Volume is the wrong first question, but everybody asks it, so: eight to twelve pieces a month is a realistic target for most small businesses. Here is the reasoning, and the cases where it is wrong.
Why eight to twelve
That is two to three posts a week — frequent enough that people form an impression of you, low enough that a single shoot day can cover it, and sustainable through the months when the actual job takes over completely.
Posting more is not wrong in principle, but in practice the extra volume comes from lowering the standard. One weak post does more damage than one missing post, because a missing post is invisible and a weak one is evidence.
The mix matters more than the number
- Three or four pieces of proof — finished work, before and after, results.
- Two or three explaining something — why you do it this way, what the cheap version leaves out.
- One or two showing people — the crew, the process, whoever the customer will actually deal with.
- One or two answering a question you get asked on every single estimate.
A feed that is only proof reads as a catalogue. A feed that is only explanation reads as a lecture from somebody who may not do the work. The mix is what makes it read as a business.
Getting there from one shoot
A properly planned shoot day produces stills, short vertical video and at least one longer piece. From one job or one location, twelve pieces is comfortable — provided the cutdowns were planned before anybody started shooting, which is the part that usually gets skipped.
One format reaches one kind of person. A shoot that produces only stills leaves most of its value on the floor when the same day could have produced video as well.
When less is genuinely fine
If your business runs on a handful of very large transactions a year — aircraft, commercial property, marine brokerage — four excellent pieces a month will outperform twelve average ones. The audience is small enough that quality is the only variable that matters, and volume actively works against you by diluting a feed a serious buyer is scrutinising.
When more is justified
High-turnover inventory businesses — rental fleets, dealerships, anything where the product list changes weekly — need volume because each item needs its own content. That is a different problem, and it is solved with a repeatable capture system rather than a bigger shoot.
The number that actually matters
Not pieces per month. Weeks in a row without a gap. A business that has posted twice a week for a year is in a completely different position from one that has posted two hundred times in bursts, even though the totals look similar.
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