At what time and on what days is it best to post on Instagram? And at what frequency? There are many analyses, mostly only from abroad. Here are a few Swiss insights on Instagram!
For one year, we analysed more than 150 Instagram accounts of Swiss B2C companies. From banks to tourism, from retail to restaurants and from chips to telecoms, everything is there. Only Swiss brands with mainly local followers were considered and we only used publicly available information.
In total, that's 4.5 million followers (double possible), 28,000 posts and around 50 million comments, likes and the like. We cannot track information on reach or paid reach. We could learn that from the numbers:
Growth
On average, accounts have grown by a third this year. The weekly average growth was 0.49%. In absolute figures: 3,100 Instagram followers were added on average. Comparison 2020: at that time the growth was still 47%. We could not identify any particular growth peaks apart from a few obvious seasonalities (tourism, sports...).
Engagement
On average, the post engagement rate was 2.2%.
Accounts under 10,000 followers had an average of 2.65%,
Accounts between 10k and 50k had a rate of 1.74%,
Accounts beyond the 50k mark then only 1.32%.
All accounts with an above-average engagement rate also posted slightly more than the rest. But how much does post activity really influence growth and engagement rate? We have analysed this in more detail below.
Swiss brands like to post between 10-12 and between 16-18. Although the engagement would be best early in the morning - when people are on their way to work(?) - between 2pm-4pm and late in the evening.
Monday is generally a very good day to post. Between 4pm and 10pm, however, you should leave it alone.
Tuesdays are best very early and late
Wednesdays are also 6-8pm the best time. Generally, this day of the week has the worst performance of the week.
Thursdays early morning, between 10-12 and evening from 8pm are the best times.
Friday belongs to the early risers. 8am or earlier is best.
Saturdays we let people sleep in and post best from 12 noon to 4pm.
Sunday is the best day of the week. Very early to 10am, 2pm-4pm and 10pm onwards are the best times. Between 4pm-2pm you can save posting.
Are the numbers surprising? For us too. The analysis refers to more than 27,800 posts. We left out certain hours because only very few posts were shared.
Activity
On average, people post every other day. The most active accounts also have a slightly higher engagement rate and above-average absolute growth. Relative to the existing followers, below average, but this is more due to the generally high number of followers of the accounts. So it pays to post enough. But especially for engagement, the timing of posting is more important than the quantity, as the analysis below shows.
The matrix graphs show even more clearly that there is no correlation between activity and growth or engagement. Striking: smaller accounts (smaller circles) are more likely to grow if they are more active.
When is the best time to post on Instagram in Switzerland?
There are many time-of-day analyses, but they are mostly global or from the USA. Most community managers don't work on weekends and would like to get off work sometimes. That's probably why almost 40% less is posted on weekends than during the week. But if you want to achieve more engagement, you should post on Sunday and also on Monday.
Post Types
Yes, Reels is definitely the most important format when it comes to reach, and not necessarily when it comes to engagement.
Carousel posts, on the other hand, perform massively better than simple image posts.
Stories? We couldn't measure this, but we know from our daily work that they are primarily aimed at existing followers and generate more work than performance. Certainly not to be considered as priority 1.
Nevertheless, around 50% of the posts are still a single image. Accounts that grew more than average last year published more carousel posts.
Hashtags
Very important for virality. We were not able to discover many lessons, as hashtags are very individual for each account and post. But did you know that #Sustainability is in the top 5 hashtags with the lowest engagement rate?
Content
What content generates the most engagement on Instagram? In the top25 posts by engagement rate, 50% are raffles and sweepstakes. Brands are launching lots and lots of sweepstakes.
How sustainable this is, we will see. But the increase in followers (absolute) is manageable for these accounts. And oha! A content post from an insurance company even made it into the top 25! That is also possible.
And who is the winner of the year?
It depends. The post with the most likes in absolute terms (9.5k) was generated by Alaia Bay. Right off the bat, since Alaia is still relatively young. Congrats!
Looking at the matrix comparing follower growth and engagement rate, feey is the growth winner, Elmer Citro has growth and engagement in check and login career guidance has the highest engagement. (A bit proud right now, as I had developed the social media strategy for login some time ago :-o).
This article was translated from German into English. Original article: https://mike.schwede.ch/home/de/digitalmarketing/129123
Of course, Instagram posts and rails are a very influential tool from the point of view of social marketing. I would like to share my observations on what else works in business. Some marketing agencies use podcasts as social marketing, and it also works great, you can shoot useful content or podcasts on various topics and it's cool to attract target customers. To do this, you can use https://www.movavi.com/screen-recorder/