One of the most frequent questions we get from clients is, “How often should I post on social media?” In an ideal world, we’d all have a dedicated staff to focus on this each day, making sure we keep on top of all the rules and algorithms to optimize our efforts.
But in the real world, we have limited time, staff and energy for social media, and want to get the most bang for our efforts. On top of that, we’re all bombarded with an unending stream of content every day, making it almost impossible to keep up with our followers and those we follow. What we hear most often is that the pressure to get it right on social media can be stressful and overwhelming. At KB Concepts, we think it’s time to stop the madness.
The good news is, best practices for accounts with less than 10,000 followers – and even for those with higher numbers – is moving in the right direction: posting less often with solid, consistent content. This is the advice we give our own clients, helping all of us relax while achieving our social media goals.
How Often on Each Social Platform
Facebook: With two billion active users, Facebook is by far the largest platform. Facebook’s algorithm now focuses on friends, family, and meaningful connections, making the genuine engagement of the greatest value. With that in mind, posting once per day is optimal, two times per day too much. Research by Hubspot found that pages with less than 10,000 followers experienced a 50% drop in traffic if they post more than once per day.
KB Concepts: Many accounts see great results posting just three times per week, and that is the formula we embrace: one post about your own products/services/events; one post sharing your particular expertise; and one sharing interesting industry or other related news – or something personal, fun, funny or uplifting. This post is for mixing it up and being real. With this format, you have room to share spontaneous content if it comes up, without burdening your audiences with too much unnecessary or uninteresting content.
Twitter: Controversially, recommended posting on Twitter can run from 3 – 30 times a day, yikes! Tweets have a short shelf life and this is the top platform for breaking news. A post scheduling app such as Hootsuite or Buffer is a must for this level of activity.
KB Concepts: Fortunately our clients are not in the breaking news/political world so we rarely have reason to follow these rules. We stick to three scheduled posts per week, and encourage our clients to re-tweet relevant content and post spontaneous new content on top of this base, allowing them to participate and remain engaged with their audiences while vastly reducing the pressure to post, or worry that they’re not doing enough.
Instagram: Like Facebook, optimal posting on Instagram is once per day. The current trend among some influencers (based on Instagram’s algorithm) is to post daily on Instastories and far less – once per week or less – on account feeds.
KB Concepts: We post three times per week with additional spontaneous content as needed. Because of the overwhelming amount of daily content on Instagram, we sometimes unfollow accounts that clog our clients’ feeds with multiple posts per day. Also, we much prefer real people in real photos to ubiquitous (and bland) “inspirational” sayings and quotes.
LinkedIn (and KBC): We love LinkedIn, where posting two to three times per week (and no more than once per day) sees great results!
YouTube (and KBC): Video gets the highest engagement on all social platforms, and is a must for a fully integrated communications strategy. Yet most of us aren’t YouTube influencers with millions of followers, and posting videos requires a lot more prep than static photos. One video post per week is great, and building up your video library on YouTube is a solid goal.
Pinterest (and KBC): This is another platform that calls for 3 – 30 pins per day, especially for those is fashion, art, travel, home décor, cooking, and crafts. There are apps to help with this, such as Tailwind, which works for Instagram too. Working with influencers on these platforms can also help reach your target audiences.
We hope these rules of thumb and our manageable approach relieve your social media anxiety just a bit. Look for our next post on best days and times to post – again, with the goal of setting reasonable goals to reduce stress and overwhelm while maintaining a consistent, high-quality presence on social media. Hopefully, others will follow our lead and take it down a notch – more is not always more!
