text.
- Share.
Second:
- Enter the story capture mode again.
- Post one story.
- Return to shooting mode.
- Add a second clip.
Third:
- Log in to the Insta program and log in using your username and password.
- Tap on the “person” icon in the bottom menu.
- Select a post in the feed with a suitable video and open it.
- Click on the “paper airplane” icon and the inscription “Add post to stories”.
- Confirm placement.
After what time the story will be deleted
As a rule, one story will be kept in the feed of your subscribers for exactly 1 day, that is, 24 hours. Then the system will simply delete them.
This is done to avoid overloading the server and to keep the content updated.
But there are also a couple of tricks that will keep your video story entertaining for longer. They are completely simple and completely legal.
Extending the retention of stories
To increase the retention of stories in your profile, again, you can go in several ways.
First:
- Open the Instagram app and log in.
- Switch to story mode.
- Tap on the “gear” located in the upper left corner of the screen.
- Check the box “Save to archive”. Optionally, you can also “Save to Gallery”.
- Wait for clip to be deleted after 24 hours.
- Publish saved content again.
Second:
- Select the “person” icon in the main menu.
- Find the “Actual” column and click on the plus sign.
- Check the appropriate story.
Now you will have a “Recent” section, which will store the stories that are most important to you.
Note. To remove video material from the “Actual”, you need to open the story itself and click on the “three dots” (menu). Then it remains to select “Delete” and you’re done.
For business accounts
For owners of professional accounts or marketing profiles, it will be useful to know some interesting tips related to stories. Namely:
- On the page of your account (icon “person”) you can open “Settings” – “Statistics”. Scroll down to “History” and see detailed information about the views of your video stories, etc.
- In the “Statistics” section and in the “Audience” tab, you will be able to see information about your subscribers and take note of this. For example, that most people go online on Saturday night. Accordingly, it is better to post new posts at this particular time.
So we found out how many seconds a story is on Instagram. It is worth remembering this in order to do everything better. After all, very few people will like the cropped “out of time” video.
The best time to post on Instagram: posts, stories, videos, rils, photos
Some social media experts claim that the time of posting on Instagram has ceased to matter since the social network moved away from the chronological feed of publications and switched to a smart feed. But it is not so.
Understanding what influences posting time on Instagram and how to independently determine the best time to post content. What to look for when scheduling posts, stories or videos? Answers in the article.
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What influences the time of publishing content on Instagram
Is time really important?
A little background:
When Instagram had a chronological feed, new posts were shown to followers as they were posted. Traditionally, users spend more time on social networks before work/study, at lunchtime, then after work/study and on weekends. These days and hours, the feeds of Instagram users have been consistently inundated with content that often does not meet their interests. If you posted a post, and the subscriber left the social network for 20 minutes, during this time your post could fly to the very end of the feed.
As a result: everything was clear with the time of posting, but many posts did not receive views due to high competition for a place in the feed.
With the advent of the smart feed, Instagram began to show users content that meets their interests. That is, the one they most often watch, search for and interact with.
That is, if you posted a post at 9 pm and 10 other people posted content at that time, it is not certain that your post will be at the top of the feed of your general subscriber or even appear there.
Then what influences posting time on Instagram:
And this already affects its further promotion: access to recommendations, showing to other subscribers.
Profile visits, views, likes, comments, reposts – all this makes Instagram understand that the content is interesting and should be promoted further.
Let’s look at a specific example:
You and blogger Petya have a common subscriber Masha. Masha visits your profile more often and interacts with your content more actively than with Petya’s content. Masha is most active at 8 pm on weekdays. If at this time you and Petya post at the same time, your post will be higher in Masha’s feed than Petya.
But if Petya posts at 8 pm (when Masha is active), and you at 4 am (when Masha is sleeping), then Petya’s post is more likely to be higher in Masha’s feed.
Important: in addition to positions in the feed of general followers, organic interactions allow you to reach the recommendations and TOP Instagram and get additional coverage.
2. Posting time matters when creating a posting schedule. If you are creating a content plan for Instagram, it is logical to indicate the days and times of publication in it. If you use auto-posting services, you can set the time for publishing content in advance, and then it will be posted without your participation at all. In both cases, the chosen time must be justified if you want to promote effectively on Instagram.
P.S. Some services analyze audience engagement themselves and recommend the best time to post based on this data.
This is interesting: 31 ways to increase your reach on Instagram
When is the best time to post, stories and reels on Instagram
On various Internet resources you can find articles where the exact time and days are written post content on Instagram.
You can close these articles, because there is simply no universal posting time. For the same reason, it is useless to read marketing research on posting time, such as those conducted by Sprout Social, Later, Blog2Social, Hootsuit.
Firstly, the time of activity of the studied target audience may differ from the time of activity of yours. Secondly, there are many factors that affect the activity of the audience, and all these studies quickly lose their relevance.
It’s better to determine the best time for your audience. How exactly:
1. Analyze the statistics of the Instagram account
The statistics show the days and hours of the audience’s activity. This information will help you choose the right time to publish. You must have a business account to view statistics.
