THS Creative, Social Media Dashboard

Refreshed 2026-07-29. Adds Apr 30–Jul 28, 2026 to the dataset (249 Instagram posts, 217 Facebook posts, 46 LinkedIn posts, full history now Feb 2023–Jul 2026). Instagram Stories are included for the first time: see the Instagram tab. Full methodology notes at the bottom of this tab.

Where Each Platform Stands

Current state · plain language

Instagram

795 followers

Reach has declined every year since 2024: 189 average per post down to 151 through July 2026. Reels are the exception: they averaged 263 reach in 2026, the best on record, while dropping to just 21.6% of posts, down from 34–38% in 2024–2025.

What's happening: The best format is still being used least. Reach is still following it down.

Facebook

911 followers

Still reaching far more people per post than Instagram: 316 average in 2026 vs Instagram's 151, extending a lead that opened in 2025. People-focused posts average 266 reach vs 213 for business/product posts, and continue to anchor the platform's best performances.

What's happening: The gap over Instagram isn't closing. If anything, it's widening.

Just over a year of data

The audience here is clients, partners, and referral sources actively researching THS. Average impressions climbed from 266 (2025) to 354 (2026 to date). Women of Gold ran again in March 2026: four posts averaging 440 impressions, 44% above the account average.

What's happening: The best-performing format still runs once a year. Everything else averages 306.

Data Worth Pausing On

Findings with the largest shift from the prior analysis

Instagram · A Live Contradiction

Saves vs. reach, before and after Instagram's Q1 2026 update

Instagram changed how it decides what to show people in early 2026, its biggest change in years. Saves (people bookmarking a post) became one of the top four things that decide how far a post reaches, along with direct messages, watch time, and profile clicks.

Shares 0.56 Likes 0.33 Saves -0.05 ←

In THS's own posts, saves barely relate to reach at all. That doesn't mean Instagram's guidance is wrong, just that it hasn't shown up in the numbers yet.

Facebook · Share Amplification

6+ shares = 9× the reach of no shares

0 shares

1–2 shares

194

3–5 shares

389

6+ shares

714

Only 12 of 217 Facebook posts got 6 or more shares. When people click a post, that predicts reach even better than reactions or shares do.

LinkedIn · Two Things to Know

~65%

of feed allocation goes to personal profiles; company pages get ~2–5%

81%

of LinkedIn's reported "engagement" is just clicks to expand the post

LinkedIn reports a 16.7% engagement rate, which looks strong, but most of that is just clicks to read more, not reactions or comments. Real engagement (reactions, comments, reposts) is 3.2%.

When employees post the same content from their own profiles, it reaches far more people than the company page does. The fix is getting more people to post, not better content.

Four Things to Change on the Calendar

Specific · backed by data · no new resources required

Instagram: get Reels back to 1 in 3 posts.

Reels averaged 263 reach in 2026 (the best Reel performance on record) while making up only 21.6% of posts. The 2024–2025 rate was 35–38%. No new equipment, no new strategy. Just the mix.

Facebook: hold at 3–4 posts/month, keep the human angle default.

3–4 posts/month still produces the strongest per-post reach (375). People-focused posts average 266 reach vs 213 for business/product posts, a gap that's held across the whole dataset, not just a good quarter.

LinkedIn: one named team spotlight per month.

Women of Gold ran again in March 2026: 440 avg impressions vs 306 for everything else, a 44% lift. It's run once a year since 2023. Monthly is achievable and the data backs it.

Instagram and Facebook: shift posting volume out of Morning (9am-12pm).

Morning (9am-12pm) is the single largest time window on both platforms and one of the weakest for reach: 90 average on Instagram, 175 average on Facebook. Early morning (5-9am) is a small share of posts on both, 11.7% on Instagram and 11.1% on Facebook. See the Instagram and Facebook tabs for the best time slots.

THS already cross-posts almost everything. Instagram and Facebook carry matching or near-identical captions on 188 of 196 Facebook posting days, a pattern going back to 2023. The open question isn't whether to cross-post, it already happens consistently. It's whether identical captions across platforms work as well as platform-specific framing would (see Cross-Platform tab).

