How Often Should You be Posting
Finding the right frequency to post is a complicated question to answer. In short, there is no “magic number”. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.
Search online and you will find a treasure trove of “experts” telling you that to be successful on social media, you need to be posting 3, 5, or even 10 times per day with different content on each platform. Let’s be real; as a small business owner, you don’t have time for that. But you can take steps to find how often you should be posting.
The dangers of over-posting
Can you post too much- absolutely. If you’re posting too much, your audience will stop engaging with your content. This will tell the algorithm that people are no longer interested in your content and won’t push it out to as many people. That will make your climb back to relevance very difficult.
Can you under-post?
Again, absolutely. Not posting enough can lead to your brand not being relevant on social media. If you’re not posting regularly, the algorithm is not going to work in your favor. At a minimum, a couple times a month- and this is an absolute bare minimum number. In reality, the truly wrong answer here is to not be posting at all.
There are three things you should do when trying to determine how often to post.
Ask yourself if you have enough content that is relevant to your brand.
You want every post you make to be relevant to what you do. If you have enough things to talk about and stay engaging, then sure, post 3 times each day. But if you don’t you’ll blow through all your content ideas quickly and be at a loss for what to do next. In line with having enough content is if the content aligns with what people expect from you. You wouldn’t want to follow a page that decided to go from sports news to cooking recipes. Ok, not the greatest example but things like that happen all the time. To get content out there, brands will start posting whatever they can as if they have a post quota they have to meet. Does the content stay in line with what people know you to be.
Identify your goals
Are you looking to grow through social media or are you looking to inform your loyal audience? The goals you have for your social media will identify how aggressive you should be on social. Identifying your goals will also help you prove if it was worth it or not.
Review the data
Your analytics will tell you if you’re posting too much or not enough. For example, if I post 3 times per day for a month and reach 10,000 people one month then post once every other day and reach 12,000 the next month, that would tell me I’m posting too much. There are other things to consider, too, such as your engagement rate.
Ultimately, every business is different and the frequency at which they post is going to be different. Some of my clients only get a post once per week- others are 3 times per day. Finding the answer takes time. When I bring on a new client, the first month I might only post 1-2 times per week. The second month I try to do every single day and the third month every other day. There is a balance somewhere between the amount of content you have and what your audience is willing to see. Find that balance, run with it, and don’t be afraid to tweak it!