Optimize Social Media Post Frequency
Knowing when to post on your social media accounts is just as important as knowing what to post if you hope to attract lots of viewers.
Optimizing post frequency is both an art and a science. And here again, each form of social media boasts an individual set of best practices. On Facebook, for instance, some studies indicate that posting once every two days generates an optimal number of likes. The likelihood of your material being shared is usually highest during weekends. Based on Facebook’s user usage, the best times to post seem to be around noon and just after 7 p.m. To read more about optimum times of day to tweet, read this article from BufferSocial with information from “The Biggest Social Media Study: What 4.8 Million Tweets Say About the Best Time to Tweet.”
Not so on Twitter, where the faster-paced consumer environment demands no less than one, no more than four posts an hour. The best time for posting on Twitter? Research varies, but the following “sweet spots” recur in many studies: 8 a.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m., and — surprisingly — 9 p.m. (for the late night crowd).
The times we just mentioned should be regarded as “ish,” meaning you don’t have to nail the hour, you just have to catch people going to work (around 8 am), slacking off work (around 3 p.m.), leaving work (around 5 p.m.) and settling in for the night (around 9 p.m.) A few Twitter studies also say that late in the day, and days that fall later in the week are the best times to realize engagement and retweets.
Clearly, these are just reference points. It’s important to remember that everyone’s circumstances and goals are different. For this reason, we at Stern Inbound Marketing start with the best practices mentioned above, then gradually tailor each of our client’s marketing campaigns by closely studying key social metrics –– the number of shares and likes, the number of actual leads generated, click through rates, etc. In other words, we test and retest your enterprise’s campaign settings to see what generates the most consumer interaction (see Part Four of this series, which offers hints on how to test the efficacy of your social media campaigns).
It’s also important to remember that one person’s four tweets an hour can look like another person’s version of social media spamming. The golden rule, therefore, is this: experiment with your social media accounts and find the balance that’s best for your enterprise. The best way to turn spam into meaningful engagement is to learn more about your subscriber base and give them what they like to consume at the times they prefer to consume it.
By the way, for those of you shaking your head at all this, we at Stern Inbound Marketing remind you that social media dashboards exist. Online tools such as Hootsuite are often free (pro versions are reasonably priced). They drastically improve the manpower you put behind your social media campaigns by granting you oversight over your entire social media universe while also empowering you to pre-script material for scheduled posting.
If you’re dead set on optimizing your social media without the help of experts, we at Stern Inbound Marketing seriously advocate that you learn and leverage such platforms.
And of course this goes without saying: if you’re ever inclined to have a pro handle your social media campaigns for you, contact Stern Inbound Marketing right away. Our proven expertise in online media, lead generation, and social media optimization can help your company grow — and we can begin that growth today.
When you’re ready to continue . . .