How Often Should I Post On SocIal Media?
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In this article I am going to be talking about how often you should post/tweet etc and how you go about scheduling your social media updates so that they reach your audience at the most appropriate time for them. One of my ninja time-management tips, when it comes to social media, is to pick a day and time in your diary when you are normally a bit quieter, and schedule in posts for the rest of the week.
Now please don’t think I am saying that you can’t react to breaking news in your industry, of course you absolutely need to do that! All you need to do is to go into your scheduling tool (more on this later) and change the date/time on your scheduled posts to make room for the new story. That way you can stay organised and current.
How often should I post?
One of the questions I get asked all the time is “how often should I post on {insert name of social network}”. The answer is usually, “How long is a piece of string?”! There are lots of conflicting blog posts that you can read that will tell you things like you should be posting 2 times a day on Facebook, and 3 times a day on Twitter etc but what you have to realise is that they are all made up from aggregated data.
Whilst interesting, these reports will never take the place of your own data! You really need to experiment to see what’s working for you. If you post too often though, you will get more people unliking your page, so you will want to keep an eye on this metric. I would advise gradually increasing the frequency of your posts, to see what happens.
For my business, I aim for at least one Facebook post per day, but sometimes there are two and in very extreme cases I’ll post three times, but I usually like to leave around 6 hrs between posts. If I’ve already posted a couple of times that day, and come across content that I want to share that’s not particularly time-sensitive, I’ll just schedule that in for anther day. On Twitter, I’ll tweet 5 times per day and on LinkedIn I try to post daily as well.
What time of day should I post/tweet etc?
Similar to my answer above, be wary of all the different reports that tell you what time you should be posting, tweeting etc. Your own data is best and here are some tools that you can use to help you find out the optimum time to post on Facebook and Twitter. There are tools that you can use to find this information for other social networks, but here are a few that I would recommend.
This tool gives you access to information about how your Facebook fans are engaging with your page. Make sure you click on ‘Detailed Analytics’ then ‘Times and Types’ to get the information you need.
Facebook Insights
Facebook provides a wealth of information to Page Admins within the ‘Insights’ tab of your Facebook Page, including the time of day when your fans are active on the platform. This is taken over a 7 day period, so you would want to record this information over a few weeks to see when your top times to post are.
On Twitter, there are a variety of tools you use such as BufferApp’s Optimal Timing Tool (found in the ‘Schedule’ tab) and Crowdbooster. Crowdbooster is very easy to interpret and has a much cleaner interface but it is a paid-for tool. Their Bronze package comes in at only $9 per month though, so if you are very active on Twitter, it’s not likely to break the bank.
How can I schedule my posts/tweets etc?
There are a lot of tools out there that you can use to schedule in content, but here’s what I use most often.
Facebook – Most of the time I use Facebook’s native scheduling tool to schedule posts ahead of time. This gives you full control over how your posts appear when they are published. Write your post as normal then click on the down arrow to the right of the ‘Publish’ button (see image below).
Twitter/LinkedIn/Pinterest – I use BufferApp for this most of the time because it is so simple and easy to use. I also use HootSuite for scheduling ahead but this is a bit more of an advanced tool. Whilst technically better than BufferApp, sometimes all you need is ‘simple’! Another tool worth checking out is MeetEdgar. This allows you to build up a library of content, that is then re-shared across your various social media accounts, at regular intervals.
Conclusion
Social media need not take over your entire life! After all I am sure you didn’t go into business to spend all day on Facebook, so you need to take advantage of the plethora of excellent tools out there that will help you manage your time more effectively whist still maintaining an active presence in all the right places.