Corrections This Cycle

Instagram and Facebook posting times were recorded in the wrong time zone in past reports. Fixed this cycle; some "best time to post" answers changed as a result.

Facebook's early-morning posting was previously reported as getting worse. It actually improved once the time zone was fixed.

Cross-posting between Instagram and Facebook was previously reported as rare. That was a counting error; THS already cross-posts almost everything.

Instagram still rewards content people respond to. The Reel mix still hasn't caught up.

Reels reach far more new people than other formats, and they're still just 21.6% of posts in 2026, down from 35–38% in 2024–2025. Reels keep improving every year: 206 average reach in 2024, 223 in 2025, 263 in 2026. The performance is there. The mix hasn't caught up to it.

How the Instagram Algorithm Works: Updated 2026-07-29

Early 2026: Instagram's biggest change in years Confirmed by Instagram's head, Adam Mosseri. Four things now matter most for how far a post reaches: direct messages, saves, watch time, and profile clicks. Likes and follower count barely matter anymore.

The signal THS can't see Direct messages are the single most important factor, and they never show up in any export THS receives. Watch time and profile clicks matter too, and they're also missing from the data.

Original content wins Instagram now favors original posts over reposted or recycled content. Original, Instagram-made posts can reach up to 3 times more people.

What THS's own data shows In THS's posts, saves don't relate to reach yet. That's likely because too few posts get saved for it to show up in the numbers.

Trends Over Time

By quarter, Feb 2023–Jul 2026 · new this cycle

Avg Reach per Post, by Quarter

New this cycle: zero Instagram posts published Apr–Jul 2024, a four-month gap the year-over-year averages never showed. Neither prior analysis flagged it. Cause unconfirmed.

Reel Mix % (red) vs. 5-9am ET Posting % (gray), by Quarter

Early morning posts (gray line) made up 6% to 20% of posts per quarter, a small and shrinking share.

New signal Instagram Stories

85 Stories were posted May 7 to Jul 22, 2026, the first time this data has been available. They averaged 38 reach and 49 views each (range: 12 to 152 reach). That's lower than the 116 average for a regular post, which makes sense: Stories mainly reach people who already follow the account, not new people.

Story data disappears from Instagram after 28 days, so it needs to be exported regularly to keep tracking it.

Weekly Avg Reach, May 7–Jul 22, 2026 (single window, no prior baseline)

No clear trend yet across these 12 weeks. Needs more data before reading a direction into it.

Format Performance

Feb 2023–Jul 2026 · 249 posts

Avg Reach

Reel

140

Carousel

104

Photo

103

Posts by Format

Carousel

97 · 39%

Reel

86 · 34.5%

Photo

66 · 26.5%

Carousels are the largest single format by count, but Reels still reach 35% further per post on average.

Engagement Signal → Reach Correlation

0.56

Likes

0.33

Comments

0.06

Saves

-0.05

Shares are the strongest predictor of reach in THS's own data.

Content Mix · Feb 2023–Jul 2026 · 249 posts

Business

53%

Personality

47%

Personality = team, people, culture, milestones, named spotlights. Business = client work, products, services.

Avg Reach by Content Type

Personality

130

Business

104

Personality content reaches 25% further per post on average. Both types get a similar engagement rate (17.6% Personality vs 18.3% Business), so the difference is in reach, not in how people respond.

Personality vs. Business: the reach gap holds, format is still the bigger lever.

47% of posts are already personality content (team, people, culture). Among personality posts, Reels reach 161 on average, Carousels 111, Photos 114.

Personality Reels reach further than Business Reels (161 vs 119). Business Reels get a higher engagement rate (20.0% vs 15.2%). Business and Personality Carousels perform about the same. The format matters more than the content type: Reel vs. not Reel is the bigger gap.

Instagram's shift toward rewarding saves and watch time helps Reels more than photos or carousels, since only video has watch time to earn credit for.

