The limit does not exist!
Well, that’s not strictly true – and a quick online search of this very question will throw up countless answers and opinions from everyone, including content creators, social media experts, business owners, and more.
For the most part, the frequency with which you should post on Instagram depends on your goals, your audience, and what you want to communicate through your posts.
In this blog, we’re answering the question from a number of different perspectives, including content creators who rely on engagement, businesses that want to achieve both authority and conversion, and regular users who simply want to share some insight into their lives and routine.
Why Does Instagram Posting Frequency Differ Across Different Accounts?
Depending on the type of account that you manage, the way you approach Instagram post schedules will be different.
- A personal user who shares updates with their friends and family members will typically post when they have something to share.
- A business account will post at optimal times, according to the insight and data that Instagram gives them. They will generally post a combination of advertising and marketing content, industry authority content packed with value, and content that demonstrates the personality behind the business.
- A content creator or Instagram influencer will post as often as they can, to keep their followers engaged and to feed the demand from their community. This is why you so often see influencers and content creators posting super long story reels with Q&As and behind the scenes of their day.
Beyond the goal behind each post and the reason for posting, different accounts offer different levels of insight. A business and content creator account manager can access information about when their followers are most active and engaged, so can tailor their posting schedule accordingly. This might mean posting more, or it might mean posting less.
A personal account is much more a matter of personal taste – posting when you want to, what you want to.
Does Frequency Matter?
With that in mind, does posting frequency matter?
On the whole, frequency must be balanced with consistency.
Business accounts in particular will find that posting to a schedule that followers can learn to expect and anticipate is the most effective way to earn regular engagement and interest.
Posting consistently means that your followers will get to know you and will come to trust you as a profile that can be relied upon for regular insight and content.
The same is true for content creators, whose communities want to know when they are active and when they can expect fresh updates and content posts.
Frequency should link directly back to your goals as a user – what you want to achieve with your posts, and how important social media (and Instagram in particular) is against your overarching strategy.
How Many Posts Is Too Many?
While Instagram may mark an account as spam if it is seen to post too many times in a single day or in a short space of time, the chances are that you will need to put a cap on your own activity.
Generally, a good rule to follow is this:
- An account with less than 10,000 followers should post 2 or 3 times per week.
- An account with 10,000 – 100,000 followers should post 3 or 4 times per week.
- An account with 100,000 – 500,000 followers should post 5 times per week.
- An account with over 500,000 followers should post upwards of 10 times per week (unless you are an A-list celebrity, in which case people will follow you anyway, regardless of how often you post!)
Note: These posts are all grid / news feed posts. Instagram Stories are a whole different ballgame.
What About Instagram Stories?
If you run an account that falls somewhere towards the top of that list and you want to post more or feel that you have more to share, then you need to embrace Instagram stories.
Stories are an easy way to post very regularly, with users able to decide for themselves how much they want to watch and engage with your content.
Even if a user feels like an account has posted too many stories, they are unlikely to take the same steps to Unfollow as they would with posts that keep appearing in their feed. This makes stories a good place to channel your excess posts for those users that do want to see everything you have to say.
Is There a Cap On Maximum Instagram Posts?
No, there is no cap on how often you can post on Instagram – both on grid posts and stories.
However, if you are seen to regularly post too much content, then Instagram may mark your account as spam or view you as a bot, which will impact your visibility.
Balance, and a realistic approach to your overall Instagram strategy, will help you to find the optimum number of posts to share each day or week. This should be decided by looking at your audience and working out how much they tend to engage with you, when they engage, and how much time they spend on Instagram.
Start with your end goal and work backwards. Good luck!
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