This is How Often You Should Post to Social Media
Only two things matter
The only things that matter are regularity and value.
There’s endless advice out there. Posting daily, always having at least two things active on your ‘story’, making sure to use all of the newest features…
A lot of these things have good data behind them, but if you’re really wondering how often you should be posting to social media as a service-based business, this is for you.
Regularity
If your main business isn’t social media then your income doesn’t directly depend on the number of followers you have. Your business depends on how engaged the followers you have are, and how much they’re willing to trust you with their money.
Back in 2008, Wired editor Kevin Kelly made waves with his assertion that all people on the internet need is 1000 ‘true fans’. In a nutshell, if you have 1000 people paying you $100 per year, you have a six-figure business.
While, as a business, your target income might be much higher, or your ticket price different, the principle stands. What matters is the quality of the people that you’re reaching and what they think of you.
The people want dependability.
They want to see that you take things seriously and that you commit. It’s not glamorous but it’s true. If you look at a brand’s posting history and see that they posted three times this week, five times last month, had a break for 4 months and posted two things back in March… you’re not going to have a lot of confidence in their ability to deliver on their promises.
To a certain extent, we treat brands like we treat people. We look for clues as to their personality in everything that they do. Don’t underestimate the importance of showing up at a regular place and time. That way you come off as dependable. It’s simple.
What if you’re super inspired one week, or want to give the intern a project to do?
Inspiration is a fickle mistress, we all know that. She can’t necessarily be relied on to turn up 3 times a week at social-media posting time. But that’s ok.
The good news is there’s a new social media scheduler on the market every other week. A lot of them are available for just a few pounds/euros/dollars a month, or even have great free versions.
Get into the habit of writing posts in advance and scheduling them to go ‘live’ at your identified regular times. If you have a week of incredible inspiration, take advantage to buy future you time to be, well, uninspired.
Value
The other big thing that will turn your audience off is terrible posts.
When we talk about ‘value’ in digital marketing, we don’t mean monetary value (necessarily). We’re referring to the benefit that you’re providing to your audience, customer or lead.
For example, an accountancy company might send you a free ‘do it yourself’ tax guide. That creates value for their target market, because it’s something that they might want and be able to get a benefit from.
Giving away ‘free’ value is a way that brands build trust with their audience and encourage future action. Your social media is a perfect place to practice this, so make sure that your posts actually offer something that your target audience will connect to and appreciate.
Social media algorithms will penalise you for bad posts.
In general, platforms distribute content by first showing your post to a small sample audience of your followers. If it has a high engagement rate then it will roll that content out to a larger audience and so on. If it has a low engagement rate, it won’t. Simple.
Additionally, most platforms have a sort of ‘memory’ that tells them how successful they think your post will be based on previous ones. If you’re putting out content that’s all over the place, the terrible content with no engagement will dramatically reduce the value of your good content too. We don’t want that.
Valuable content isn’t that easy to create. Make sure you have a clear idea of what your target audience cares about, and then brainstorm the different ways you can cover those topics that are relevant to your brand. It might be hard at first, so make sure you choose a rhythm that allows you to deliver.
Put it all together
- When you’re trying to establish a rhythm for your social media posts as a service-based business, make sure that you create one that you can stick to without compromising on the quality of your content.
- Be realistic about where your target audience will be and use this to distribute your posting. You don’t need to be everywhere.
- It’s better to start off unambitiously and then build up the regularity of your posts as you gain confidence or increase your capacity.
- Take advantage of social media schedulers to plan for your worst week and build lasting relationships with your followers.
Following these tips will give you the answer to the not-quite age-old question of how often your brand should post on social media. With regular and valuable content you’ll build a much more engaged (and therefore valuable to you) audience than you would by following any ‘get followers quick’ guide.
