The honest answer is: slightly less than you think, forever, rather than a lot for six weeks. Almost every account that fails does so by setting a pace it cannot hold.
A cadence most businesses can hold
| Format | Per month | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Feed posts | 12–20 | Three to five a week |
| Reels | 6–10 | Batched from one or two shoot days |
| Stories | 3–5 days a week | Low production, high frequency |
| Community | Daily | Not optional; this is where conversion happens |
Below roughly eight posts a month, an account stops registering. Above thirty, quality nearly always drops unless there is a dedicated team.
Consistency beats volume
Twelve good posts every month for a year beats forty in January and silence by March — for the audience, who learn when to expect you, and for distribution, which favours accounts that publish steadily.
Set the cadence at what you can sustain in your busiest month, not your quietest. Anything above that is a bonus rather than a broken promise.
Timing matters less than people claim
Published "best times to post" are averages across millions of accounts and mostly noise for any individual business. Your own analytics will tell you when your audience is active; start there, test a few slots, and stop optimising once you have a workable window.
Consistency of day is worth more than precision of hour.
What to do when you run dry
- Answer a question a customer actually asked this week
- Show the process behind something you already finished
- Re-cut a carousel that performed well into a reel
- Post the result of a project with one number attached
Running dry is nearly always a symptom of planning posts instead of pillars.
Frequently asked questions
Is posting daily necessary?
No, and for most businesses it forces quality down. Three to five feed posts a week with daily community management outperforms daily posting with no replies.
Does posting more increase reach?
Up to a point. Beyond that, posts start competing with each other for the same audience, and the average performance per post falls. Watch reach per post, not total reach.
What if we miss a week?
Resume, do not apologise publicly and do not try to catch up by double-posting. A missed week is invisible to almost everyone; a sudden flood is not.