Format + Content Type Matrix

Personality Reel ★

161

ER 15.2% · 42 posts

Business Reel

119

ER 20.0% · 44 posts

Personality Carousel

111

ER 21.1% · 52 posts

Business Carousel

ER 20.6% · 44 posts

Personality Photo

114

ER 15.9% · 21 posts

Business Photo

ER 14.2% · 45 posts

Large number is average reach, small is engagement rate. Personality Reels reach the most people. Business Reels get the most engagement. Reach matters now; engagement helps future posts get shown to more people.

Reel Trends by Year

Reach per Reel keeps rising even as the mix keeps dropping

Avg Reach per Reel by Year

2023

2024

206

2025

223

2026 ↑

263

2023's 22 avg reflects the account's early ramp-up period broadly (whole-account avg reach that year was also 22), not a Reel-specific problem.

Avg Reach by Reel Duration · All Years (86 Reels)

Under 15s

15–30s

266

30–60s

143

60s+

15-30 seconds is the sweet spot (17 Reels). Longer Reels, 60+ seconds (12 Reels), actually do worse, not better.

Post Timing Analysis

249 posts · Feb 2023–Jul 2026

Early-morning posting (5–9am) is a small share, 11.7% of posts (29 of 248), averaging 83 reach. The bigger issue is where the calendar is concentrated: Morning (9am–12pm) is the largest window at 33% of all posts and only 90 avg reach. Evening (5–9pm) is the best-performing window at 178 avg but gets just 35 posts (14%).

Avg Reach by Day of Week

Thursday

171

Saturday

149

Friday

141

Tuesday

Sunday

Monday

Wednesday

Saturday's 149 avg is based on only 5 posts, directional only.

Avg Reach by Time Window

Evening 5–9pm

178

Midday 12–2pm

135

Afternoon 2–5pm

121

Morning 9–12pm

Early Morning 5–9am

29 of 248 posts (11.7%) publish in the weakest reliable window. Morning (9am–12pm) is the largest single window by volume at 83 posts (33%) but a middling 90 avg.

Best Day + Time Combinations (minimum 3 posts per cell, ET)

Day	Time Window	Avg Reach	Posts (n)
Thursday	Midday (12–2pm)	346	4
Thursday	Evening (5–9pm)	246	9
Thursday	Afternoon (2–5pm)	195	13
Friday	Evening (5–9pm)	183	8
Friday	Morning (9–12pm)	157	23

Thursday Midday's 346 avg is only 4 posts, directional. Friday Morning (157 avg, 23 posts) is the largest reliable sample on this table.

Posts That Overperformed Their Format

Reach vs. that post's own format average, as a multiplier · replaces the old flat top-10 · new this cycle

Why this changed: a simple "top 10 by reach" list would always be dominated by whichever post got the biggest one-time spike, even years later. This ranks posts by how far each one beat the normal average for its own format, showing what's actually working now.

Post	Format	Reach	vs. Format Avg
Simply Southern shoot Biz	Photo	762	7.4×
Material curation reel Biz	Reel	1,010	7.2×
Halloween costumes Pt.2 P	Carousel	678	6.5×
First day of fall P	Photo	571	5.6×
David Faircloth remembrance P	Photo	521	5.1×
Team personality trend reel P	Reel	653	4.7×
Content drives sales BTS P	Reel	444	3.2×
"Started with a vision" brand story Biz	Photo	312	3.0×

The multiplier compares each post's reach to the typical reach for its own format (Reel, Carousel, or Photo). A post also has to beat Instagram's overall average (116) to make the list.

Caption Patterns

Word count, question marks, emoji vs. reach · new this cycle, first time caption text itself has been analyzed

Avg Reach by Caption Length

Short (<20 words)

Medium (20-60)

136

Long (60+ words)

Medium-length captions (20-60 words) reach further than very short or very long ones, the same pattern as Reel length.

Question Mark in Caption

Has a question

134

No question

112

45 of 248 captions with a reach value include a question mark. The gap holds on Facebook too, see that tab.

Emoji in Caption

No emoji

133

Has emoji

108

This runs against the usual advice to add more emoji. The pattern is weak, worth testing on purpose, not a rule to follow yet.

What to do Instagram · 4 actions

Set a Reel floor of 35% and track it monthly.

