High or Low: Post Frequency on Social Media

02.25.22

An image of several social media feeds and screens to demonstrate post frequency on social media

Scheduling social media varies depending on your industry, target audience and platform. Four out of five people surveyed have recently unfollowed a brand due to content clutter — showing that social media content must be consistent yet not overwhelming. Determining your own brand’s post frequency on social media often relies on understanding your audience’s behaviors, so your brand can connect with them better on their feeds.

How Often Should Your Brand Post?

There are many factors that impact post frequency on social media platforms. A survey by Hootsuite found audiences prefer a different number of posts depending on the platform they use. The survey discovered:

  • Instagram users prefer 3-7 times a week.
  • Facebook users prefer 1-2 times a day.
  • Twitter users prefer 1-5 times a day.
  • LinkedIn users prefer 1-5 times a day.

Based on this survey, Instagram users prefer their content spaced out while Twitter users may prefer a high frequency of posts each day. However, as the old saying goes: Quality over quantity. These survey results are an aggregate of multiple industries such as wellness products, influencers and more — some businesses may not need to post every day. At Paradigm, we recommend slimming down your post frequency depending on your industry category and your content resources. Tailored, quality content that informs, educates or engages will attract new audiences while keeping costs manageable.

Knowing overarching general preferences isn’t a cure-all solution. Every person is different, so experimenting with different posting frequencies is the best way to determine what resonates most with your key target audience. Your brand should also test different times of day on your platforms to see which is the most successful. For example, if your audience is made up of working professionals, they may be most active on social media during lunch hours or after their day at the office is over rather than the workday hours when they are likely to be busy.

Quick Tips for Social Media

Establishing your brand through social media marketing takes time and attention, but putting in the effort can grow your audience base and improve your company’s brand awareness. Here’s a few of our favorite tips to keep your social platforms up to today’s standards.

Utilize Perishable Posts

Feed posts on social media should be limited to avoid overwhelming your followers with your brand. On certain platforms, “perishable” posts are a popular way of keeping your audience up-to-date while avoiding oversaturated timelines. This type of content disappears after a limited amount of time. Unlike feed posts, perishable posts cannot be revisited by your audience — meaning there is a chance to reuse the content at a later date.

For example, Instagram and Facebook have a story feature that allows brands to post in incremental formats that disappear after 24 hours. These stories are great for fostering engagement via polls, questions, in-the-moment photos or videos as well as livestreams.

Plan your Posts

As a brand, your goal is to educate and engage consumers on social media. Creating a plan for specific post types ensures that your content is varied enough to captivate while still providing a sense of consistency to your followers. Each post should have a purpose, whether that’s encouraging comments or educating consumers on a relevant topic. Having a plan in place helps your socials stay organized and on task with the current trends.

Track Your Performance

Social media isn’t just throwing a post into the void — each post must be analyzed for key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs show the performance of your social media account over a span of time and provide insight into which type of content resonates the most with your audience. For example, engagement metrics show how often your followers interact with your content — whether that be through likes, reactions, comments or shares.

Tracking analytics each week helps a brand understand what content works for them and which direction to take their strategy in for the next round of content. Just because your plan originally had one type of content, such as quote graphics, doesn’t mean that it should continue if the analytics say otherwise.

Let’s Talk

Social media platforms exist as the realm of the unknown for many brands trying to establish their presence. Schedule a meeting with our team and we’ll help you find where your audience scrolls and how to capture their attention. Together, we’ll make sure you have the insights and strategy to increase your company’s following.