First off, decide a Content Strategy and Posting Schedule. Content Strategy is explained in another chapter.

As for Posting schedule, find a time when your audience is most active. If you have over 100 followers, you can get analytics to tell you this time. However, when you're under that, you're going to have to throw some spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

Here's how I found the best time to post:

I posted on stories every 2 hours. Two hours after a story was released, I checked how many people had seen it. I wrote the information down because I can't remember ANYTHING.

I repeated this for a number of days. I found out that during 5 pm to 7 pm my story was seen the MOST.

That meant, for my followers, 5pm to 7 pm was when they are most active.

(This data, however, is skewered by the fact that sometimes non-followers also see my stories. However, usually, stories are for your followers). 

Another way you can check when your followers are most active is by posting at different times. Warning: If you post too frequently, or take too many 'actions' on Instagram frequently, especially as a newer account, you might get banned. More explained in a future chapter (Instagram MISTAKES).

If you do go by this approach, keep in mind that login times differ based on the day of the week. So let's say you took data for one week, posting at different times every day. In Monday your post got most views and you posted in the morning. On Sunday it got least views, you posted in the evening.  

This does not necessarily MEAN that morning is a good time to post. It could also indicate that more users use the app on Monday.

To conduct a proper experiment, you need to keep the day constant and change the times.

Although you have to find out when YOUR audience is most active yourself, Later did do an experiment based on 35 Million accounts to find the best and worst times globally.

Times are calculated in LOCAL time.

So BEST TIMES to post: 

Monday: 5AM

Tuesday: 6AM

Wednesday: 6AM

Thursday: 5AM

Friday: 6AM

Saturday: 6AM

Sunday: 6AM

(That means on Monday post at 5 AM no matter where you live)

WORST times to post

Monday: 5AM

Tuesday: 6AM

Wednesday: 6AM

Thursday: 5AM

Friday: 6AM

Saturday: 6AM

Sunday: 6AM

Thank you Later. I highly recommend reading their blog which has much more information on this matter. (Use the external link)

Now why is posting at best times important? It's because it helps YOU get the most clout!

But seriously, posting at good times means you can get most eyes on your content as soon as possible, which means Instagram will rank you higher. 

If you post when your audience is most active, it means more of your audience is seeing your posts. Your posts are more likely to be engaged with, than if you post at a time that ANOTHER niche audience is active.

Another thing to consider is, YOU want to be active when you post is released. Why? Because if someone comments on your post, and you reply to them, you 2X the number of comments on your post. So you 2X the engagement. Thus your content ranks higher on the algorithm.

Plus you want to reshare your post to Stories as soon as it goes live.

Now, if you're wondering, 'WAIT! YOU WANT ME TO POST AT 6 AM?' 

WELL-

This is where Scheduling apps come in, which will be discussed next chapter!