At 21.6%, the mix is still well below the 35–38% rate that held for 2023–2025. Reels are outperforming every other format by a growing margin (263 avg reach in 2026). Check the mix at the end of each month.

Keep Reels in the 15–30 second range where possible.

New this cycle: 15–30s Reels average 266 reach vs 82 (under-15s) and 99 (60s+). 17 Reels in the sweet-spot bucket, not enough to call it a hard rule.

Start tracking Stories deliberately, not just because this export happened to include them.

85 Stories on record for the first time, averaging 38 reach. No historical baseline yet; this cycle is the baseline.

Shift posting volume out of Morning (9am–12pm).

Morning (9am–12pm) is the largest window at 33% of posts (83), averaging just 90 reach. Evening (5–9pm) is the best-performing window at 178 avg but only 35 posts. Thursday afternoon (195 avg) and Thursday evening (246 avg) are the most reliable strong slots. No content change required, just a calendar shift.

Facebook's lead over Instagram widened again in 2026. People-focused posts are still driving it.

Facebook averaged 316 reach per post in 2026 vs Instagram's 151: a bigger gap than the 2025 comparison (345 vs 181). Personality content (266 avg reach) still outperforms business/product content (213 avg) across the full dataset. The account's single highest-reach post remains the David Faircloth tribute from February 2025.

How the Facebook Algorithm Works: Reviewed 2026-07-29

How it decides what to show Private Messenger shares matter most for how far a post reaches. Up to half of a person's feed is recommended content from accounts they don't follow, a way to reach new people that Instagram doesn't give business pages as much.

Confirmed again this cycle Reels get the biggest boost from Facebook's algorithm, followed by multi-photo posts and how-to content that gets saved a lot. No change since June.

The signal THS can't see Private message shares matter most, and they never show up in any export. THS can only measure public reshares (0.51 correlation with reach), so the real number is likely higher.

New in this update Posts inside active Facebook Groups get extra reach. THS doesn't have a Group presence today, so this doesn't apply yet.

FB Avg Reach 2026

316

34.7% of followers reached per post on average, vs Instagram's 19.0% the same year. The gap has grown every year since 2024, when Instagram briefly led.

Reel Avg Reach

488

vs 280 for Video and 175 for Photo. Facebook only started tracking Reels separately from Video in 2026.

Format is still the bigger lever than content type, same as Instagram.

Business Reels average 535 reach vs 424 for Personality Reels, the opposite of Instagram's pattern. Personality content leads in every other format: Video 401 vs 236, Photo 216 vs 138. Photo is 68% of all Facebook posts.

Personality Photos get the best engagement rate of any combination, 19.1%. Reels reach the most people; Personality Photos get the most engagement.

Format + Content Type Matrix · new this cycle

Personality Reel

424

ER 9.0% · 14 posts

Business Reel ★

535

ER 7.2% · 19 posts

Personality Video

401

ER 12.3% · 14 posts

Business Video

236

ER 8.2% · 17 posts

Personality Photo

216

ER 19.1% · 69 posts

Business Photo

138

ER 11.5% · 78 posts

Large number is average reach, small is engagement rate. Only combinations with at least 3 posts are shown.

Posts That Overperformed Their Format

Reach vs. that post's own format average, as a multiplier · replaces the old flat top-10 · new this cycle

Post	Year	Format	Reach	vs. Format Avg
David Faircloth tribute P	2025	Photo	1,959	11.2×
Women of Gold: Lisa Schultz P	2025	Photo	892	5.1×
Women of Gold: Jo Welborn-Hilliard P	2025	Photo	855	4.9×
Spring design tips reel Biz	2023	Reel	2,279	4.7×
Women of Gold: Gabby Donahue P	2025	Photo	813	4.7×
Content drives sales BTS P	2026	Video	1,470	4.7×
Women's History Month kickoff P	2025	Photo	720	4.1×
THS 40th Anniversary Biz	2024	Video	1,225	3.9×

The multiplier compares each post's reach to the typical reach for its own format (Reel, Video, or Photo). A post also has to beat Facebook's overall average (238) to make the list. Four of the eight posts are 2025 Women of Gold posts, more proof that format works.

