How much should you post on instagram

How Often Should You Post on Instagram for Success? (2022)

Figuring out how often to post on Instagram is the pillar of any strategy for the platform. It’s also a balancing act. You don’t want to post so little that no one sees your content, but you also don’t want to post so much that Instagram thinks you’re a spam account. On top of that, you also have to consider how much time and energy you realistically have to dedicate to the platform.

Whether you have a social media team or you’re a mighty entrepreneurial team of one, we have advice on how often you should post on Instagram as you build your social media marketing strategy.

I looked at what Instagram has posted publicly, checked out Shopify’s own strategy, and talked to a merchant at the top of their game to get the best advice for how often to post on Instagram.

How Often Should You Post on Instagram

It's recommended to post 3 stories a day evenly spaced out around popular viewing times for your target audience.

As I said, Instagram isn’t particularly forthcoming with tips on how to optimize your strategy for its algorithm, but it has occasionally given some advice.

Instagram’s @Creators account hosted a Q&A with the Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, where he was asked the best way to grow an account in 2021.

“A couple of feeds a week, a couple of Stories per day.”

He mentioned the importance of utilizing videos and hashtags, but he also said it’s important to have a “healthy feed.”

“A couple of feeds a week, a couple of Stories per day,” he said.

By that suggestion, you can take away that while your feed is important, posting more frequently to your Story is also valuable, maybe even more so.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Instagram’s @Creators (@creators)

It’s a great pace to aim for and one that allows room for experimentation.

Adam also talked about ranking, which is how Instagram decides what it shows its users. According to a blog post he wrote in June 2021, there isn’t actually a single algorithm determining how Instagram shows content but “a variety of algorithms, classifiers, and processes, each with its own purpose.” That system looks at information such as how many likes a post has and how many times a user has interacted with your account in the past.

It’s a system that is constantly being tweaked, which can be frustrating for brands.

“We can’t guarantee stable reach. It’s not that we don’t want to, we would love to,” Adam said in the Q&A. “But even if we stopped changing how ranking works, what people are interested in changes. More and more people are joining Instagram and posting more things, so there’s more competition.”

That goes back to Adam’s advice, which, in essence, is to be consistent in your posting strategy.

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Get into a consistent rhythm

The most important piece of advice for when to post on Instagram is that consistency is more important than volume, especially as you start out.

According to research from Hubspot, the median cadence of feed postsa across Instagram users was four per week. However this is higher for business accounts, which posted an average of 1.56 times per day to their main feed. As well, 20% of business accounts posted to their Story at least once per week.

Combining this research with Adam’s comments, we can ascertain that posting one feed post and two Stories per day is a pretty good bet for growing your engagement. Whether you are able to start at that pace depends on how much time, experience, and personnel you have.

Instead of jumping into the deep end right away, you should focus on a consistent posting schedule that makes sense for you and your business where they are right now.

At Shopify, our social team noticed a marked rise in engagement from posting once per day.

That can sound daunting, especially if you’re handling all your social accounts on top of all the other work it takes to keep a business running.

Here are some tips to get your rhythm going.

Start with what’s do-able

Instead of jumping into the deep end right away, you should focus on a consistent posting schedule that makes sense for you and your business where they are right now. That might look more like three feed posts per week and three Stories per week.

Create a schedule

However much you’re posting, you want to spread them out. A good idea is to schedule days. For example, maybe you post a feed photo on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and a Story on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Spreading posts out not only pleases the algorithm but gives your audience an expectation of when new content is coming and gives each post breathing room so they’re not competing with each other for likes and comments.

Streamline with apps

To make this all easier, you can use Instagram management apps like Sked, Later, or Hootsuite to schedule posts in advance. That way, you can create your posts in bulk ahead of time and not have to worry about checking in and coming up with new content every day. And keep it up—dropping off for a week or two isn’t the end of the world but could potentially lower your ranking in Instagram’s eyes because it also rewards how recent a post is.

As you get more comfortable with scheduling and coming up with high-quality post ideas, you can increase your cadence and aim for daily content.

