Social Media Frequency 2016: How often should you post.

Social Media Frequency: How much is too much and too little?

There is no definitive guide to social media post frequency. It depends – on what your audience is, your goals, and the results you get. This means that the only way to truly master it is to experiment, analyze your results and adjust accordingly. Yes, of course you can end up posting too much or too little to start with. But you'll learn quick. Each social platform has best practices for how often to posts, but there isn’t a specific number.

You'll see brands tweeting four times a day and see a lot of success, while you'll see users that tweet four times per hour, and swear by it. In order to figure out what works best for your business, you will need to experiment. Social media listening is key. Your audience will often tell you how much is too much or too little by way of their reactions. Measure and repeat what works. The trick is in finding a balance – between engaging and informative vs annoying and over bearing. Here are some best practices... (and a great infographic from buffer.)

Twitter – 3 times per day

Or more. Engagement drops off a bit after the third tweet of the day, but there are others who may suggest way more than that. But look at the Social Bakers chart below, and you'll notice that three is seemingly the magic number. Yet, other stats show that the more you tweet, your response numbers go up as well. All the way up to almost 50 tweets per day! Work with between three to five. Measure, and tailor to how you perform. Improve your performance on Twitter.

Facebook – 2 times per day. Max.

Most experts agree on this one. After twice a day, you'll see likes and comments and shares beginning to taper off. Top brands on Facebook post once per day. With constant algorithm changes some brands and agencies are now hedging and posting almost four times a day with organic posts. If you do have fresh, engagement ready content, you can post 3-4 times a day and get away with it. 

Google+  – 3 times per day. 

Google+ is an interesting platform. More is more here. The more often you post, the more activity you’ll get. Brands often see a positive correlation between frequency and engagement. Posting frequency drops result in engagement drops. But here again, there are different opinions. So, measure and repeat.

LinkedIn – 1 per day

The leading thought on this is 20 posts per month (which is about 1 post per weekday). This usually gives you about a 60% audience reach. This is what LinkedIn says anyway, so it is pretty much definitive.

Pinterest – 5 times per day

Successful brands on Pinterest usually get better engagement when they post multiple times a day. That's where they see maximum growth. 5 times a day is a pretty good place for brands to be.

Instagram – 2 times per day

Top brands average around 1.5 times a day of posting on Instagram, but you can do two ore more. The more appealing your visual, the more likely your success rate, so it depends on content, really. Note here, that unlike other platforms, an increase in the number of posts per day does not result in a drop off in engagement ratios. Have an interesting visual to post. Go ahead.

Snapchat – 1-5 times per day

Brands using the "stories" feature are usually posting around one story a day, because I guess they're still figuring out the fickle attention deprived audiences on Snapchat. The key is in building an audience. Here is how to build a successful Snapchat audience. Remember the 'life' of a 'story' is 24 hours. So frequency is key, or you just disappear from the top of mind framework. There are many ways to do this, including 'threading' multiple snaps to form stories, so there, frequency caps are unimportant.

Blog – 4-5 times per week

Brands that post on their blog page from 3-5 times a month see just half the amount of interest and lead generation than those that post 6 - 8 times. But it also depends on depends on your company size, industry, and sales strategy. And of course, the actual content and if it adds value and provides information, rather than just sell. On blogs, consistency matters. According to a HubSpot study, 75% of their blog views — and 90% of blog leads — came from older posts. This shows that relevant and sticky content can actually gain value over time. The rule of thumb on blogs? Your best option is to post around 15 times per month, or roughly four times a week.

YouTube – 1 time per week

Your goal with YouTube as a brand is to develop a subscriber base. A following. The main reason someone hits the subscribe button is because they admire the content uploaded by a brand and would want more. YouTube subscribers usually do not like channels that are not regular. Consistency is the key here to develop a long-lasting relationship with your existing subscribers and developing new ones. Compelling video content is your key.

Release your videos in a timely, recurring and structured fashion. Try to publish a video in a week or at least once or twice in a month. Stick to your schedule and do not upload videos as and when you feel like doing it, it will hurt your reputation. Whatever you do, make sure that your schedule is prominent and upload videos accordingly.

In conclusion, the above are just numbers we see from past brand experience. You'll have to learn from your own set of metrics after observing your performance over a couple of months. Don't change your frequency overnight, it takes a while for proper data to emerge on how your brand is faring. 

Every social network is different. Every brand is different. Every frequency pattern, should naturally be slightly different. That's not rocketsurgery.