Only half the independent car dealers we checked posted on Instagram in the past month

In October 2026 we looked up the Instagram accounts of 85 independent car dealers that sell classic, exotic and luxury cars: 61 in California, 16 in Arizona and 8 in Nevada. For each one we noted when the account last posted, how often it posts, whether its recent posts were Reels or photos, and how many likes they got.

The short answer: only 42 of the 85 dealers (49%) had posted on Instagram in the past month. The rest either had no account we could find or had gone quiet, 14 of them for more than a year.

What we found

• 15 of 85 dealers (18%) had no working Instagram account we could find. One of them linked to an account from its website that no longer exists.
• Of the 70 dealers with an account, 42 (60%) had posted in the 30 days before we checked. 19 (27%) hadn’t posted in over six months, and 14 (20%) hadn’t posted in over a year. The oldest last post we found was from January 2014.
• Among the 42 active accounts, 15 posted mostly Reels and 13 mostly still photos, 8 of them photos only. Another 8 mixed the two, and for 6 we didn’t record the format.
• Followers didn’t guarantee attention. Of the 20 accounts with 10,000+ followers and visible likes, 11 got fewer likes on their best recent post than 0.5% of their followers. One posted several times a day to more than 50,000 followers and got under 100 likes a post.
• 15 of the 70 accounts weren’t reachable from the dealer’s own website. 14 weren’t linked at all, and one site linked an old handle that no longer works.

When the dealers last posted on Instagram, as of 20 October 2026

Last post	Dealers	Share of 85
In the past 30 days	42	49%
1 to 6 months ago	9	11%
6 to 12 months ago	5	6%
Over a year ago	14	16%
No working account found	15	18%

Why a quiet account matters

Shoppers look dealers up before they visit. In a December 2025 study by Snapchat and Havas, 60% of car buyers said they used social media during their buying journey, rising to 74% among Gen Z. That survey was of people who use social media, so the real share across all buyers is likely lower, but the direction is clear.

When a buyer finds a dealer whose newest post is from last year, the account answers a question the dealer never meant to ask: is anyone still here? For a specialist dealer selling cars people travel for, that first impression does some of the selling before anyone picks up the phone.

Busy isn’t the same as seen

Posting often wasn’t enough on its own. Two accounts posted plain inventory photos every day or two and got zero or one like per post. Others with tens of thousands of followers saw a fraction of a percent of them react.

Format alone didn’t decide it either. In our sample, some photo-led accounts did well and some Reels-led accounts didn’t, and 42 active accounts is too few to say one format wins. What a listing photo can’t do on its own is give someone a reason to stop scrolling: a sound, a story, a detail, a person.

How to check your own account in two minutes

1. Look at it the way a buyer would. Open your profile while logged out, or on a friend’s phone, and check the date of your newest post.
2. Check your pinned posts. Pinned posts sit at the top of your grid. If they’re from last year, the account can look stale even when you post often.
3. Click the Instagram link on your own website. Make sure it opens the right account and that the account still exists.
4. Count your last 12 posts. How many are straight listings, and how many give someone a reason to watch: a walkaround, a cold start, a delivery, a story behind the car?
5. Compare likes to followers. If your recent posts get a tiny fraction of your followers to react, the problem is probably the posts, not the audience.

What to do if you’ve gone quiet

1. Post one thing this week, so your newest post isn’t months old.
2. Replace old pinned posts with recent ones, or unpin them.
3. Fix the link on your website if it points to the wrong account or none at all.
4. Build on what already works. Find your best-liked post or the car that sold fastest, and make new versions of it: a short walkaround, a detail carousel, a “just delivered” post.
5. Pick a pace you can keep. Two or three posts a week, every week, beats a burst followed by months of silence.

If you’d rather someone else made those posts, this is the kind of work we do for car dealerships.

How we did this

• The 85 dealers came from our own prospect research: map searches for classic, exotic and luxury car dealers in California, Arizona and Nevada. We left out franchised new-car dealers, online marketplaces, businesses without their own website, and duplicate listings for the same business.
• We checked the accounts on 20 October 2026 (one on 21 October). We used the Instagram account linked from each dealer’s website, or searched Instagram for the dealer’s name when none was linked.
• “Last post” is the newest post on the account’s own grid. We ignored pinned posts and posts made by other accounts with the dealer as a collaborator.
• Likes come from a handful of recent posts as shown on Instagram, and some accounts hide them. Reels versus photos is based on the recent posts we viewed.
• This isn’t a random sample of US dealers. Our list leans toward specialist dealers in the Southwest, and Instagram is only one channel. Some of these dealers may put their effort into Facebook, YouTube, auction sites or their own website instead.
• We’re not naming the businesses. The point is the pattern, not any one of them.

Sources

• Public Instagram profiles of the 85 dealers, checked 20 and 21 October 2026
• Havas Media Network, Study from Snapchat and Havas reveals car buying has shifted online, 1 December 2025