A business should post on Instagram three, five or seven times a week, and the right number is the one you can hold on your worst week. Counting research, scripting, editing and 20 minutes of replies a day, that is roughly 5 to 7.5 hours a week before filming. Add stories every day, and post at a time when you can stay to reply.
Which posting schedule should I pick?
If your posting comes in bursts now (five one week, none the next), drop to the tier you could have held through your worst month, then build up.
| Posts a week | Fits |
|---|---|
| 3 | Owners doing it alone around a full schedule |
| 5 | Owners with a team member who can help film or reply |
| 7 | Businesses with someone who owns social as part of their job |
A bakery that posts three times a week for a year is ahead of one that posts daily for three weeks and stops.
How many hours a week does each schedule take?
Danny's shorthand is about an hour per post, so 3, 5 or 7 hours a week, with replies on top. That is a rough guide. Here is the same week itemized from his weekly loop: research 45 minutes, scripting about an hour for the batch, 15 to 30 minutes of editing per video, and about 20 minutes a day posting and replying.
| Posts a week | Research | Script | Editing | Posting and replies | Total before filming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 45 min | 1 hr | 45 to 90 min | 2 hr 20 min | 4 hr 50 min to 5 hr 35 min |
| 5 | 45 min | 1 hr | 1 hr 15 min to 2 hr 30 min | 2 hr 20 min | 5 hr 20 min to 6 hr 35 min |
| 7 | 45 min | 1 hr | 1 hr 45 min to 3 hr 30 min | 2 hr 20 min | 5 hr 50 min to 7 hr 35 min |
Add one filming sitting for four to eight videos; time your next one and add it to the row you picked. Research and scripting stay about the same at every tier, so each extra post mostly adds its own editing time. Stories are not in the table. How to film Reels at your business walks through a batch day.
Is posting every day too much?
Only if the replies slip. Seven a week is about 6 to 7.5 hours before filming. If you post daily now and comments sit unanswered, drop to five and keep the replies. Dropping from daily to nothing does more harm than a steady three ever will.
Stories or Reels: which should I post?
Both, for different jobs. Reels are the planned, filmed and edited posts in the schedule above. Stories go to people who already follow you, and Danny posts them daily. They need none of a Reel's polish: today's delivery, a question sticker, a reshare of a feed post.
What is the best time to post?
Post when you can reply. Comments arrive in the first 60 minutes after a post goes up, so stay in them for that hour and answer every one, ideally with a question back. A chiropractor who would post at lunch and go straight back to patients should post after the last appointment instead. What to do with those comments and DMs is in turning Instagram followers into customers.
How should I write the caption?
A caption has three parts.
- The hook line, the same idea as the video's opening, so the caption earns a read.
- Two or three lines of context: what the video shows and why it matters.
- One question, easy to answer, to start the comments.
Leave links out of captions. Put the one link in your bio and point people to it. For the opening line itself, see how to write Reel hooks.
How many hashtags should I use?
Three to five local ones: a neighborhood, the city, your trade in your area.
Should I post on Facebook and YouTube Shorts too?
Start with Instagram, because, as Danny puts it, that is where local discovery happens in San Diego. Once a video exists, upload the same file directly to Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts. That takes minutes.
The table above is the cost of running it yourself. If the row you need is more hours than your week has, Launch Social covers the filming, editing and posting columns.
Questions people ask
Is posting once a week enough for a small business?
Once a week is better than nothing, but the lowest tier in Danny's method is three posts a week, about 5 to 5.5 hours with replies, before filming. A business that can only hold one post a week should make it a strong one and add daily stories.
Does posting more get more followers?
More posts give a business more chances to land a strong one, but only when the schedule holds. Whether the posts are working shows up in the numbers covered in how to measure Instagram results.
Related
- Social media management in San Diego
- How to film Reels at your business
- What to post on Instagram
- Is a social media agency worth it?
Want this done for you? Book a free 15-minute call with Danny. We look at your account and the businesses you compete with, and you leave with a written plan for your next 90 days, whether you hire us or not.