Caption Patterns

Word count, question marks, emoji vs. reach · new this cycle · same direction as Instagram on all three

Avg Reach by Caption Length

Short (<20 words)

202

Medium (20-60)

257

Long (60+ words)

229

Medium-length captions win on Facebook too, the same pattern as Instagram, on a different platform with a different caption style.

Question Mark in Caption

Has a question

355

No question

213

The biggest gap in this section: 67% higher reach for captions with a question, based on only 38 of 217 posts. Worth testing on purpose, not settled yet.

Emoji in Caption

No emoji

272

Has emoji

222

Same pattern as Instagram: fewer emoji, more reach. This doesn't prove emoji hurt reach, more likely that emoji-heavy captions tend to go with a different kind of post. Worth watching, not a rule yet.

Share Amplification

Avg reach by share count

Each extra share multiplies reach rather than just adding to it. This drives Facebook's reach advantage.

0 shares

79 reach

1–2 shares

194 reach

3–5 shares

389 reach

6+ shares

714 reach

Posts with 6+ shares average 9× the reach of posts with none. Only 12 of 217 posts hit that tier.

Paid / Organic

Only 1 of 217 posts shows any sign of being a paid boost: the 40th Anniversary video, which reached 1,225 people vs the 233 account average. Too few paid posts to compare paid and unpaid separately.

This quarter's data doesn't show which posts were paid ads, so all posts are counted as unpaid. Paid posts have been rare in the past, so this is unlikely to change the numbers much.

Post Frequency & Spacing

Facebook still rewards fewer, better-timed posts

Avg Reach by Posts Per Month

1 post/mo

401

3 posts/mo

375

4 posts/mo

304

5+ posts/mo

217

1 post/mo is based on a single month, directional only. 3–4 posts/month (9 months combined) is the reliable comparison, and it clearly beats 5+ (24 months).

Avg Reach by Days Since Previous Post

15+ days

499

8–14 days

270

0–2 days

239

4–7 days

188

The 15+ day gap (8 posts) is skewed by a few standout posts, not the spacing itself. 8-14 days is the more reliable target, backed by more posts (29).

Post Timing Analysis

217 posts

Early-morning posting (5–9am) is a small share, 11.1% of posts (24 of 217), averaging 216 reach. Morning (9am–12pm) is the weakest window: the largest by volume at 31% of posts, averaging only 175. Friday Afternoon (2–5pm) is the best reliable slot at 535 avg.

Avg Reach by Day of Week

Friday

345

Saturday

318

Sunday

226

Monday

223

Tuesday

207

Thursday

209

Wednesday

167

Saturday's 318 avg is based on only 4 posts, directional only.

Avg Reach by Time Window

Midday 12–2pm

295

Afternoon 2–5pm

275

Evening 5–9pm

253

Early Morning 5–9am

216

Morning 9–12pm

175

67 of 217 posts (31%) publish in Morning (9am–12pm), the largest window by volume and now the weakest performer. Early-morning (5–9am) is a smaller share, 24 posts (11.1%), and outperforms Morning despite its reputation.

Best Day + Time Combinations (minimum 3 posts per cell, ET)

Day	Time Window	Avg Reach	Posts (n)
Thursday	Midday (12–2pm)	831	3
Friday	Afternoon (2–5pm)	535	14
Friday	Midday (12–2pm)	393	10
Monday	Evening (5–9pm)	378	4
Tuesday	Afternoon (2–5pm)	311	9

Thursday Midday's 831 avg is only 3 posts, directional. Friday Afternoon (535 avg, 14 posts) is the most reliable strong slot on this table.

What to do Facebook · 3 actions

Reels are now a distinct, top-performing Facebook format: treat them as one.

Reels average 488 reach vs 280 (Video) and 175 (Photo), 15% of posts. Photo still dominates volume (68%).

Keep the 3-4 posts/month pace and the people-first default.

Personality content still averages 266 reach vs 213 for business/product, a gap that's held steady since the June analysis, not a one-quarter fluke. Named spotlights (Women of Gold) remain the strongest repeatable format.

Friday afternoon is the best reliable slot to post.

