High-quality and differentiated content can supercharge your brand to reach massive audiences. However, as we discussed in our article about TikTok’s algorithm, there are many other factors that contribute to your success in TikTok marketing. One of the most crucial factors that you need to take into account is your posting time.

A good posting time will help your content to be discovered by a group of audience that engages, this will allow the algorithm to push your content to a wider audience. Consequently, posting at an unstrategic time will cost your content that initial engagement and your post will not be displayed to as large an audience.

This then begs the question: When is the best time to post on TikTok? We will show you what studies have shown and how to determine the best time to post on TikTok based on your audience and target market.

1. Refer to The Global Best Time to Post to Begin

The Influencer Marketing Hub, a global influencer marketing resource hub, published in April a list of the best times to post on TikTok globally. It is so far the most popular study that shows the best posting time on TikTok that has been referred to by TikTok-related businesses, including the Viral Nation.

However, be advised that this study can only be a starting point on determining the best time to post for your profile. Given the many and different “best times” the research has shown, you still need to be able to fine-tune the research to your audience or target audience. This can be done by further research which will be supported by data-driven analytics and insights.

2. Locate Your Audience Demographics

To begin with, the location of your audience gives you an insight into their time zones, which leads to knowledge of when they are likely to open TikTok (e.g. lunchtime, before work, etc.). But more importantly, it gives you the ability to strategize your content.

The United States contributes to the most spending on TikTok, while India scores the largest of TikTok users worldwide. This fact shows that reaching your audience requires a specified goal and data. Especially if you aim to have a global audience, you need to be able to locate your audience before deciding on what time to post. For example, you can post a product-related post at a time when your US engagement is high and post challenges at a time when your Indian audience is online.

To accurately do this, you are suggested to segment your audience and determine the best times to post for each segment. Using TikTok profile analytics, look at the times when your audience engagement is high and TikTok analytics also enables you to do a competitor analysis to cross-check this. Additionally, try and test content, caption, and hashtags at different times and check the engagement rates. The data you procure from TikTok analytics tools can help you specify your best time to post for every location and furthermore, for each type of content. 

3. Know and Benchmark Your Industry’s Best Posting Time

Just like the case with Instagram’s best posting time, the type of industry plays a big part in determining your best posting time. You may be able to find what time TikTok audiences swarmed in, but those aren’t always the audience you want to reach. Similar to location, determining the industry’s average best time will help you strategize your content to receive the response you want. 

Fortunately, to determine the best industry posting time, you simply need to find data of your competitors’ engagements. This can be acquired using data provided by TikTok profile analytics. This isn’t limited to your direct competitors, you can also find engagement reports of influencers or other brands with a similar audience. The goal is to be able to understand the engagement behavior of your industry’s audience and learn of other brands’ or influencers’ success.

4. Coronavirus Changes Your Audience’s Online Behaviors

With the three crucial measures above, you are on your way to posting at the best time possible. However, keep in mind that the data you will find is not a reference for the long term, instead, it will change as TikTok audiences, which are mostly Millennials and Generation Zs, have very dynamic behaviors that adapt to prevailing circumstances. For instance, the recent disruptions in social media due to the Coronavirus pandemic also has created major changes in TikTok users’ behaviors.

TikTok users are growing by the minute. This means that the number of people online at each posting time will change as the number grows. This is something brands need to be more aware of as during this pandemic the number of users online rises significantly, as seen by how TikTok downloads have surpassed 2 billion. This change is also dynamic among each location. Asia has seen a large growth of TikTok users whereas Thailand, for example, has seen that 1 of every 7 people now has a TikTok account. 

Furthermore, the economic condition and the unique needs of people during this time affect how the audience interacts with each industry. The Food and Beverages Delivery industry might be getting more traction and wider choices of posting time, while the travel industry might require a unique strategy to grab audiences.

COVID-19 has rocked the social media behaviors of people across the globe. This means that every research you are doing to strategize your TikTok marketing campaigns needs to be kept in check regularly, and the best way to do so is by constantly identifying engaging content and best times to post on TikTok through data-driven insights from TikTok analytics.