The present competitive digital landscape mandates a consistent online presence for influencers, brands, and businesses looking to make an impact. In this scenario, Instagram’s dominance as a powerful tool to achieve this among various social media platforms cannot be discounted.
What makes Instagram stand out? Instagram is a visual social media marketing platform that connects with the audience instantaneously and lends itself to showcase content.
If you have still not integrated the power of Instagram with your marketing plans to enhance user engagement and increase sales it is high time you do so. But, here comes the million-dollar question; how often should you post on Instagram?
While posting too often might overwhelm your followers, infrequent posts can reduce user engagement and online visibility. So, how soon is too soon? Let’s find out.
In this blog, we will analyze the factors to consider in determining your Instagram optimal posting frequency. Let us explore the different types of Instagram posts and how you can use AI-based tools to make your job easier. We will also explore the best practices for a consistent posting plan and to achieve an Instagram posting frequency that aligns with your business goals and audience requirements.
Factors to Determine Your Instagram Posting Frequency
Instagram users are increasing and are expected to rise by 25.68% to 361.1 million between 2024 and 2028. Half of the US population around 47% use Instagram and on average adults in the US spend 33.1 minutes on Instagram making Instagram an important medium for businesses.
So, what are the factors that will determine how often you should post on Instagram?
There is no magic number when it comes to the frequency that you need to post on Instagram. You need to consider a lot of variables and ask these equations before you arrive at a number.
- What is the type of account you have- business or personal and the industry you are in?
- What is your target audience?
- How many followers do you have, and what type of content are you planning to post?
Research studies point out that you need to post 3-5 times a week on average and posting once a day will lead to more followers. 1-2 posts daily might kindle the interest of the users who might continuously engage with your posts through likes, comments, and sign-ups.
Increasing your follower count and arriving at how many times a day, week, or month you should be posting is important for a successful growth strategy. So what type of posts should we publish on Instagram?
What can You Do with Instagram?
Posting an assortment of Instagram posts would be the best marketing technique instead of sticking to similar type of posts.
- You can create a static, carousel photo, or short video for the feed.
- You can post an Instagram story that will be available for 24 hours with or without a shoppable link.
- Utilize polls, quizzes, and other interactive posts for more engagements.
- You can also post a 15, 30, or 60-second short video or Instagram reels using the free AI-based reel maker.
- Stream live videos.
- You can also create posts in bulk with minimal input and don’t have to worry about getting new ideas every day.
How Instagram Posts are Useful?
With a substantial population active on the platform, your businesses can derive huge benefits from Instagram posts. Your posts can also be featured on the Explore page or accounts with a larger number of followers, which can bring in substantial business.
The number of followers is a major factor in determining your frequency of posts. Remember to be consistent and post over weeks and months. But, what are the ways to achieve a consistent posting schedule?
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Finalizing a Consistent Instagram Posting Plan
The problem with trying to understand the exact number of times that you need to post on Instagram is the confusing and contradicting data that is available. It is better to follow a consistent posting schedule rather than concentrating on the frequency.
Here are some strategies for devising a consistent posting schedule.
1. Start Slow
A social media post and 2 Instagram stories are an optimum strategy according to experts. However, instead of blindly following what the research says start with a schedule that is feasible for you and your business.
Base your schedule on the time and people available with you. It is a better way to increase your followers steadily rather than increasing them exponentially with a lot of posts and not being able to keep pace with that. The key is to follow a schedule you are comfortable with.
2. Make Use of Instagram Insights
You need to understand that posting too many times a day is not going to help in increasing audience engagement. When the audience is overwhelmed with posts then they tend to pick and choose the posts they would be interested in. You should take care not to flood your feed with posts but spread it evenly over time.
The ideal time to publish on Instagram is just as crucial as the frequency of posting. Usually, this will vary based on your target audience and type of business. You need to customize the time, day, and frequency of your posts according to your business needs.
One of the easiest ways to do this is to use Instagram Insights. This is a free mobile exclusive add-on feature for the Instagram business account and you can use this to analyze which days and the number of times of the day your followers are active.
Publish at different times within the time frame when your followers are active, and observe how the engagement rates vary. Once you are ready with the data use a content scheduling tool to publish your posts at that particular time of the day.
3. Devise a Content Schedule
You can devise an Instagram posting schedule where you dedicate different days of the week to different types of posts. There will be a sense of anticipation amongst your followers to know what is coming up in your next post once they are set into this schedule.
Such a schedule will also help in Instagram algorithms pushing your posts into the feed of your followers subsequently helping in customer engagement.
How should you go about doing this?
Brainstorm
Create a list of Instagram post ideas based on your competitor’s posts and topics. Keep updating the list as and when you get new ideas so you are never short of one.
Make a Content Calendar
Make a monthly schedule of the ideas so that you can plan to create the necessary posts well ahead of your schedule.
You can even reuse old content in a different form instead of just trying to get new ideas. You can change the posting format of your top-performing posts and change its format. Add new captions and log them in the content calendar. This will greatly help in filling up when you cannot think about a new idea. You can mix and match your posts with both new and repurposed ones.
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Check and Change
You can customize this schedule after a month according to your needs. You can either add or reduce the number of posts depending on how much you were able to achieve the previous month.
4. Quality Over Quantity
Always prioritize quality over quantity and don’t post just to post. It is not going to help your business if you post something irrelevant at 1 pm just because you need to.
That could even backfire, causing your followers to get disinterested. Your followers always look for quality content and you need to make sure what you post is useful for your business and your followers.
Why Instagram is a Must-have for Businesses: Conclusion
Instagram posts are a crucial part of a digital marketing strategy and for creating brand awareness, online visibility, sales generation plus direct customer engagement. However, you need to find the right posting frequency based on the factors listed and devise a consistent posting schedule for the best results.
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What are you waiting for? Sign up and create your free account. Make your Instagram posts stand out.
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