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How Wilderdog grew its Instagram audience

Rachel Friedline is the co-founder of Wilderdog, a company that makes leashes, harnesses, and other accessories for dogs who love outdoor adventures. Founded in 2015, Rachel launched an Instagram page for Wilderdog right away, knowing it would be a key part of her social media marketing strategy.

Since then, Rachel has grown the account to 292,000 followers, and she’s done it by herself, running the page along with her business.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by WILDERDOG (@wilderdog)

Right now, Rachel aims to post one feed post per day, although she has missed a day here and there. She saves high-quality photos, whether her own or from a customer, for the feed, taking care to include a variety of dog types.

“I don’t think there’s very many times in our seven year history that I’ve posted more than once on one day,” she says.

On her Story, which she updates more frequently, she posts more casual content, like sharing posts from customers. She’s built a customer base that loves to tag her company in photos of their dogs, so the Story is a good place to post ones that are particularly funny or encapsulate her brand.

“I think that by making mistakes along the way, you’re going to figure out what’s best for your company."

Her biggest tip for other entrepreneurs is to just keep posting and experimenting.

“The culture surrounding the app seems to be changing faster than ever now,” she says. “Yes, strategize, but also be willing to change your strategy.”

She says that even she is surprised when sometimes a post she thinks is great doesn’t get much engagement. It may be the algorithm at work, but you can use it to your advantage, too.

Because she uses the app every day, Rachel was able to notice when Reels were picking up steam and post more of those. Or, once she noticed posts tagged with shoppable items were doing better, so she leaned into that. She was able to build her audience by posting consistently, but switching up exactly what she was posting.

“I think that by making mistakes along the way, you’re going to figure out what’s best for your company,” she says.

Conclusion

Consistency is king when it comes to how often to post on Instagram, and that applies to more than just your posting cadence.

Creating and maintaining a posting rhythm will build a habit for you or your team, let your audience know when to expect news posts, and keep you in tune with trends and your own metrics. Plus, the more you’re able to post, the more room you have to experiment.

The key to growing on Instagram is to consistently provide high-quality content that people love interacting with. Exactly what that content will be depends on your business and what resonates with your customers, and you need to be prepared for it to change sometimes.

“I do think one of the most important things is to experiment, is to try new things and try to figure out what’s resonating with your audience now. Because it might be different than it was half a year or a year ago,” Adam said in the Instagram Q&A.

Experimenting with new formats, like video, as well as using hashtags, thoughtful captions, and geotagging locations can all help boost your content.

Keep an eye on your metrics and monitor what works, what doesn’t, and what your customers respond to most.

Illustration by Adamastor

How Often Should You Post on Instagram in 2022?

How often should you post to Instagram each week? Should you post on Instagram every single day?

If you work in social media, you’ve probably asked yourself these exact questions at one point or another.

To discover the answer, Later analyzed over 81 million feed posts (excluding Reels and IGTVs). Here’s what we found:

How Often Should You Post on Instagram Each Week?

Based on our analysis, the more you post on Instagram per week, the greater your overall reach will be. Similarly, posting more typically equals more likes and comments in total.

However, the rate of reach and engagement per individual post varies as more posts are shared — and this changes even more depending on how many followers an account has.

For accounts with under 1K followers: posting 14 times per week delivers the highest reach and engagement rates per post.
For accounts with 1K-250K followers*: posting 14 or 20 times per week delivers the highest reach rate per post, while posting once per week delivers the highest engagement rate per post.
For accounts with 250K+ followers: posting only once per week delivers the highest reach rate and engagement rates per post.

*NOTE: When we analyzed the results in smaller ranges (e.g. 1K-10K followers, 10K-20K followers, 20K-30K followers, etc.), the findings were the same — hence why the 1K-250K range is grouped together.

Reach rate is a valuable indicator for brand exposure, while engagement rate can indicate how well your content is resonating with your community.

In an ideal world, you want your reach and engagement rates to be as high as possible for every post you share, while still posting frequently enough to make an impact.

How Follower Count and Posting Frequency Impacts Feed Post Performance

When we look at the data as a whole, reach and engagement rates per post are optimal when 14 posts are shared per week (or twice per day, on average).

