How often should a small business post on social media?

The math

At 3 posts/week, the IG algorithm classifies your account as “active” and serves your posts to ~10% more of your followers per post than an account posting 1× per week. At 5 posts/week, that bonus doubles. Above 5, the gain flattens and posts start cannibalizing each other for the same audience attention window.

Honest cadence by type of business

• Restaurants, bakeries, cafés: 4–5 posts/week (daily specials make this easy).
• Salons, gyms, fitness: 3–4 posts/week (testimonials + member spotlights + class schedules).
• Real estate: 2–3 posts/week + 2–3 stories/day (listings + market updates).
• Trades (HVAC, plumbing, roofing): 2–3 posts/week (seasonal + before/after).
• Retail / beauty products: 3–4 posts/week (product hero + UGC + behind-the-scenes).

Why most owners post less than 3×/week

1. They run out of ideas (FeedCrew: pre-loaded 90-day calendar fixes this).
2. They can't write captions fast enough (FeedCrew: AI captions in your voice fix this).
3. They forget (FeedCrew: scheduled in advance, auto-publishes on approve).
4. The post takes too long to make (FeedCrew: brand-tokenized templates make posts in <60 seconds).