Marketing Question of the Week: How often should I be posting on social media for my business?

Much like the question of “Why are we here?”, it’s safe to say that there’s no definitive answer to this question of the week.

But unlike the headier question about our existence, there are some definite guidelines we suggest for posting on social media.

While guidelines vary depending on the platform, we’re going to stick with the suggested ones for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter - the social media trifecta that effectively blends work and play. It shouldn’t come as any big shock that much research has been done on this topic. So we’re going to distill it for you.

Facebook

The general rule of thumb is to post once per day to Facebook. Posting twice per day is considered a lot. Excessive even. And take the opportunity to curate or reshare and post every other day.

If you’re struggling to come up with that much content, you can go with three posts per week, but that’s considered by many as the bare minimum. And if you’re skipping days, make it week days. Weekends and evenings are when people are most active on Facebook.

And if your cup runneth over with content, try to keep your posts to a maximum of ten per week.

The best time to post to Facebook? Between the hours of 1-4pm.

LinkedIn

Like Facebook, posting once per day is recommended for LinkedIn. But since LinkedIn appeals more to the business community, the ideal posting time is between 10-11a.m. And weekends do not get as much traffic.

LinkedIn itself recommends about 20 posts per month - which averages out close to every business day.

Also like Facebook, the suggestion is to curate or reshare a post every other day.

Twitter

More than just a strange little bird, Twitter is another animal altogether. First of all, the recommended number of tweets per day varies from 5-20, with 15 being the standard. Most suggest that the tweeting begin at 2am each day (early even for a bird), with subsequent tweets every hour after that through 10 p.m.

You can skip the 4am., 5am, 8am, 4pm and 8pm time slots.

Twitter seems to flit back and forth between business and play, so some suggest keeping the tweeting heavier during the week days, but don’t underestimate the power of the weekends.

And retweet or curate 7 posts per day.

Feeling overwhelmed? No need. Put your social media needs into the hands of people who actually enjoy this line of work. Then you can go back to sharing squirrels on water skis on your personal page.