However, when we segment the data by follower count, some seriously interesting trends arise.

For accounts with less than 1K followers, the more feed posts you can share on Instagram per week, the better.

Both reach and engagement rates per post improve as posting frequency increases per week, with the average engagement rate climbing from 3.1% at one post per week, to 4.9% at 20 posts per week.

To put this into perspective, if an account has 500 followers, the number of engagements will grow from 15 (at one post per week) to 500 (at 20 posts per week). That’s quite a significant increase.

This is likely because these micro accounts don’t have a large community of followers as their primary source of engagement — they’re relying on new audiences to comment and like their posts via hashtags — and reach rate grows with each additional post shared.

For accounts with between 1K-250K followers, reach rate per post still improves as more feed posts are shared, but engagement rates see a significant decline.

This could be due to audience fatigue, a drop in content quality as volume increases, or the fact that the Instagram algorithm typically only promotes your most recent post to your followers.

For accounts with over 250K followers, both reach and engagement rates per post decline significantly as more feed posts are shared per week.

This decline in reach rate could be due to the fact that these mega accounts are less likely to rely on hashtags as their primary source of reach.

Instead, they rely on their existing community to engage with their content and drive virality — and for this group, posting more per week results in a major drop in engagement rate per post.

It could also be that accounts of this size are more focused on using Instagram Stories to engage with their community. Stories are informal and engaging, making them perfect for daily interactions and relationship-building. Learn more about how to build a strong community on Instagram here.

ICYMI: With Later, you can plan and schedule a full week’s worth of Instagram posts in less than twenty minutes, so you can increase your posting volume without losing time from your busy schedule.

How Often Should You Post on Instagram A Week to Grow Your Followers?

Based on Later’s analysis of over 917K unique accounts, users that post more times per week typically have more followers.

As you can see, there’s a clear correlation between posting frequency and the average number of followers an account has.

However, it’s worth noting though that this could be due to the type of accounts that are posting more frequently.

For example, a professional influencer or well-known brand is likely to post more per week than an everyday user — it’s much more likely to be a full-time profession, rather than a part-time side hustle.

So, How Often Should I Post on Instagram?

So, what does it all mean? Should you be posting on Instagram every day to grow your following? The answer is that it all depends on your goals.

If your goal is to reach new audiences, posting more frequently on Instagram, paired with an effective hashtag strategy, is always a good idea — especially if you have under 250K followers.

According to our analysis, for the best reach rate per post, you should post:

14 times per week if you have under 1K followers
14 or 20 times per week if you have 1K-250K followers
1 times per week if you have over 250K followers

If your goal is to increase your engagement rate, you should post:

But try not to get too caught up on the numbers — protecting your mental health and creating quality content that drives real value for your audience should always usurp quantity.

And remember: there is no one-size-fits-all approach for posting frequency on Instagram. Instead, use this data as a starting point to gather insights and experiment with your own account to find what rings true.

With Later’s free social media management platform, you can plan, prep, and schedule your Instagram posts from one easy-to-use dashboard, so you can create a best-in-class content strategy that supports your goals.

Plus, you can visually plan how your posts will look in your Instagram feed before they go live — so your profile looks on point and tells a cohesive story. It’s one of the best ways to convert profile visitors into followers!

Plan and preview your Instagram feed in advance with Later for free! Sign up and start creating an awesome Instagram account today:

Editor's Note: Study based on analysis of 81M Instagram feed posts published via Later between 2019-2021, from 917K unique users. Excludes Reels and IGTV posts. Data by Annie Yao.

Optimal Instagram Posting Frequency: 20+ Expert Tips

How often do you post on Instagram? Many bloggers, no matter how many followers they have, don't know if they should post new posts once a day, three times a week, or several times a day.

You don't want to bore your audience with too frequent posts, but being forgotten is a so-so prospect.

What to do?

There may not be a universal answer to this question, but in this article you will find advice from 20+ marketers with years of experience in managing Instagram accounts. You will learn how to develop a strategy that is right for your company and audience.

