Report Pinpoints Optimal Times for Brands to Post on Instagram
Instagram use among Fortune 500 brands has doubled over the past three 
years, according to a new report by Track Maven. According to the data, roughly 50 percent of the companies on the list are on the social media platform, up from 25 percent in 2013.
Despite significant growth in the use of the channel, the analysis found brands could tweak their strategies in terms of when and what to post in order to optimize performance.
The report detailed when (days and times) brands are currently posting to Instagram. Thursday and Friday are the most popular days and posts drop off significantly over the weekend.
Similarly, Fortune 500 brands are most often posting during business hours. However, the data shows these may not be the optimal times to post content to Instagram. Posts between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. EST see between 4.18 and 6.58 percent less engagement than average. Weekend posts generate more engagement than other days of the week.
Further, the Fortune 500 are not utilizing Instagram’s filters; nearly 90 percent of posts have no filter. The Normal option is the 13th most effective filter for the Fortune 500, the report found (Mayfair and Hefe are most effective).
“This finding indicates that there is an appetitive for authenticity on Instagram. Brands need to remember and respect that their content is appearing not amongst a feed of other brand-generated content, but among content from users’ friends and families as well,” writes Kara Burney, Director of Content at Track Maven, in a blog post.
The report analyzed more than 41,000 unique Instagram posts from the Fortune 500 brands, which includes both B2B and B2C brands.
Instagram Posts Drive Most Engagement
An earlier report released in March 2016, by Track Maven found that while B2B brands are able to develop large audiences on LinkedIn, they were not able to engage those followers as much as on other social media platforms. The data showed B2B brands received 20 times more engagement on Instagram than on LinkedIn, but drew much smaller audiences.
Instagram posts had an average engagement ratio (number of interactions per post per 1,000 followers) of 22.53 for B2B brands compared to Pinterest (15.88), Facebook (5.99), LinkedIn (1.09) and Twitter (0.86).