The honest answer is that posting frequency matters far less than most advice suggests, and it is the wrong question to start with. But people ask it constantly, so here is a real answer.
The short version
- Instagram – three to five times a week in the feed, with reels doing most of the reach. Stories most days if you can.
- Facebook – three to five times a week. Reach is low organically, so this is about looking active when somebody checks you out.
- TikTok – the one platform where more genuinely helps. Daily if you can sustain it.
- LinkedIn – two to three times a week.
- Google Business Profile – once a week. Almost nobody does this and it quietly helps local visibility.
Why the number is not the point
Posting five times a week with nothing to say performs worse than posting twice with something worth seeing. Social platforms measure whether people stop, watch and respond. Filling a schedule with weak posts teaches the algorithm that your account is not worth showing.
We have taken over accounts posting daily to almost no one, cut to three posts a week, and watched reach go up. The posts got better because there was time to make them better.
Pick a number you can keep
The real risk is not posting too little. It is starting at seven a week, burning out in three weeks and stopping entirely. A gap of two months does more damage than a quiet fortnight.
Choose the number you can still manage in your busiest month. That is your number.
What to post, so the schedule has something to fill it
Most people run out of ideas by week three. A simple mix that keeps going:
- Something useful. Answer a question customers actually ask you.
- Something that proves you can do it. Work you finished, a before and after, a result.
- Something human. The team, the process, the mess behind the tidy photo.
- Something that asks for the sale. Roughly one in five. Any more and people tune out.
Rotate those four and you can post for a year without running dry.
Reels, stories and posts are not interchangeable
Reels are how new people find you. Stories are how existing followers stay warm. Feed posts are what someone sees when they check whether you are real before buying. They do different jobs, so “how often should I post” really means three separate questions.
If you only have capacity for one, make it reels. That is where the reach is. We cover how we handle those on the reels and shorts editing page.
Does posting time matter?
Less than it used to. Platforms now show good content well after it was posted. Consistency beats timing. Post when you can reliably post.
When posting more will not save you
If your account is not growing, the cause is almost never frequency. It is usually one of these:
- The first second of your videos gives nobody a reason to stay.
- Every post looks like an advertisement.
- Your profile does not make clear what you sell or where you are.
- You are posting to people who were never going to buy.
Doubling your output multiplies whichever of those is true. That is why we would rather look at an account before recommending a schedule, which is what the free social media audit is for.
A realistic starting plan
Three feed posts a week, two of them reels, stories on the days you are working anyway, and one post a week on your Google Business Profile. Keep that for eight weeks before changing anything. Then look at what actually got watched and do more of that.
If keeping to it is the problem rather than knowing what to post, that is what scheduling and posting covers. If you are not sure what to post in the first place, start with content strategy.