Article content

How often to post on Instagram: best practices

Daily posts

1. Instagram algorithms may reward you
2. Increased visibility
3. You keep the attention and interest of the audience

Posting 3-5 once a week

1. Engagement rate can grow
2. Opportunity to improvise
3. You won’t have to post irrelevant content

Posting 1-2 times a week

Do I need to make a schedule?

Quality over quantity

What's next?

How often to post on Instagram: best practices

If you've been looking for the secret formula to find the exact answer to this question, we're going to have to disappoint you: best practices vary by industry and company type. Much depends on the preferences of your audience.

Only one thing is universal - you need to study your subscribers and find out how often they want to see you in their feed. Below you will find recommendations from marketers, most of whom have been blogging on Instagram for more than three years (>40% of respondents), which means they have had enough time to test different strategies and find out which ones work best.

How long has your company had an active Instagram account?
Less than a year
1-3 years
Over 3 years
We don't have an account

Read also: How to grow your business by attracting leads from Instagram?

Daily posts

Some companies benefit from publishing new posts every day. This may depend on your goals, or whether you work in B2B or B2C, or what other channels you use to promote your products or services.

If Instagram is your main social media platform for finding new potential buyers, then according to experts, posting every day can be especially beneficial for your company.

There are three reasons for this:

1. Instagram algorithms might reward you

You may have heard complaints about Instagram's algorithms: if you take a moment to distract yourself, your audience reach shrinks. While it's not true that all activity on an app is tracked by a single algorithm, frequent and regular posts do get more engagement.

John Frigo of Best Price Nutrition says, "Instagram's algorithms, and indeed most social media, reward frequent posts, so it's best to post daily."

2. Increase visibility

Many companies benefit from publishing one post each day. Marketing experts believe that this frequency of posts is optimal: they do not overload the audience and at the same time do not let you be forgotten.

Only 10% of survey participants have an audience between 25,000 and 50,000 subscribers, the majority (more than 30%) have less than 1,000. In order to attract more, increase visibility and expand your reach, it can be beneficial for you to post every day.

How many followers does your Instagram account have?
Less than 1,000
1000 - 3000
5,000 - 10,000
3,000 — 5,000
25,000 - 50,000
10,000 - 25,000

For Finding Balance's Lily Ugbaia, daily posts are the best fit for her company and audience. This frequency of posting helps to attract the attention of new followers: “Instagram is a very visual platform. Therefore, to get the most out of it, you need visuals that represent your company so that customers and potential buyers can see you all the time.”

Harriet Chen of CocoFinder also believes that daily posts increase visibility on Instagram. It can be useful to post even a few posts a day: “Experts believe that you need to post new posts every day. But for maximum engagement, you need three posts a day. This frequency increases the visibility of your brand and helps boost sales of your products.”

3. You keep the attention and interest of the audience

Daily posts give engaged audiences exactly what they want. If your followers enjoy interacting with brands, posting daily will help keep them engaged and allow followers to enjoy new content all the time so they don't lose interest.

“For years, we have been experimenting with post frequency and choosing the best strategies for our business Instagram account,” says Jonathan Ofrey of Growth Hackers Agency. "We've found that daily posts work best because by providing content regularly, we keep engagement without overwhelming our community."

Chloe Sisson of Zen Media agrees that posting more than once a day can overwhelm subscribers unless the posts are related to each other. “If Instagram is your main marketing tool, it is recommended to post once a day. Set a specific time for this so your followers know when to expect your content. We post once a day. We have found that this frequency works best for our audience.”

Read also: How to build a large audience on Instagram: 7 recommendations

Posting 3-5 times a week

What if you can't post every day? Or, for example, is your audience dissatisfied with an overabundance of content? Do not worry. Some experts recommend posting once or twice a week, as well as posting on weekdays rather than weekends.

Once again, it all depends on your audience. If your target followers commute during the week and spend the weekend with their family without looking at their phones, you'll schedule your schedule so your best posts don't go unnoticed.

1. Engagement rate may increase

The majority of survey participants (more than 30%) name an engagement rate of 1-3%, and this is good for Instagram. The majority of those surveyed only post a few times a week because such a schedule increases engagement. The audience has more time to explore the content and interact with it.

