The ratio matters less than whether each post is worth reading on its own. A promotional post that is genuinely useful counts as content; a useless one counts against you whatever the ratio.

What a promotional feed looks like

Every post is an offer, a reminder that you are taking bookings, or a variation on the same message about getting in touch.

Each was reasonable individually, and together they form a profile that is entirely about what the business wants.

People stop reading it long before they unfollow, which is why the follower count stays flat while the reach quietly falls.

That is the real cost: not people leaving, but people scrolling past, which the platform then interprets as a signal that your posts are not worth showing.

The published ratios are folklore

Worth addressing, since somebody will quote one.

Four to one, eight to one, and one in five all circulate as rules about how much promotion is acceptable.

None has a solid origin, they contradict each other, and they are quoted with a confidence nothing supports.

They are also the wrong shape of rule, since they treat posts as interchangeable units where what matters is whether each one is worth somebody's attention.

A business posting nothing but offers that are genuinely good offers, clearly explained, will do better than one posting four pieces of filler for every sales post.

The better test

Applied per post rather than as a ratio.

Would somebody who is not going to buy anything today still be glad they read this.

An offer explaining what a job typically costs passes, because the price information is useful whether or not they book.

A post saying we are taking bookings for June does not, because it contains nothing for anybody not already deciding.

That test is harder than counting and it produces better posts, because it forces each one to contain something rather than merely to exist.

Making a promotional post useful

The fourth is the most underused and the most persuasive, since a business saying who should not buy from it is trusted more than one claiming to suit everybody.

A worked example

A business posted three times a week, almost entirely offers and availability notices.

Their follower count was steady and their reach had fallen by more than half over a year, which they attributed to the platform.

They changed the content without changing the frequency: each post now showed a job, explained what it had involved, and gave a rough price, ending with a line about availability.

Still promotional, and now containing something.

Reach recovered over about three months and enquiries from the platform roughly doubled.

The proportion of posts mentioning their services had not changed at all, which was the point they took from it.

Frequency interacts with this

Because the two problems compound and are frequently confused.

A weekly post that is promotional is tolerable. A daily one is not, because the same message arrives seven times as often.

So a business increasing its posting frequency without changing its content makes the promotional problem worse rather than reaching more people.

If you are posting more, the additional posts have to be the useful kind, or the increase costs you reach rather than gaining it.

Where you cannot produce useful posts at the frequency you want, post less often rather than filling the gaps with offers.

What people actually engage with

Consistently, across small business profiles.

Finished work, particularly where the before state is visible.

Something going wrong and being fixed, which is more interesting than something going right.

Prices, which almost nobody publishes and everybody wants.

The person doing the work, occasionally, which does more than any amount of branding.

And answers to questions, which are useful and demonstrate competence at the same time.

None of those is non-promotional in any meaningful sense. They all make somebody more likely to hire you, which is the point of posting.

Sales posts still need to sell

Worth stating so this does not become an argument for vagueness.

A business that has been persuaded to post only useful advice, never mentioning what it sells, has a different problem: an audience that enjoys the posts and does not know what to buy.

Make the offer clearly when you make it, with a price or a range, a date, and how to respond.

The argument here is about what fills the other posts, not about softening the ones that ask.

A clear offer, occasionally, among posts that are worth reading, is the arrangement that works.

The profile is read as a whole

A point about the grid rather than the individual post, and it applies to any platform showing a profile page.

Somebody deciding whether to hire you frequently arrives at the profile rather than seeing a single post in a feed, and reads the last nine or twelve at once.

That view is where an all-promotional account is most obvious, because the repetition is visible in a way it never is post by post.

It is also the view that converts, since a stranger checking whether you are any good is looking at exactly that screen.

Open your own profile as a stranger once a month and look at the top block. If the nine posts say the same thing, the next customer saw that too.

The counter-case

Some businesses can post promotions almost exclusively.

A shop with genuinely new stock, a restaurant with a changing menu, or anybody whose offer is itself interesting has content that is promotional and welcome at the same time.

People follow those accounts specifically to see what is available, and withholding it in favour of general advice would be a mistake.

There is also a version of this advice that produces bland profiles full of tips, indistinguishable from every other business in the trade.

Ask whether each post is worth reading, and let the answer rather than a ratio decide what goes out.

What to do

  1. Look at your last twenty posts in a row.
  2. Ask of each whether a non-buyer would be glad they read it.
  3. Ignore published ratios.
  4. Add a price or a range to promotional posts.
  5. Show the work rather than describing it.
  6. Post less often rather than filling gaps with offers.
  7. Keep the offers clear when you make them.

Step one is uncomfortable and is the whole diagnosis, since a feed is experienced as a sequence and nobody who writes it ever reads it that way.

Finding material that is not an announcement is covered in what to post when nothing happened.

Frequently asked questions

What does a promotional feed cost?

Reach. People stop reading long before they unfollow, so the follower count stays flat while the platform interprets scrolling past as a sign your posts are not worth showing.

Is there a correct ratio?

No. The circulating figures contradict each other and have no solid origin. They also treat posts as interchangeable when what matters is whether each is worth reading.

What is the better test?

Would somebody who is not going to buy today still be glad they read this. An offer explaining what a job costs passes; a post saying you are taking bookings does not.

How do I make a promotional post useful?

Give a price or range, say what is involved, show the work, explain who it is not for, and answer the question people ask before booking.

Does posting more often help?

Not if the extra posts are promotional. Increasing frequency without changing content makes the problem worse, because the same message arrives more often.

Should I stop making offers?

No. An audience that enjoys your posts and does not know what to buy is a different problem. Make the offer clearly, with a price and a date, among posts worth reading.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Reach falling with a steady follower count?

Read your last twenty posts as a sequence. That is how somebody scrolling experiences them, and it is the diagnosis.

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