Sometimes it seems that keeping up with various social media postings has become a full-time job for small business owners: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ . . . and there’s a new platform every month (or at least it feels that way).

The thing is, though, posting regularly to social media is crucial to your company’s visibility. Social posts create awareness of your product or service, engagement with your audience, and increased traffic to your website and local business.

Your social media managers at 101 Management, Inc., will setup an optimal schedule for social media postings. This suggested schedule will be backed up by solid research on your brand and market, and will yield the most productive results.

It’s also important to note that there is such a thing as posting too frequently. If you’re blasting your audience with constant posts, you risk becoming a nuisance, and thus completely defeating your aim. For example, the hard-and-fast “rule” for Facebook postings has always been two posts per day. But that’s only true if you have an audience at least 10,000 followers, according to a study from Hubspot.com. Their research has revealed that if your following is smaller than that, posting twice a day will actually result in 50% fewer clicks per post.

Thus you must ask yourself, “Do I want more engagement per post or more clicks to my website?” As Forbes magazine explained in reporting on this survey, “[Twice-a-day posting] means that your total number of clicks will still be higher than if you were posting only a few times a week, but your engagement per post will be reduced. Conversely, if you post a mere 1-5 times a month, your clicks per post will almost double. This is one of the fastest ways to get more traffic to your site.”

So you see, optimal post frequency depends on many factors.

Another such factor is content. According to new research by professors from Wharton, Carnegie Mellon, and Stanford universities, successful Facebook posts should contain content that is “emotional, funny, or shares a surprising or remarkable fact.” These characteristics, which they called “brand personality content,” should be included in posts containing directly informative content (sales, discounts, promos, etc.); otherwise the latter type of posts won’t generate significant user engagement.

Finally, they caution posters not to expect much user engagement with holiday posts, because consumers are deluged with such posts preceding holidays; however, such posts do generate clicks because shoppers are on the hunt for holiday bargains.

So what is the best frequency for social media posts? If you have quality content, here are the recommendations from 101 Management, Inc.

  • Facebook: 1 post per day
  • Instagram: 1- 2 posts per day
  • LinkedIn: 1 post per day maximum or 3 times per week
  • Twitter: 10-15 tweets per day
  • Pinterest: 10 pins per day
  • Google+: don’t bother

*Note: This differs for each brand and market, and should be based on the number of fans your have. These stats are for most brands with 1K or more fans. As to timing, this depends on your fans and when they are most likely to be online. You can find this information within the analytics section of each platform.

Again, we want to emphasize quality over quantity ALWAYS! If you find yourself posting just to post, you’ll quickly lose your readers.

What do we mean by quality? It differs for each brand, but in general, think of what you find most interesting or engaging in social media posts you receive. Conversely, what posts do you receive that leave you feeling “meh” or even mildly irritated that you bothered to click on them? Try to ferret out what each type has in common and incorporate the good features into your own.

As always, if you have any questions about marketing your brand on social media, check with your experts at 101 Management, Inc.