The question of how much your business should post on social media sounds like an easy one. However it can be quite complicated to answer exactly. Posting too much on your business’s accounts may cause current or potential customers to feel overwhelmed. In contrast, not maintaining a social media presence at all may also cause customers to shy away. Because neither of those scenarios will benefit your business, how often is ideal? Luckily, studies have been conducted specific to each social media platform, in order to benefit business owners like you.
Data analyzed by Hubspot of 13,500 customers to decide what the sweet spot is. Their data showed that businesses with under 10,000 did not benefit from posting more than once per day. Instead, they noticed 50% fewer clicks when they did post more than once a day. When comparable businesses posted 1-5 times a month, they saw their customer engagement nearly double. Although it may seem beneficial to post more, Facebook’s algorithm prioritizes their users’ friends’ content over anything else, making it difficult to reach your target audience. For every additional post a business makes throughout the day causes organic reach to drop drastically.
In conclusion: Studies found it is best to keep to around one post per day, or five in a week (max).
Twitter works in different ways when compared to Facebook or Instagram. Twitter averages the lifetime of a tweet from 15-20 minutes, meaning after that time is up, your tweet is likely pushed to the bottom of your customers feed. It is best to tweet periodically throughout the day in order to stay on your targeted feeds. It is unlikely as a busy owner you have time to push out 10 tweets a day, so your posting strategy should depend on your business goals. Studies found that tweeting 1-5 times a day produced the best engagement rate.
In conclusion: Posting in the range of 1-5 tweets a day is your best bet for top engagement.
Posting on Instagram as a business is another platform that seems to depend on the size of your audience. Studies showed that businesses with smaller audiences were best off posting 1-2 times a day, but to start off posting once a day is plenty. On Instagram it is important to keep consistency. If your business is posting steadily at twice a day and shifts to once a week, it is likely you’ll lose followers.
In conclusion: Stay consistent with posting on Instagram. Posting 1-2 times a day is a good sweet spot.
LinkedIn recommends that businesses share around 20 posts per month, at around once per business day. LinkedIn is typically used during the week days, so sticking within them is beneficial. As LinkedIn is a Professional Site, it is important to keep your posts professional as well.
In conclusion: Share one (max 2) posts per day during the work week.
Social media is a huge part of our lives now, and it is important that businesses maintain a presence on each platform.
Keep in mind: What works for other businesses may not be the best for you. This is simply a guide based off of research, so if it doesn’t work for your business, it is best to try different strategies and note your engagement of each.