Whether you’re just starting out with social media or have been on it a while, “how often should I post?” is a common question. The best answer is somewhat disappointing: it depends on the platform.
Each social media platform that you’re on is tailored to a specific audience. Therefore, they will all have different ideal posting times and frequencies. There is tons of information on what people think is the best posting frequency, but no one seems to be able to agree! There is good news though; we’ve combed through a bunch of the information out there and some common themes have arisen with regards to posting frequency (check out the fancy infographic below).
One of the biggest considerations when determining your post frequency sweet-spot is your audience! Everyone’s audience is going to be a little different and will probably be online at varying times. For example, most people are on Twitter around lunchtime whereas people are usually not on Instagram until after work (see below). The following times are for your local time zone, so if you’re trying to reach audiences in different time zones, adjust accordingly.
For Facebook: it’s best to post no more than once per day unless you have something really awesome to say! This adds up to about 3-10 posts per week (five seems to be a good number). The timing of these posts will completely depend on your audience (you can see when most people are online using some analytics) but this is generally around 1:00-4:00 pm.
For Instagram: As I mentioned, people are usually on Instagram after work so 5:00 pm is a good time to post if you’re looking for lots of engagement! Similar to Facebook, one post per day is generally a good frequency.
For Twitter: Twitter is a very unpredictable platform and there was the most disagreement about the best frequency and times to post but from what I can tell, 3-15 posts per day seems to be a common theme. Weekdays from 1:00-3:00 pm are the best days to post for B2B companies, while weekends and Wednesdays around 12:00 pm, 1:00 pm and 6:00 pm are best for B2C companies.
For LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a very professional platform and as such, posting once a day during the workweek is best. As for timing, right before work (7:00-8:30 am), right after work (5:00-6:00 pm), and around lunchtime (10:00-11:00 am) are the times most people will likely be viewing your content
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That’s a lot of very vague, general information that may or may not work for your specific audience. Thanks for nothing, right? Well, let me tell you what we do and hopefully, it can help you too.
Here’s how we tackle posting frequency:
We will usually start with the recommended posting frequencies outlined above, but then we experiment! We want to do amazingly for our clients and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for how often to post. For that reason, we LOVE experimenting and collecting data so we can analyze the effectiveness of different post types, times, frequencies, content, tone, etcetera.
What we tell our clients is that they need to trust us to do this experimenting. We know what is, in theory, the best posting time and frequency (from all that research!), but we need you to be flexible. Let us go wild! We’ll stay on brand but we want to be able to change post dates and times and use analytics to determine when your audience is online and most likely to engage with your content. We’ll track all of it so we can find the best solution for your brand. When you give us some leeway, we will be able to customize your posts to your audience and adapt as your following grows.
So, if you’re working on your own social media strategy, don't be afraid to try new things! If it doesn’t work out, learn from it and don’t do it again; but if it does, adapt your strategy accordingly.
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