As you start out on Instagram, key questions like how often you should post and how many hashtags you should use may leave you puzzled, given the range of conflicting advice available on the web. 

To provide some more definitive, data-backed answers to such questions, I analyzed 29k posts from the top 75 US Instagram beauty accounts for the first half of 2018 by using Socialinsider. And while the data here is industry-specific, it may give you a better idea of what's working, and where you should start with your Instagram experimentation.

Here are some of the key findings:

• The average engagement rate per post for US Instagram beauty accounts is 0.93%. When it comes to engagement rates, most beauty accounts with a considerable audience underperform.
• On average, these accounts post 2.04 posts per day. 
• Beauty accounts are using 2.07 hashtags per post. Overusing the hashtags does not increase engagement rates.

Check out the infographic below for a full overview of the findings.