What is your average Instagram engagement rate?
Less than 0.5%
0.5 - 1%
1 - 3%
Over 3%
Don't know

2. Ability to improvise

Sometimes something unexpected happens that you want to tell subscribers about. If your schedule calls for two or three posts a week, you can always cram in an announcement or post something impulsively without overwhelming your audience.

A strict schedule also robs your profile of authenticity. Authenticity is important because people want to get to know you, feel your energy, and see if you're the right fit for them. People want to talk to people, not robots.

So always leave space for spontaneous posts, as Stephanie Gutierrez of Online Optimism advises. She thinks it's best to post 3-5 times a week if you want to "maintain an active Instagram account that grabs and keeps attention. It's important to leave room in your content plan to accommodate the new material that's coming out this week and stay on schedule. "

3. You don't have to post irrelevant content

What if you post a post a day and have nothing prepared for today? Will you post anything just to stay on schedule? Frequency is important, but not enough to post irrelevant content.

Dennis Hancock of Mountain Valley MD thinks you shouldn't post just to tick off a plan. The best practice is to “post often enough for your audience to remember your brand, and if your posts are engaging, Instagram will reward you with a wider audience reach. Posting once a day is good if you share something important. No need to post irrelevant or weak content.”

Charlotte Spence of Mattress Nerd says, “Posting 3 times a day is annoying for most users and will quickly lead to unfollowing. Make a schedule and post anywhere from 5 posts per week to 2 posts per day, but only if you're sharing high quality content. Create your posts ahead of time when you have a good idea, and if you don't have a good post ready, don't post anything. Better to remain silent than to post irrelevant content."

Read also: Lead generation on Instagram: how to create photo captions?

Posting 1-2 times a week

If Instagram is just one of your marketing channels, then you don't need daily posts to maintain your online presence and keep your audience up to date with all the latest news about your brand.

Posting once or twice a week works well if you're consistent. Mitchell Harad of Expert Opportunities says it's important to stick to a schedule, and consistency is "the most valuable quality" for a company looking to win over an audience.

“If you only post once a week, that's fine. Just make it a habit to do it at the same time so your audience will expect it. The same goes for posting three times a week. This strategy isn't three times better: it's just as valuable if you stick to your schedule. The audience craves consistency, and when the frequency of your posts provides it, that's good."

This is true: people love routine and predictability. If your followers are used to reading your content over their Tuesday morning coffee, don't disappoint them.

"It's important to set up a schedule and stick to it so your community knows what to expect from you," says Jordin Jewell of Simple Machines Marketing. - If you decide to post twice a week, then twice a week share valuable, engaging content that your audience will want to keep and forward to friends. If you can post content like this five times a week, that's great! But it’s better to share valuable content 1-3 times a week than to post anything every day for show. ”

Read also: Why Your Instagram Posts Don't Engage: The Scientific Reason

Do You Need to Schedule?

Does every company need a schedule for posting content? A schedule is useful because people will get used to you posting at certain times and will wait for them.

Tarlia Smedley of Pulse Recruitment says consistency is key. “Instead of requiring a fixed number of posts every day or every week, I believe that success on Instagram depends on the quality and consistency of the posts. ”

“There is no point in posting low quality content, especially if you are not achieving the desired engagement metrics. In that case, I would suggest posting less content overall to focus on the quality of posts with higher engagement rates.”

For those who don't know how often to post, Smedley's advice is: “Determine how much content you can create in a week and stick with that amount of posts. You may only post them three times a week, but if you spread them out by day of the week and stick to a schedule, you'll get better results in the long run. Each company is different, so set achievable goals for yourself and post at least once a week and no more than three times a day.”

Engagement is important, of course, but sometimes it can be difficult to create engaging content for Instagram, especially if it's not the only platform you use to advertise and find new audiences. Alex Birket of Conversion.AI thinks the key is to create something of value and attention: “Actually, I think you shouldn't be posting as often as you think. Creating interesting content for Instagram is not easy, especially for companies: you are competing with friends and family of your followers. Your ad may not be the most interesting thing they see in a day.”

