How many times a week should you post on Instagram?

If you’re not sure how many times a week you should post on Instagram, I don’t blame you!

There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there but don’t worry, we’re going to put together the perfect posting schedule for you and your Instagram.

Where’s the best place to start?

To give you a bit of context - I’m a social media strategist and a content creator consultant, I have twelve years experience in the industry and personally, I feel like the “one size fits all” advice that we often see on social media is pretty poor.

For example, posting every day on Instagram? It’s bloody hard work. You either need an MI5 level of organisational skills, an incredible system or lots of free time to create, edit and post 365 posts a year, and you don’t have to post every day to grow on Instagram. My account grew by 35,000 followers in one month from posting four times a week - we want to make sure there is quality behind your posts too!

We want to make a posting schedule especially for you

We all have different goals, different time constraints and different reasons why we’d want to post on social media, and all of those factors will help give us decide what your Instagram posting schedule looks like.

The difference between what a creator and a business owner are looking for on social media is HUGE for starters, so I’d start by thinking about your purpose so you have something that really drives you on those long nights where you don’t want to post (we’ve all been there!).

We also want to make sure the number of times you post on Instagram allows you to be creative, have a great work-life balance and support your mental health, so I thought this could help guide you, and it’s how I break it down to those I work with in my 1-2-1 calls as well.

Is there anything else to bare in mind?

The thing you’ll notice here, we want you to remain consistent for the long term. It’s better to be consistent on Instagram and post less, than post 5 times one week, 10 times the next and then once the week after, so I’d recommend thinking about the next three months and going from there.

Here’s what I’d recommend:

I’d look to post 1-2 times a week

• If you struggle with consistency but you want to build it up

• You don’t have much time you can dedicate to social media at the moment

• If you want to grow, it’s less likely posting 1-2 a week but it is still possible
  

I’d look to post 2-3 times a week

• If you don’t want to be on Instagram all the time and you want to find a manageable rhythm

• If you’re posting for business purposes, I’d try and sit within this bracket (or the one up from this) if you can, so your audience can regularly 'see’ you. If you aren’t posting consistently on Instagram at the moment, I’d start in the 1-2 posts a week category for three months and then move up to this - if you’d like any tips on how to do this, I can help you over a strategy call.
  

I’d look to post 3-4 times a week

• If you feel like you could post every other day consistently

• If Instagram growth is a priority for you, I’d post in this category or the one up from this (if you can maintain it long term!)

• (You’re more likely to grow on Instagram when you start posting in this category upwards, as you’ll have “the posting space” to try new things all the time whilst having the frequency behind you too)

5+ times a week

• You enjoy posting across the week and you’re consistent

• You could keep this up for at least three months straight

• You don’t mind posting at weekends
  

What do I do?

Weighing up my responsibilities to my consultancy business - Influence Tomorrow, I’m posting three times a week right now and that works for me.

When I have the capacity, I then raise this up to four times a week and that gives me the space to experiment with my content. But this isn’t about me, it’s about finding a solution for you!

So, what do you reckon? What Instagram posting goal are you going to set yourself from here?

If you’d like to chat to me about your posting schedule so we can make it work for you, a 90 minute 1-2-1 call would be perfect for that! You can find out more about those calls just here.