How Many is Too Many Instagram Stories?
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Do I look bored here? Probably looking at an account with too many Instagram Stories posted!
Instagram Stories have been around for nearly five years now, and there’s still debate over how to utilize them well. One question my clients often ask is, how many is too many Instagram Stories? Personally, when I’m flipping through Stories, I’ll watch the ones where there are four or five long dashes at the top. When it comes to a person or business whose Stories have devolved into an endless row of tiny dots, I’ll swipe onto the next account because I don’t have the attention span for that! Everyone has their own preferences and arbitrary rules for Story posting frequency. One Digg writer argued that three Stories is the perfect number.
In the social media industry, the answer to so many questions is “it depends.” I could tell you that it depends when it comes to Story posting frequency, and to some extent it does, but there is great research on the topic that provides helpful guidance on how many Stories really is too many.
Above: a typical day on influencer Caroline Calloway’s Instagram. I tried to count; I believe she has 50 Stories posted at once here. These screenshots are just 6 of them (take a close look at the first one and try to count the dots for yourself if you’re feeling ambitious!).
Where did Stories come from and what exactly are they?
Instagram introduced the Stories feature, a copycat of Snapchat’s model of disappearing content, back in 2016. Stories viewership has been on the rise ever since! There are over 500 million daily active users watching Instagram Stories, and the data shows that as Stories have increased in popularity, the frequency of in-feed posts has declined.
For those not familiar with Stories, they offer a less formal and polished view of life, whether it’s from an individual or a brand account. In Stories, people tend to share more off the cuff content, photos that aren’t as aesthetically pleasing, or things that aren’t as perfectly curated as what we deem good enough for an in-feed post. Stories are a great way to keep your audience engaged, sharing behind the scenes content with a sense of urgency that attracts followers’ attention. Stories appear in a bar at the top of the news feed, endless circles with a pink ring around them. You can tap through to view everyone’s Story content, and many Instagram users are spending more time doing this than they are looking at regular posts in their feed.
Diving into the research
Buffer reports that when it comes to Instagram Stories, 1-7 Stories is the ideal posting frequency. They’ve calculated that based on completion rate (the percentage of viewers who are watching your Stories all the way through to the end). After you’ve posted more than seven Stories, the completion rate starts to decline to below 70%. There’s not much additional ROI for posting more than seven Stories in a 24 hour window.
Above: three simple and effective Stories by Rochester restaurant Voula’s Greek Sweets.
With anything on social media, there are exceptions. Some of the top accounts that post 20 or more Stories a day still see a completion rate of 55% or higher! Instagram Stories are a great tool for engaging your audience, whether you post two a day or 12.
Other considerations for boosting reach & completion rate
In order to maximize how many people your Stories are reaching and how long people are watching for, it’s important to be aware of the following:
Posting time - Studies show that posting outside of work hours helps you reach more people. Early morning, lunchtime, and evening are some of the best times to engage with your audience via Stories. Try sharing 1-2 Stories during each of those time slots!
Day of the week - I typically encourage my clients to post Stories on days when they are not sharing an in-feed post. Say you typically aim to post on Instagram three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then I’d encourage you to share Stories on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and possibly weekends as well if you have the bandwidth and it makes sense for your audience too. Your followers may be more active on some days of the week than others, so schedule your posts and and plan your Stories accordingly. You can find data on when your audience is online in Instagram Insights.
Best content first - To hold your followers’ attention, share your best Stories slides first! If you have some awesome photos, don’t save them until slide six or seven. Share them up front! The more eye-catching your first slides are, the more likely your viewers are to keep watching, boosting your completion rate.
How many Stories do you think is too many? Share your thoughts--tweet me at @servemethesky.
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