Friday Afternoon (2–5pm) is the best reliable slot at 535 avg. Morning (9am–12pm) is the weak spot, the largest window by volume (31% of posts) at only 175 avg.

LinkedIn is still a research tool, not a social feed, and impressions are climbing every quarter tracked.

Average impressions rose from 266 in 2025 to 354 so far in 2026, across 40 to 46 posts. By quarter, impressions climbed for five straight quarters, from 213 in Q2 2025 to 410 in Q2 2026, before dipping to 224 in a partial Q3 (only 3 posts so far).

How the LinkedIn Algorithm Works: Updated 2026-07-29

LinkedIn's AI (called 360Brew) Judges posts on how relevant and expert they seem, and how long people spend reading them, not just likes and comments. Hashtags barely matter.

The first hour still matters LinkedIn shows a new post to a small group first. If they engage with it, it reaches more people. If they don't, it stops there.

Company page reach, quantified further Company pages now reach roughly 2–5% of people's feeds, personal profiles reach about 65%. Employees posting from their own profiles reach more people than the company page does, even with far fewer followers.

How often to post LinkedIn recommends 2–3 posts a week for company pages. THS posts far less than that. But posting more from the company page alone won't help much without also getting employees to post from their own profiles.

~65% vs ~2–5%

Feed allocation: personal profiles vs. company pages

Updated figure, 2026

Feed allocation: company pages ~2–5%, personal profiles ~65%. Employee posts from personal profiles consistently out-distribute the company page, even with fewer followers.

Same activation question as June: are team members willing to post, and is there a structure that makes it easy to do consistently? Unchanged this cycle.

LinkedIn's engagement rate isn't measured the same way as Instagram's or Facebook's. Most of it, 81.4% this cycle, is just people clicking to read more, not reacting or commenting. Real engagement (reactions, comments, reposts) is 3.2% of impressions, not the 16.7% LinkedIn reports.

What LinkedIn Calls "Engagement"

81%

…is clicks. Reactions, comments, and reposts make up the other 19%.

Personality vs. Business, Avg Impressions

383

vs 242 for business/product posts (21 posts vs 25 posts), the same personality advantage seen on Instagram and Facebook. New this cycle: LinkedIn hadn't had this breakdown before.

Correlation: Impressions → Engagement

0.76

Likes relate to impressions most strongly, ahead of comments and reposts. Clicks relate the least, the opposite pattern from Facebook.

Trends Over Time

By quarter, since the export window begins mid-2025 · new this cycle

Avg Impressions per Post, by Quarter

Impressions rose for five straight quarters before dipping in Q3 2026, but that's only 3 posts so far, too early to call it a reversal. LinkedIn's data doesn't show post format (photo, video, etc.), so a format chart like Instagram's and Facebook's isn't possible here.

Posts That Overperformed the Account Average

Impressions vs. the account's own overall average, as a multiplier · replaces the old flat top-5 · new this cycle

Post	Imps	vs. Account Avg
Larry Boyd named ASID judge P	921	3.0×
Content drives sales – BTS P	720	2.4×
Women of Gold: Aubrey Butler P	516	1.7×
ASID Carolinas Career Day P	499	1.6×
Educators Exchange open house P	477	1.6×
The Rooted Magnolia branding Biz	446	1.5×
Halloween costume roundup P	445	1.5×
Women of Gold: Lily Fraga P	469	1.5×

The multiplier compares each post's impressions to the overall account average (306). LinkedIn doesn't track post format, so this uses the account average instead of a per-format average like Instagram and Facebook. The top post is a personal story, not a campaign post.

What to do LinkedIn · 3 actions

Move Women of Gold from an annual event to a monthly cadence.

Three years running, this format only runs in March, 440 avg impressions vs 306 for everything else. Status on this recommendation is tracked on the Updates tab rather than repeated here.

Report the 3.2% true social ER alongside the 16.7% native figure, not instead of it.

The 16.7% figure isn't wrong, it's measuring something different (81% of it is just clicks to expand). Showing both numbers keeps LinkedIn comparable to Instagram and Facebook when all three appear together.

Personal-profile activation: the structural gap widened, not narrowed.