To view the statistics of posts, click on the “Statistics” button on the profile page or through the menu (3 horizontal bars).
In the upper left corner you can set the period for which statistics are to be displayed.
Minimum 7 days, maximum – 90.
Click on the “Total subscribers” item.
Scroll to the very bottom to the item “Periods of the most activity”. Here you can see information by day and hour.
If you click on the columns of the graph, the number of subscribers active in these days and hours is displayed. In this example, you can see that on Wednesdays, the most subscribers interacted with the account between 18:00 and 21:00.
If you look at the days, you can see that the activity was about the same regardless of whether these days are weekdays or weekends.
*There is no point in looking at statistics by content types separately, since it does not show the time of activity – only the number of coverages, views, average retention percentage (if it is a video) and other interactions. Such statistics are more needed to learn how to create engaging content.
2. Use the Services
The Services may provide more detailed statistics.
For example, the standard Instagram statistics only show the 8 most active hours. To see activity in the context of 24 hours, you will need services. Also, as mentioned above, many services themselves analyze the activity and give recommendations on the time of posting.
There are no separate services and programs for analyzing posting time (or there are very few of them) – usually this is one of the functions of a complex program. For example, for auto-posting or competitor analysis.
What services to use to choose a good time for posting on Instagram:
- LiveDune;
- InstaHero;
- Pur Ninja;
- Popsters;
- Iconosquare.
Topic: 10 services for analyzing statistics on Instagram
3. Ask the audience
You can ask the audience directly – at what time and days they most often view your content. To do this, you can post a story with a question sticker, through which subscribers will send answers.
The responses received will need to be analyzed separately.
You can also create a story with a poll, but here you already limit subscribers within a range of times or days that you specify.
4. Do an A/B test
Not the most reliable way, but it can provide additional information nonetheless. During the reporting period (for example, a month), post content at different times and try to figure out when the audience is more active. The result may differ from official statistics.
What to look for when choosing when to post on Instagram
When analyzing statistics and choosing a good placement time, the following points should be taken into account:
Region, time zone of subscribers. If the subscribers’ time zone is different from yours, you need to adapt to their time. For example, subscribers are active when you have a night, and they have a day at this time. In this case, it is better to use auto-posting services so as not to wake up every time to post a post or stories.
* We look at the region in the same place where we looked at the time of activity of subscribers.
Content type for which we define the time. The type of content does not greatly affect the posting time, but there are a couple of nuances:
– to determine the time for posts, just look at the subscriber activity statistics;
– if we plan time for stories, then we need to take into account that it will disappear after 24 hours. So you need to post stories on the days of the most activity. For example, you have the least active audience on Monday, and the most active day on Friday. Posting Stories on Monday is less effective than posting on Friday. If there is a lot of content, you can post both on Monday and Friday. If the story will be added to the current one or you want to increase the chances of the story getting into recommendations or TOP, then time is important only in the context of getting more interactions in the first hours;
– For Reels, placement time is also important in terms of getting first interactions.
Reels has its own recommendations feed, so the more interactions a video receives in the first hours of posting, the higher the chances of getting into this feed and getting additional coverage.
*Time of placement is not the only or the most important factor in getting Reels recommendations.
– There is a myth that Instagram shows videos above posts in the feed, but Instagram itself denied this in the @creators account (in one of the stories).
Season, holidays. During the holidays or holiday season, standard activity times may vary. For example, if you usually have a peak activity on Fridays, then you should not expect the same surge if Christmas or New Year falls on Friday.
Newsbreaks. If your content often relies on newsbreaks, then you need to react quickly, despite the standard audience activity time. For example, you are a blogger and you have a show business profile. If you wait a few days after the event just for the sake of audience activity time, then you will be ahead of other bloggers who react instantly.
Global changes in the world. This doesn’t happen often, but still. Take the example of the Covid pandemic. Due to frequent lockdowns, transfers of people to remote work, users began to spend more time on social networks, and all activity metrics shifted.
Important: you need to understand that the activity time can constantly change. Accordingly, if you are guided by this metric, you will have to analyze it on a regular basis. It is also worth keeping an eye on the change in Instagram algorithms.
How to increase the number of interactions with content at the right time
If you want to get as many views, shares, comments as possible in the first hours after posting, you can take additional actions:
– Post more stories. They are placed above the main feed of posts, so they do not compete for a place in this feed. They compete only for a place in the line of all stories. Due to this, it is easier to get interactions on stories than on posts.
– Make announcements of publications. Not all the time, but sometimes it works. For example, you are planning an important post. You can post a story with the date and time of publication of a future post – the audience will be waiting for it in advance by this time.
– Make reposts to other sites. If you have accounts in other social networks, video hosting sites, or have your own website, you can repost content there to get traffic from these sites.
P.S. Don’t use cheats to increase interactions with content in the first hours. Instagram takes into account the organic reach and determines cheats faster every year. Moreover, they give a short-term effect, which has a bad effect on statistics in general.
Conclusion
Don’t focus solely on posting time, after all, content is much more important. If you create unique high-quality content or attract subscribers with your charisma, they will visit your profile regardless of the posting time and wait for each new publication.