NHN Data said on the 5th that it released the "golden time" by time slot to boost year-end Instagram marketing efficiency, based on the "Instagram trend report for the fourth quarter of 2025," aggregated through its social marketing analytics solution "Social Biz."
The report analyzed Instagram direct message (DM) sending data to pinpoint when marketing responses concentrate by hour, day of the week, and quarter. NHN Data defined the periods when DM sending is most active as the "golden time," based on actual operating data collected through Social Biz, and reflected that in the analysis.
The analysis found that the most active times for sending DMs during the day were early morning and the evening before bedtime. This appears to align with the tendency of users to focus on social networking services (SNS), including Instagram, either before starting the day or when wrapping it up.
By day of the week, Sunday had the highest DM volume, and among weekdays, Monday recorded a relatively high figure. It was analyzed that, as year-end promotions and seasonal content concentrate, an environment has formed in which informational DMs are consumed effectively after the weekend.
Within the quarter, there was a trend of increased DM volume in November and December, the latter part of the fourth quarter. In October, SNS usage dipped somewhat as offline activities such as travel and family gatherings increased due to the Chuseok holiday, while from November, DM sending rose as year-end season promotions, shopping discount events, and various settlement of account marketing shifted into full swing.
NHN Data also released a combined analysis of the Instagram trend reports published from the first to the fourth quarter of 2025. Regardless of the quarter, it confirmed a pattern that relatively higher efficiency can be expected when running Instagram marketing in the early morning and the evening before bedtime, and noted that this usage pattern will continue in 2026.
Lee Jin-su, CEO of NHN Data, said, "When establishing an Instagram marketing strategy, a data-based approach is more important than intuition," adding, "Social Biz usage data and the quarterly trend reports for 2025 will serve as indicators for preparing 2026 marketing strategies."