How often should musicians post on Instagram?
By Roadie Media ·
If you've searched this before, you've probably seen answers like "post every day", "three to five times a week" or "one reel a day to grow". Then you've probably tried it, kept it up for a fortnight, and quietly stopped.
Here's a more useful answer: post a little more often than you do now, and keep it up. For most independent artists, the right number is the one they'll still be hitting in three months.
Why "post every day" doesn't fit most artists
Most posting advice is written for brands and full-time creators. They have content teams, or content is their whole job. You're writing, rehearsing, gigging, working another job, and trying to release music.
Advice built for them fails you in a predictable way:
- It starts too high. Going from two posts a month to five a week isn't a plan, it's a crash diet.
- It treats every post as equal. One post about your new single, made with care, can do more than five rushed ones.
- It compares you with other people. An artist with 600 followers and one with 60,000 shouldn't judge their posts by the same numbers.
What matters most is consistency. An account that posts steadily gives your audience a reason to keep checking in, and gives you enough posts to learn what works.
There is some data on this. A Buffer study of around 2 million posts, summarised by Hypebot, found 3 to 5 posts a week works well for growth. Treat that as a ceiling to build towards over months, not a starting point.
A simple way to choose your number
- Count what you actually posted in the last four weeks. Feed posts and reels, not stories. Be honest.
- Divide by four. That's your current weekly rhythm. If it's under one, call it one post every two weeks.
- Add one. If you post once every two weeks, aim for once a week. If you post once a week, aim for twice.
- Keep it for a month. Only move up when hitting the target feels normal. If you have a busy week, drop back without guilt.
This is how a training plan works for runners: you don't go from the sofa to a marathon. You add a little, let it settle, then add a little more.
What about stories?
Stories are lower effort and great for staying in touch with people who already follow you: rehearsal clips, a lyric you're stuck on, a gig countdown. They don't usually reach many new people, so treat them as a bonus on top of your weekly posts, not instead of them.
Posting more around releases and gigs
Your rhythm doesn't have to be flat. Most artists naturally post more in the weeks before a release or a show and less in quiet writing periods. That's fine, as long as you never drop to zero for months. A good pattern:
- Quiet weeks: your baseline, say one post a week.
- Build-up weeks, two to four weeks before a release or show: your baseline plus one or two.
- Release or show week: whatever you can manage, then back to baseline.
How to tell if your rhythm is working
Don't judge a post against another artist's numbers, or against your one post that went big two years ago. Judge it against your own usual: the typical reach, saves and shares of your last few months of posts. Here's how to read your insights.
If a post does well above your usual, make more like it. If it does well below, that's information, not failure. Over a couple of months you'll see which kinds of posts reach new people and which mostly reach the people who already follow you.
The short version
- There's no magic number. The right one is a little more than you post now.
- Add one post a week at a time, and only when the current target feels easy.
- Post more around releases and gigs, less in quiet periods, but never disappear.
- Judge each post against your own usual, not against other artists.