<b>72% of a Reel's 7-day reach lands in the first 3 hours (n=860 Reels, mid-tier accounts)</b>

<b>72% of a Reel's 7-day reach lands in the first 3 hours (n=860 Reels, mid-tier accounts)</b>

Cumulative reach by elapsed time:

— 0-3h: ████████ 72%
— 3-24h: ██ 19%
— 24h-7d: █ 9%

The long-tail "discovery snowball" is mostly myth for non-viral posts. If a Reel underperforms by hour 3 relative to your trailing median, it will almost never recover.

So what: stop posting and walking away. The 90-minute window after publish — where you reply and reshare to stories — is the only lever you actually control on distribution.