Figuring Out How Often You Should Post to Social Media
Do you ever ask yourself “How often should I post to social media?”
The term the social media industry often uses is frequency, and it concerns how often and what you post on social media.
When I start working with new clients, whether nonprofit or small businesses, they often have a very specific idea for how often they should post on social media. And they come to me because their original plan isn’t working out. Either they don’t have enough content, or they post too much and turn off followers, or something else entirely.
So before we get started, I want to make something very clear:
No right answer to the question of “How Often Should I Post to My Social Media Channels?” comes out of the box.
Raise your hand if you've thought of any of these things:
"Everyone I know posts daily/multiple times per day, so I guess we will too."
"My biggest competitor posts X times per day, so we will too."
"My favorite creator says that she posts daily without fail, and I'll make more money if I do that, so that's what I'm doing."
While all of these could be great starting points, there are better answers - ones that are based on the reality of your nonprofit or your business.
Four Factors to Answer “How Often Should I Post to Social Media?”
Whether you are starting, relaunching, or even just recalibrating your social program, there are four factors I like to look at when answering this question with my clients:
Your goals:
Are your goals to gain or grow your audience? What about further finding new clients? If growth is your goal, consider upping your social posting frequency.
If it's not growth you want, but to maintain awareness to your existing user base, consider posting less - but engaging more.*
Your audience:
What does your audience need? Are they on social all day long, every day? Or do they check the platform a few times a week?
Factor in how your audience behaves - and what they may tolerate. You can even ask yourself: What might your ballpark number of posts per week look like from our audiences' perspective?
Your channels:
Are you on Instagram? Threads? Still hoping Twitter will change? Working with Facebook? Or are you using LinkedIn? Or Pinterest?
Think about the platform, how most people (specifically your audience) use it, and how frequently. You can ask yourself: What might a ballpark of posts per week on EACH CHANNEL look like?
Your capacity, or your organization's capacity:
You need to consider the time it takes to assemble content. How much time do you have to post, monitor, and engage?
If you don't have much time, you may need to be on the LOW end of the posting scale. You can post more frequently if you have a lot of time - or if social is your job's main (50% or MORE) focus.
You can also work with someone- a social media manager, a social strategist (like me), or another type of freelancer - to help with your content development if your goals exceed your capacity.
However, no matter how good a content developer they are, you will still have to give them stuff to work with.
Finally, a note on the capacity for my small teams and organizational friends:
If you are not the only person coming up with your content or rely on other people for data and knowledge, you need to consider how fast your organization moves or your organizational capacity when considering your posting frequency.
And then, as with all things, start on the slower end and scale up. This gives you room to grow.
