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How Often Should I Post to Social Media?

You know your business needs to have a presence on social media but, frankly, it’s overwhelming. It’s hard to find the right balance on social media platforms between connecting with your audience and squandering time on posts that no one sees or cares about.

 

Social media can be extremely valuable to businesses, but it can also be a costly time sink that produces little. You don’t have enough time for social media efforts that don’t get results.

 

Part of the trick is to figure out just how much attention you should be giving each social media channel. While it’s hard to get straight answers about what to do on

social media, a number of businesses have conducted research to answer the question: how often should you post on social media?

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What the research says about how often to post on social media

Obviously, the answer will depend on which social media sites you’re active on. Here's how often you should post on the 5 major social media sites:

  • Facebook: Post 1-2 times per day. HubSpot’s research found that results varied based on how many followers you have. But for most brands, posting more than twice a day means you’re likely to see less engagement per post.

  • Twitter: Post 5-10 times a day. On the fast moving platform, more is generally better so you increase your chances of being seen. Try to spread your posts out across the day for maximum impact. On most days, users are most active between 8am and 4pm.

  • Pinterest: Post 5-30 pins a day. Buffer’s research suggests starting with 5 pins if you don’t have much content, but going up to as many as 30 if you can, as more pins lead to more exposure and engagement.

  • LinkedIn: Post 20 times per month, or about once per business day. LinkedIn’s research shows that, with that frequency, you should be able to reach 60% of your audience on the platform.

  • Instagram: Post 1-2 times per day. Union Metrics found that top-performing brands on Instagram post an average of 1.5 times a day.

So there you have it, the easy version of an answer to the question. But as you might expect, the fuller answer is a bit more complicated.

What That Means for Your Business

These answers, just like any piece of marketing research or advice you encounter, come with a big caveat: every business and audience are different. Best practices are never one size fits all. These numbers work best as a starting point when you’re developing your social media plan, but you need to carefully consider:

  • What you can realistically manage — Fewer, high-quality updates made consistently will generally get better results than a higher number of low-quality ones.

  • What your audience responds to — Pay attention to your social media analytics as you go and tweak your frequency based on what works.

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