Lasted 3 months with the same post schedule before Instagram killed my reach entirely

I was posting every day at 9am like all the guides said, then last month my views dropped from 2,000 to barely 200 overnight with no warning from the app. Has anyone else found that sticking to a rigid schedule actually hurts more than it helps?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_drew29d ago

I used to be the type who swore by the 9am slot too, thought consistency was the only thing that mattered. But after my numbers fell off a cliff just like yours, I started testing later in the day and saw a real difference. Posting at 11am on Wednesdays actually got me a better response than my old 9am routine ever did. The whole thing feels random now, like the algorithm rewards you for not being a robot. It took losing almost all my reach to finally accept that rigid scheduling was part of the problem.

shane_clark29d ago

oh man i went through this exact same thing. the 9am thing worked crazy good for like two months then bam nothing. what actually helped me was totally ditching the rigid schedule and just posting when i had something actually worth seeing. i started testing different times on different days like 2pm on tuesdays then 7pm on fridays and my reach slowly came back. also noticed that if i posted two days in a row the second one always bombed so now i space them out at least a day apart. the algorithm seems to punish you if you're too predictable honestly.

claire87229d ago

it's wild how @the_drew mentioning wednesdays at 11am makes me think it's all just algorithm theater now. i did the whole 8am thing for months and my reach died too, but switching to random times like 4pm on a thursday somehow brought back some of my old followers. feels like the app just wants you to jump through hoops for no real reason.