Most people don't go to Instagram to shop and watch ads, so your job is to create an interesting and engaging story. Birket says: “I think you should post when you have something interesting for your followers. But don't overdo it. Instagram algorithms are such that the more followers interact with your content, the higher you will appear in their feed, and vice versa. Therefore, quality is more important than quantity. Anyway, it's about posts, but you can post more stories."

Also read: Stop organic social media activity to increase profits

Quality over quantity

All experts agree on one thing: quality is always more important than quantity.

Over time, your audience will get to know you better and understand which of your posts are authentic and which are posted for show. If you don't have the time or material to create a quality post, it's best not to post anything.

It takes a lot of time to experiment and find out what works for your audience. To get started, try the best practices recommended by the experts. This way, you will probably find your ideal posting frequency faster and develop a schedule that works for you and your audience.

The main thing is to listen to what your followers want and monitor their reactions to your posts. Then you will be able to strike a balance, delight and engage your audience, and provide them with high-quality content so that your Instagram community will grow and grow.

What's next?

Suppose you have collected a large number of followers on your Instagram account, how to convert them into buyers? A prominent avatar, a competent offer, a clear call to action in the profile and a link to a mobile landing page are aimed at attracting potential customers from Instagram as much as possible. Therefore, if your bio does not contain these elements, it's time to correct this omission.

High conversions for you!

Source: databox.com. Image: freepik.com

02-09-2021

Optimal Instagram Posting Frequency: 20+ Expert Tips

How often do you post on Instagram? Many bloggers, no matter how many followers they have, don't know if they should post new posts once a day, three times a week, or several times a day.

You don't want to bore your audience with too frequent posts, but being forgotten is a so-so prospect.

What to do?

Article content

How often to post on Instagram: best practices

Daily posts

1. Instagram algorithms may reward you
2. Increased visibility
3. You keep the attention and interest of the audience

Posting 3-5 times a week

1. Engagement rate can increase
2. Ability to improvise
3. You don’t have to post irrelevant content

Posting 1-2 times a week

Do I need to make a schedule?

Quality over quantity

What's next?

How often to post on Instagram: best practices

How long has your company had an active Instagram account?
Less than a year
1-3 years
Over 3 years
We don't have an account

Read also: How to grow your business by attracting leads from Instagram?

Daily posts

Some companies benefit from publishing new posts every day. This may depend on your goals, or whether you work in B2B or B2C, or what other channels you use to promote your products or services.

If Instagram is your main social media platform for finding new potential buyers, then according to experts, posting every day can be especially beneficial for your company.

There are three reasons for this:

1. Instagram algorithms might reward you

John Frigo of Best Price Nutrition says, "Instagram's algorithms, and indeed most social media, reward frequent posts, so it's best to post daily."

2. Increase visibility

How many followers does your Instagram account have?
Less than 1,000
1000 - 3000
5,000 - 10,000
3,000 — 5,000
25,000 - 50,000
10,000 - 25,000

3. You keep the attention and interest of the audience

Read also: How to build a large audience on Instagram: 7 recommendations

Posting 3-5 times a week

1. Engagement rate may increase

What is your average Instagram engagement rate?
Less than 0.5%
0.5 - 1%
1 - 3%
Over 3%
Don't know

2. Ability to improvise

3. You don't have to post irrelevant content

What if you post a post a day and have nothing prepared for today? Will you post anything just to stay on schedule? Frequency is important, but not enough to post irrelevant content.

Read also: Lead generation on Instagram: how to create photo captions?

Posting 1-2 times a week

If Instagram is just one of your marketing channels, then you don't need daily posts to maintain your online presence and keep your audience up to date with all the latest news about your brand.

This is true: people love routine and predictability. If your followers are used to reading your content over their Tuesday morning coffee, don't disappoint them.

Read also: Why Your Instagram Posts Don't Engage: The Scientific Reason

Do You Need to Schedule?

Does every company need a schedule for posting content? Scheduling is useful because people will get used to you posting at certain times and will wait for them.