Company-page feed allocation is now estimated at 2–5%, down from the June analysis's framing, against roughly 65% for personal profiles. The case for personal-profile posting is stronger this cycle than last.

THS already cross-posts almost everything.

Instagram and Facebook carry matching or near-identical captions on 188 of 196 Facebook posting days, a pattern going back to 2023. The question isn't whether to cross-post, it already happens consistently. It's whether identical captions on both platforms work as well as writing each one differently would.

BTS Video: Same Content, Three Platforms

April 16, 2026

Reach / Impressions

Instagram (Reel)

444

Facebook (Reel)

1,470

LinkedIn (organic)

720

ER%, Native Formula per Platform

LinkedIn's 17.2% includes clicks to read more. Facebook (7.3%) and Instagram (13.5%) count only reactions, so those two are directly comparable to each other.

Instagram

13.5%

Facebook

7.3%

LinkedIn (native)

17.2%

Growth Rate, Not Just Reach: All Three Platforms Indexed to the Same Starting Point

2025 Q2–2026 Q3, the only window all three platforms have data for · new this cycle

LinkedIn is growing fastest in relative terms. Instagram hasn't grown at all.

Indexed to each platform's own 2025 Q2 starting point (100): LinkedIn peaked at 192%, settled to 105%. Facebook peaked at 158%, now at 126%. Instagram stayed within 16 points of 100 for six straight quarters, now at 97.

Instagram has the lowest absolute reach of the three and is the only one not growing right now.

Indexed Reach/Impressions, 2025 Q2 = 100

Instagram

Facebook

Women of Gold's pattern across platforms (Facebook and LinkedIn close together, Instagram trailing at less than half) held again in March 2026, the third year in a row. Full numbers are on each platform's own tab.

Video Format Drift · Both Platforms

IG Reels % vs FB Reel/Video % by year, same shape, different timing

Instagram's Reel mix held at 35–38% for three years before dropping to 22% in 2026. Facebook's Reel and Video combined has been more up and down, landing at 29% in 2026 (15% Reel, 14% Video).

On both platforms, Reels perform the best and get posted the least.

Video Format as % of Total Posts, 2026

Instagram Reels

Facebook Reel+Video

2026 (through Jul 24)

IG Reels

21.6%

FB Reel+Vid

28.6%

Facebook only started tracking Reels separately from Video in 2026. They're combined here for a fair comparison to Instagram's Reels number.

Questions this data raises Not conclusions, starting points for discussion

Does any of this connect to leads or business outcomes?

Still unanswered from June. This analysis measures how far posts reach and how much people respond, not whether that leads to website visits, client inquiries, or new business. Answering that needs data this export doesn't have.

If cross-posting is already near-universal, is identical copy across platforms actually the right call?

THS already posts matching captions on 188 of 196 Facebook days. The open test: does writing different copy for each platform reach more people than posting the same caption everywhere? Answering that needs a side-by-side test, the same content with platform-specific copy vs. identical copy.

The most important signal on all three platforms is invisible in this data. What are we actually missing?

Unchanged from June: direct messages and private shares are each platform's most valuable signal, and none of it appears in any export. The relationships we can see (Facebook shares 0.51, Instagram shares 0.56) only count public reshares.

Should THS team members be posting from personal LinkedIn profiles instead of only the company page?

The structural case got stronger this cycle, not weaker: company pages are now estimated at 2-5% of feed allocation vs ~65% for personal profiles, up from the June estimate.

What to do Cross-platform · 2 actions

Test platform-tailored captions on a handful of upcoming cross-posts.

The next test is whether writing different copy for each platform (Facebook: lead with the human angle; LinkedIn: lead with context and expertise; Instagram: write toward a reaction) reaches more people than posting the same caption everywhere. Pick 3-4 upcoming posts, write platform-specific copy, and compare reach and engagement against similar identical-copy posts from the prior month.

Build Women of Gold into a monthly (or at least quarterly) cadence on all three platforms.

Confirmed two years running now: 434-440 avg reach/impressions on Facebook and LinkedIn, 171 on Instagram, all meaningfully above each platform's own average. This is the single most consistently repeated finding across both analysis cycles.

