How often should a local media brand post on Instagram?

A local media creator told me his approach in one line: "I just overwhelm the algorithm with content. Five to ten videos a day."

"The first 30 days, I got nothing. Maybe 100 views max for 30 straight days. And then after a while, it just clicked."

What's your rule?

Channel	Cadence for WilCo Guide
Newsletter	Max one a day
Instagram carousels	At least 2 a day, up to about 5

Always show it's a carousel with an arrow on the first slide, so people know to swipe.

Video is a separate count from carousels. Start with one a day. That's fine at the beginning. Then aim for an average of two.

Why two? The best local creator I know averages two a day. Sometimes three, maybe four, but two on average. Two or three a day would beat him. And on Instagram you only need one post to crush.

Does it have to look good?

No, and this one hurts. With our ads, the less professional, the better. That goes against every instinct I have as somebody who likes design.

A creator I watch puts very little effort into his videos and he's crushing it. Each one takes him about 20 minutes. More on this in plain vs polished posts.

A mediocre post still beats no post. Compared to what? Compared to zero. It can't be worse. Having content beats not having content, as long as it isn't embarrassing.

Think about who checks your feed. When you reach out to a business owner, they look you up. Some of our accounts have basically never posted, and a lot show the last post was three months ago. I think it's worse to see nothing than to see lower engagement. It's better to show you're active.

And a partner told me even ugly carousels from a social media agency run about $2,000 a month. Doing it yourself, or with software, is cheap by comparison.

Does posting every day work by itself?

No. Volume without value doesn't help. I once told my team to post every day and judged it wasn't valuable. Then we posted a cash drop and barely showed the location, on purpose, to make it hard. Someone found it within 15 minutes. A post with a real reason to engage beat daily filler.

Why post so much?

Because almost nobody sees any single post.

"You just have to assume 5% or less of people have seen what you do."

And most posts flop anyway. I think of high-volume short-form as lottery tickets: maybe 98% of what we launch gets almost no engagement, and every once in a while something pops off. Big creators play it exactly this way. The only affordable way for a small team to buy that many tickets is to let software or an agent do the production.

Why does daily posting beat a weekly newsletter for brand affinity?

Frequency math. Post 10 to 14 times a week and you're in front of people seven to 14 times as often as the operators sending a newsletter once or twice a week. That builds brand affinity much faster.

Add your face and voice, and reply when people comment. Being someone who doesn't just post and ignore people makes you more human and relatable.

Jacob Espinoza told me on my podcast he made 628 posts in a year, roughly twice a day, and had about 35,000 followers after 12 months. Those are his numbers.

Advertiser content counts too, early on. Instagram has no limit on how many posts you can do. The money from featuring advertisers matters way more than the risk of featuring the same company too much.

I've heard of one local account with about 30,000 followers where several people constantly make content, and I think a decent amount of it is ads. Another operator who's crushing it told me they make four to six videos a day.

Make a ton of money and make a ton of posts. Don't try to make the feed the greatest content ever made. We can deal with that later when we're superstars.

Can one person handle video for several newsletters?

Yes. My plan is one person who gets good at green-screen videos. If they're doing green screens, they don't need to live in the town.

• Hours: four a day, maybe eight.
• Output: five videos a day.
• Coverage: five newsletters, maybe 10. Each one gets a video every other day, which still crushes what we post now.
• Later: add someone local who can go do things in person.

For the local face, a college student with a little personality works. Interns are the best way in, if you can get them.

Should I repost the same thing?

Yes. This goes against my instinct. I tend to post something once on Twitter and consider it done. A guest on my podcast reposted the same video several times and convinced me to do the opposite.

Ask: what have I said that resonated, and how can I say it slightly differently for the 98% of people who didn't see it the first time?

Your core message (who you are, what you do, why they should subscribe) has to hit people over and over. They hear it once and think, sounds interesting. Four or five times, it might stick.

The old sales rule was seven touches. I think it's closer to 10 to 15 now.