Overall, it seems to work for us. There are a few exceptions though.

1. We post on certain holidays (relevant to our organizations) and we always post those early in the morning - and they always perform great, no matter if the suggested time on that day is later.
2. When launching a new account, I wouldn’t pay much attention to the suggestions, because there are not enough followers/engagements to really have that insight.
3. If you boost the content after it’s published and you’re targeting the right audience, the times aren’t as important.

Great question, ​@Marlina Yates!

The same as ​@judith.edwards mentioned, if it’s a holiday or special event, posting early in the morning is usually the best and what drives the most engagement for us.

For other posts, I recommend using the suggested times as a starting point, but it’s important to test and find what works best for your audience. Try posting similar content at different times—morning, afternoon, and late afternoon—and track the engagement to see what resonates most.

This approach not only helps you make informed decisions but also gives you a data-driven answer if your supervisor or leadership asks about your posting strategy.

Hope that helps!

Great advice, Judith. This is what I have found and also do the same thing on holidays and those always have great engagement. 

I have found that it has been pretty accurate yes.

For me I do feel like Sprout’s recommended best times is pretty accurate. I have tested out posting a couple of our posts at the most active times that the platform I am posting to suggests as well, but found that Sprout’s best times were more successful when comparing engagements. 

Overall, I find the suggested posting times to be relevant for our audience engagement. However, I agree with previous commenters that once you start boosting, the timing becomes less critical.

In my experience as the manager of a Global Social Team for a large B2B SaaS brand based in the U.S. with locations all over Europe, APAC, and India - you know the best times of day to release content based on the engagement that you see coming in the door. No tool - even something that uses AI, etc. is better than your eyes in terms of really seeing what’s working. 

If you have regions - partner with the Social team members/agency who does Social for that region to determine the best time of day for the release of posts - for example, 8:30 a.m. ET works well for us in the United States, but 6 a.m. ET works well for our European content. We stick to IST best times to post for our India LinkedIn page. 

We’ve been experimenting with this tool since switching to Sprout a few months ago, and I think it helps, but ultimately it is not nearly as powerful or effective as posting content that provides value and catches your audience’s attention. If we post a reel on a topic we know resonates with our audience, I’ve noticed that regardless of what time it’s posted, it gets traction over time and out performs content that may have been posted at an optimal time but isn’t as valuable to viewers. For context though, we are not a global or national brand, so we don’t have to consider optimal times outside of our time zone.