Whenever you post your content to social media only a fraction of your potential target audience will actually see your post. So it might be wise to post your content more than once. But, there is a difference between sharing your promotional content, curating content from other sources and sharing your valuable evergreen blog content. So, how often should you post to social media to get the most outreach and maximum engagement?
Before we dive into the specific frequency rules for each social network, let’s start with some general rules for sharing:
- If you have valuable content that will bring value to your audience, then share it.
- Never share the same content over and over again.
- Get the perfect content mix.
The Perfect Social Media Content Mix: the 5-3-2 Rule
In order to get the best content marketing mix, the key thing ist not to talk about yourself all the time, every day with every post. Social media is about networking and engaging, so make sure your content stream reflects that. Talking just about yourself and your products will turn people off from your brand.
This is where the 5 – 3 – 2 rule comes into play: With every 10 posts your should mix
- 5 pieces of curated content: This is content from other sources that is relevant to your audience, but it should also be connected to your topics
- 3 pieces of created content: This ist content you have created, that’s relevant to your audience.
- 2 pieces of personal content: This should be content that goves your brand a human touch. This can be fun and entertaining content or personal statements
Whenever you want to share something somewhere, allways make sure the content is relevant to your audience.
Posting Frequency: How Often To Post On Social Media
Every social network has different posting rules. For each social network there is an optimal frequency of posting for maximum engagement. This formula optimizes the ability to connect and engage with your followers. Exceeding this frequency may result in annoying and driving away followers. Figuring out what exact level of frequency is best for each network is deep science and requires a lot of experimentation. You will have to analyse your own results regularly to get a better grip of what is best for you. But to get a starting point you may refer to findings and recommendations based on other companies’ experience and analytics.
We have done a bunch of thorough research on the posting frequency based on more than 3000 active blogs and social media accounts. We cross-checked your results with resarch from several other valuable sources and proven social media experts. We have placed our results into several scheduling infographics. The infographics will help you to get a baseline for what might be best practice for your social media scheduling and makes the question of “how often to post to social media” better to grasp.
Please fee free to share the graphics to whoever you think may find them helpful.
So let us now take a look at the general posting frequency rules for the following social networks and then move on further to what is best for your blog content.
[Infographic]: How Often Should You Post on Social Media?
There are differences between the various social media networks. While it is ok, to post as many as 3 times per day on Twitter, to do the same thing on Facebook could become pretty annoying and will probably result in losing followers.
Share this image on your site!
Tipps for how often to share content on social media
Blogs: 6-8 posts per month
- Best blogging frequency is 6-8 times per month
- Companies that increase their blogging frequency to 6-8 times per month may double their leads.
- Best publishing days for corporate blogs are mondays, wednesdays and fridays, with an interaction peak on wednesdays
Twitter: 3 posts per day
- Best posting frequency is 3 posts per day, or more up to 20-40 posts, including RTs and replies
- Engagement decreases slightly after the third tweet.
- Please Note: For every 3 pieces of creative or promotional content post 5 pieces of curated content from other sources and 2 pieces of personal content (that can also be replies and RTs with personal comments)
- The best times for posting to Twitter are the morning hours from 8 a.m. – 10 a.m, middays from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m and after work from 4 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Facebook: 2 posts per day at most
- Best posting frequency is 2 posts per day
- Engagement decreases dramatically after the second post
- The best time for Facebook postings is in the afternoon from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. and in the evening from 6 p.m. – 10 p.m.
- Post also on weekends
LinkedIn: 1 post per day
- Best posting frequency is 1 posts per day and 20 posts per month
- Also post to groups regularly and engage with comments and replies
- The best time for LinkedIn postings is during office hours from 8 a.m. – 10 a.m. and in the afternoon from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Pinterest: 5 pins per day
- Best posting frequency is 5 posts per day and even more is ok
- The more you post, the more engagement you get
- The best times to post on Pinterest is around midday from 12 a.m. – 2 p.m. and in the evening from 7 p.m. – 10 p.m.
- Also post on weekends
Instagram: 1 posts per day
- Best posting frequency is 1-2 posts per day and even more is ok
- The more you post, the more engagement you get, but you have to keep up with your engagement
- The best times to post on Instagram is around midday from 12 a.m. – 2 p.m. and in the evening from 7 p.m. – 10 p.m.
Flickr: 1 post per day and more
- Best posting frequency is 1-20 images per day
- The best times to post on Flickr is in the early morning hours from 7 a.m. – 9 a.m. and in the evening from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Wrap up
As you can see, social media success requires consistent posting. Use these guidelines as a starting point for your own experiments and analytics. And please share your results and recommendations with us and with others. We’d be glad to know what works for you and what doesn’t.
Also read How Often To Share Your Blog Post on Social Media
Get the Complete Guide to Social Media sharing & Toolbox for free!
Social media is the most important source for driving traffic to a blog or website and generating reach. Readers and potential customers use social media channels to conduct targeted research, share information and discuss current topics.
Click here to get the Social Media Guide
Melanie Tamblé is co-founder and co-CEO of Adenion GmbH. She is an experienced expert in content marketing and social media.
Adenion GmbH specializes in online services and tools for bloggers, businesses and agencies of any size to support their online marketing and content seeding tasks on the web.
Blog2Social as WordPress Plugin and WebApp enable fast and easy auto-posting, scheduling and cross-promotion of blog posts, articles, links, images, videos and documents across multiple social media sites.
Social media posts will be automatically turned into a customized format for each social platform and auto-scheduled for the best time. Social media post can be previewed and tailored with individual post formats, images or personal comments – all in one easy step.