How often should you post stories on Instagram?

As a brand, you want to be active on Instagram and post regularly. However, when it comes to short-lived Instagram stories, many are not sure how often they should post. Should you post one story per day, or more? And can you post too many stories? Here’s what you need to know about the frequency of posting on Stories!

For most social media platforms, the general rule for brands is: try to post once a day but definitely not more often than three times a day. Brands that post more frequently are considered rude because their followers constantly stumble upon their posts while scrolling through their feeds.

While people might be interested in hearing from a brand every once in a while, nobody wants a company to take over their feed. As soon as users start perceiving a brand as spammy, they unfollow it. So, you definitely want to be mindful when deciding how often to post on social media.

However, there is one big exception when it comes to posting frequency: Instagram Stories. This is the one place where you can and sometimes should post more often than once a day.

With stories, posting more is more

This has to do with the design of the Stories feature. First, stories have a higher chance of being overlooked. Even though they are positioned at the top of the screen, users can only see the first few stories in their feed.

So, unless they actively scroll through their story feed, they might not see your story if it is further back. And while users have a habit of scrolling through the post feed on Instagram, they don’t tend to give the story feed the same attention.

In addition, stories by default disappear after 24 hours. If users only look at their story feed 24 hours after you post your story, they might miss it altogether.

So, as a general rule of thumb for Stories, posting more than once a day can be more beneficial to your brand. The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, suggests posting two stories per day, while other research suggests that brands should post up to 7 stories per day. And some even think uploading 10 stories a day is the best business practice.

While it’s hard to agree on a set number, statistics show that the most successful brands on Instagram do in fact post more stories than their competitors.

As with most things on social media, there is not one formula that fits every business. So, rather than going with a set number per day, consider the following factors before you decide how many stories you want to post.

Only post if your stories provide additional value

The number one rule for brands on social media is: only post content that gives followers additional value. Don’t just post a story for the sake of posting a certain number of stories per day. If you don’t have any interesting content to share, it’s wiser to just not make a post.

But how do you post interesting content to post?

Try to understand your customers and see what content they are interested in. Do they like beauty tips? Are they interested in trying out new recipes? Do they want to get to know the people behind your brand? The better you understand your customers, the easier it will be to create stories that appeal to them.

This doesn’t always have to be serious, and you also don’t want to post the same type of content all the time. Try to switch things up and have some fun with your stories. This will keep your followers interested and engaged with your stories.

Avoid posting too many ads!

Since stories usually disappear after 24 hours, you might feel tempted to post more ads to fill up your posting slots. Don’t do it!

If all users see from you is ads, they will try to stay away from your stories, and they will possibly avoid your brand on social media altogether.

Re-purpose content

Having to post several times a day can be overwhelming and take up a lot of time. If you think that it benefits your company to post more often, but you don’t have time to come up with 10 story ideas every single day, re-purpose other social media content.

You can re-post a Snapchat story or even a TikTok video. Maybe you took a bunch of pictures for a feed post but still have a few great shots that you didn’t use. Or, you can take an existing post from your feed and change it up by adding stickers or GIFs, or just get creative with the drawing tools on Instagram Stories. There are many ways in which you can take existing social media content and recycle it for a new story. This saves you time, allows you to create new, engaging content, and keeps your followers entertained.

Don’t post everything at once

If you want to get the most reach out of posting multiple stories a day, make sure that you space out your posting times. Otherwise, it can easily become a story overload for your followers.

Spacing out your posts will also increase your chances of reaching users at different times during the day. If you upload all of your stories in the morning, people that usually check their Instagram in the evening might not see them, and vice versa. However, if you post in the morning and in the evening, you will have a better chance of reaching more people.

Use analytics tools

If you want to know how many stories you should post on Instagram, analytics tools can provide you with some useful insights. They will track which stories are the most engaging, how often people look at your stories, and at what time. This data will help you adjust your posting times, your content, and how often you upload a story. And the great thing about analytics tools is that they give you room to experiment.

If you think you are posting too often or not often enough, change your posting frequency and watch the numbers. Analytics tools will help you determine the best posting schedule for your brand.

Schedule your stories

Regardless of how many stories you end up posting per day, consider using a scheduling tool. It will help you stick to a consistent posting schedule and provide content for your followers on a regular basis. Scheduling tools usually also give you a great overview of your posts for a month, which makes it easier to plan your content. The more you can plan, the more time you will save!

Storrito, for example, is a great web tool for scheduling Instagram stories. You can upload your content, edit it, add fun features such as emojis, and schedule the stories to best fit your brand’s posting rhythm. You can even post stories in bulk!

Storrito works from any device, including desktop PCs. It’s also a collaborative tool, so multiple users can access an account and work on stories together. All in all, Storrito makes scheduling your stories on Instagram really easy.

Try it out for free now!