How Often Should I Post on Social Media?
/
Photo by whitney young
As a social media strategist, one of the most common questions I get is, “How often should I be posting on social media?” Like many things in social media, the answer starts with “it depends.” It’s also evolved over the past few years as the social media landscape continues to change rapidly. Last year, I wrote about where to invest your time and effort on social media. But once you’ve decided which platforms to focus on, how do you figure out how much to post? As is often the case, quality is more important than quantity–but there are other factors at play too. Without further ado, let’s dive into social media posting frequency!
Instagram has changed a lot over the years; most recently, it’s begun favoring Reels (short-form video content) over static, in-feed posts. I typically recommend folks post 3-4 times per week on Instagram, and at least one of those posts should be a Reel.
Stories continue to be utilized more and more heavily by Instagram users, so try to post there daily if you can! Typically Stories are less curated and more informal, so keep it simple and easy. Posting more than once a day on Instagram is not necessary, as you may oversaturate your audience and your engagement rate may decline.
Like Instagram, ROI declines if you post more than once a day, so generally it’s not worth trying to post twice a day or more. For Facebook I also recommend posting 3-4 times per week. Over the past several years, organic reach has continued to decline on Facebook. Businesses struggle to reach their followers, and only a sliver of them see the content you post. It helps to run ads (that’s what Facebook wants you to do), but I’d encourage folks to consider putting less effort into Facebook.
While Facebook is still a helpful platform to maintain a presence on, it’s no longer the be-all, end-all of social media platforms. It’s okay to link it to your Instagram account to your Facebook account and let it fly. I appreciated this article from a higher ed marketer about quiet quitting Facebook. It’s okay to disengage from some of these anchor platforms and to invest more effort into other platforms where you may see more ROI!
I was an early adopter of Twitter, but left the platform in 2021 after increasing toxicity started getting under my skin far too often. With Elon Musk at the helm, that toxicity, along with blatant misinformation, seems to be on the rise even more. Additionally, there are many safety concerns with so many staff having been laid off and not enough engineers remaining to keep running the site smoothly and securely.
As a social media strategist, I always found Twitter to be one of the highest effort platforms with some of the lowest ROI. You typically have to tweet at least daily, or ideally 3-4 times per day. That’s a ton of work! Twitter tends to be the most useful for journalists, politicians, and writers, so if you’re not one of those, and you have concerns about toxicity, misinformation, or security, it’s okay to move on from the platform.
TikTok
Last year I blogged about TikTok posting times and frequency, recommending posting once a day and working your way up to 3 times a day. Social media platforms are always changing, though! Now, I’d say posting once a day is great, and you can aim to work up to twice a day if you have the bandwidth.
Some folks say that if you post too often, TikTok may flag you in the algorithm, so they recommend posting at least eight hours apart if you’re posting multiple times per day. With TikTok, I’d also encourage you to remember that you don’t need to try too hard! Often it’s the content you put the least effort into that performs the best. If you’re posting daily, aim for 4 easy videos per week (text on a screen with a trending sound) and 3 videos that you invest more effort into. Assess how they perform and adjust accordingly! For more ideas on types of videos to make on TikTok, check out this blog post.
Find more social media insights (and fantastic TikToks) in my unboring email newsletter!