Four of Seven Tracked Changes Are Working. Three Are Still Too Early to Call.

Before means everything published through Apr 29, 2026. After means everything published Apr 30 through Jul 28, 2026.

Read this as an early check-in, not a verdict. The "after" window is 9 to 16 posts per platform, a few weeks of publishing. Small samples move around on their own. Treat single-digit percentage shifts as noise.

Working

Instagram's and Facebook's early-morning posting share both dropped, Facebook's Reel mix and reach both rose, and personality content grew as a share of posts on both platforms.

Too Early To Call

Instagram's Reel mix, LinkedIn's Women of Gold cadence, and the personal-profile activation question all need more time or haven't started yet.

Recommendation Scorecard

Before = through Apr 29, 2026 · After = Apr 30-Jul 28, 2026

Recommendation	Before	After	Verdict
Instagram: grow Reel mix toward 35%+	34.8% (81 of 233)	31.2% (5 of 16)	Watch
Instagram: move off the 5-9am slot	12.1% of posts	6.2% of posts	Working
Facebook: post more Reels, the best-reaching format	14.9% (30 of 202)	20.0% (3 of 15)	Working
Facebook: shift off 5-9am toward Friday afternoon	11.4% of posts at 5-9am	6.7% of posts at 5-9am	Working
Both platforms: lean into personality content	IG 46.4% · FB 45.5%	IG 50.0% · FB 53.3%	Working
LinkedIn: move Women of Gold from annual to monthly	Ran once, March 2026	Zero posts since	Not Started
LinkedIn: activate personal-profile posting for leadership visibility	No prior baseline	Top post of the window (921 impressions) was a personal-leadership story	Early Signal

Instagram: reach is up, timing is improving, Reel volume needs another cycle to read.

Average reach rose from 114 to 142. Early-morning posting (5-9am) dropped from 12.1% to 6.2% of posts. Reel mix dipped slightly, 34.8% to 31.2%, but that's only 5 posts against 81, too small to call a trend. Those 5 Reels averaged 250 reach, nearly double the 133 average before.

Instagram, Before vs. After

Avg Reach

Before

114

After

142

5-9am Share of Posts (ET)

Before

12.1%

After

6.2%

Facebook: reach, format, and timing are all improving.

Average reach rose from 233 to 299. Reel mix grew from 14.9% to 20.0%, and those Reels averaged 607 reach, up from 476. Personality content grew to 53.3% of posts, up from 45.5%. Early-morning posting (5-9am) dropped from 11.4% to 6.7%. The best time to post now is Friday afternoon (2-5pm), averaging 535 reach, not Friday morning as previously reported.

Facebook, Before vs. After

Avg Reach

Before

233

After

299

5-9am Share of Posts (ET)

Before

11.4%

After

6.7%

LinkedIn: impressions keep climbing. Women of Gold hasn't moved off its annual slot yet.

Average impressions rose from 299 to 338, consistent with the broader climb from 266 to 354 across 2025 and 2026 (see LinkedIn tab). Women of Gold ran once in March and hasn't run again since. The top post of this window was Larry Boyd's judge-selection announcement, 921 impressions, posted from a personal profile.

LinkedIn, Before vs. After

Avg Impressions

Before

299

After

338

Sample size: 9 LinkedIn posts in the after window, against 37 before. Directionally consistent with the year-over-year trend, not independent proof on its own.

What to change Updates · 3 actions

Update the Facebook posting-time target to Friday afternoon, not Friday morning.

Early-morning share improved, 11.4% to 6.7%. Friday Afternoon (2-5pm) now averages 535 reach, ahead of Friday Morning.

Give Instagram's Reel mix one more cycle before treating the dip as real.

Five posts is too small a sample to call a trend, and the Reels that ran reached nearly double the prior average. Keep posting Reels at the same or higher rate and re-check next cycle with a larger "after" window.

Use the Larry Boyd post as a concrete example in the personal-profile activation case.

The structural case (company pages at 2-5% feed allocation vs. roughly 65% for personal profiles) is easier to act on with a real, recent, high-performing example from THS's own data than a general industry statistic.