How often should I post on social media?

“How many times per week should I be posting on Instagram?” This is one of the most common questions we hear from clients about social media. First, it’s important to reflect on the whole purpose of managing a brand’s social media presence. Sydney, the co-founder of Two Step Social, is an excellent baker… let’s use the (unfortunately) imaginative “Sydney’s Sweets” bakery as an example for this article! Keep reading to learn how often to post on social media.

Purpose One: A Resource for Potential Customers

A primary reason to frequently post on social media is to offer resources to potential customers. People will almost always search for more information online to learn about a company and its offerings. The quality and frequency of your posts can determine whether a potential customer makes the next step to pay for a product/service, or skip over you due to a dormant social media presence. Suppose a customer is thinking about purchasing a wedding cake from Sydney’s Sweets – a perhaps multi-thousand dollar purchase! Posting pictures of beautiful, decadent wedding cakes for previous clients is major social proof, and it will definitely encourage the customer to further-research Sydney’s Sweets offerings.

Purpose Two: A Resource for Existing Customers

One reason to consistently post that is often overlooked is the searchability factor of social media platforms. This is especially important for small and medium sized businesses who have not yet ranked high for organic searches on engines like Google, Bing, etc. Suppose Sydney’s Sweets is located in the rural town of Fort Stockton, Texas, which is about 4 hours west of San Antonio in the middle of the West Texas, Chihuahuan desert. Unless Sydney’s Sweets has a massive SEO budget, its website simply will not rank high when a user searches “dessert in Fort Stockton” or “cakes West Texas”… UNLESS it has a social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, etc. A Facebook Page for a small business is often one of the highest-ranked links for keywords specific to a locale and industry. This alone is a great reason to manage a social media presence.

So, how many posts should I create per week?

It really depends, and to be honest, there is no correct answer. However, there are some guidelines that should be followed. At Cadenza Digital Marketing, we recommend no fewer than one per week, and no greater than one to two per day. Posting less than once per week can give users the impression that your business is dormant, or worse, out-of-business. Similarly, posting more than once per day can make your audience(s) annoyed by the frequency of your posts.

There is evidence to suggest that the platforms (Instagram, Facebook, etc.) will punish accounts/pages that post too frequently. In fact, Hubspot found that social media accounts with smaller audiences experienced a 50% drop in engagement when posting too frequently. This is partly due to the fact that if you post more than twice per day, platforms will always push your most recent post, effectively reducing the “lifespan” of the previous posts from the same day. In other words, people will skip over the earlier posts of the day. It is equally important to be consistent about posting. In other words, it is better to commit to posting three times per week than to post seven times one week and none the following week.

I don’t have time to create social media posts; can you do it for me?

Absolutely. Content creation is our most popular service for the reasons listed in this article. It is always a good time to start thinking about how you can improve your social media presence – we will walk you through the entire process.

Let’s talk about how we can create custom-branded, eye-appealing social media content for your business. Send us a message today so schedule a free social media strategy consultation!