This is an update from a blog originally published on April 9, 2019.
We are at the start of a new decade, and social media has become the standard tool for business-to-business and business-to-consumer connections. While the social media landscape is more crowded than ever, it has never been more important for brands to have an optimized presence on their target platforms. However, you don’t want your brand messaging to bombard the news feeds of your followers and potential customers. There is nothing worse than when a business’s online presence comes off as distant and sales-y — more often than not, you’re turning potential customers off by over-posting.
While posting on social media may seem like a simple concept — share and get instant exposure — it can be incredibly complex if you’re using it as a tool to deliver on measurable business goals. Whether you are measuring engagement, sales or traffic, you need to have a solid strategy in place with KPI’s.
Why use social media for business? How often should you post on social media? What is the best day of the week you should be posting on social media? When is the best time to post on social media? These are all questions that have custom answers depending on your business and the answers should be factored into your social strategy.
How Often Should You Be Posting On Social Platforms?
According to internet statistics database Statista, Facebook has nearly 2.5 billion monthly active users on its platform worldwide. While the massive audience alone is why you should use social media marketing for a small business, if you find yourself asking How many Facebook posts per day is too many? you are probably posting too much as it is actually better to do less on social media. We recommend our clients to publish only 1-2 posts per week, putting more focus on strategy, quality and advertising.
According to a Hubspot study, companies that post much more than 1-5 times a month on Facebook saw their engagement decline by 60%. The takeaway: quality trumps quantity on social media. Focus on producing attractive, specific and uniquely branded content to get your customers excited about your posts. The same can be said with Instagram, although the existence of a 500M+ daily active user rate on Stories and the ability to go live in the palm of your customer’s hands presents a different marketing opportunity for companies that wish to go this route.
When Should You Post?
Posting on social media for business is one of the best tools you can use as a means of free advertising. Understanding how much you should post and when you should post can take you to the next level. We’ve established that it is best to make fewer, targeted posts compared to multiple posts that may not resonate with your audience. But when should you post?
The first thing you will want to do is analyze data based on how your audience behaves online. You can obtain this information from the Facebook Business Insights, Instagram Analytics and Twitter Analytics dashboards your brand business account uses. If you are using a publishing or managing platform like Sprout or Hootsuite, there is often an analytics or reporting tab you can look at. Additionally, publishing platforms may select an optimized time for you to post that is determined by when your followers are engaging on social media.
If you don’t have the audience to analyze data from (yet!), Hootsuite took a study of 300 different brands and found the following for B2B brands:
- The best day to post is on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.
- The best time of the day to post is between 9 am and 2 pm.
- The best day to post is on Monday or Thursday.
- The best time of the day to post is between 9 am and 4 pm.
- The best day to post is Monday through Friday.
- The best time of the day to post is between 12 pm and 1 pm.
- The best day to post is on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.
- The best time of the day to post is between 9 am and 2 pm.
When developing a social media strategy, it can be difficult to come up with social media post ideas for a business. While growing your social media presence as a small business can be difficult, there are a few tactics to gain an audience. Reposting User Generated Content (UGC) on your profile is a great way to interact with your audience if you tag the user who took the photo. Another way to engage your audience is to do a giveaway of your product or service. You can encourage people to submit an entry by leaving a comment on the post and tagging friends, generating more traffic to your page and providing an incentive for your followers.
Takeaways
- Before developing a posting strategy, analyze your audience’s engagement rates.
- Each social media platform has a different time and day for optimal posting.
- Quality and strategic posts will engage your audience
- Engage and grow your audience by reposting UGC or having giveaways.
Contact our Experts!
If you’re looking for help growing your social media presence, contact the experts at Ballantine to get a handcrafted and analytical social media strategy for your business. Our team is constantly on top of social media trends and the changes that happen day-to-day within the industry.
How Often to Post on Social Media for Business in 2019
The Social Landscape in 2019
The social media scene is more crowded than ever, and it’s vital for brands to have a strong presence on the platforms that make sense for them. However, you don’t want your brand messaging to over-populate and pollute news feeds. There is nothing worse for your business’s online presence than coming off overly eager and salesy.
While posting on social media may seem like a simple concept — share and get instant exposure — it can be incredibly complex if you’re using it as a tool to deliver on measurable business goals. Whether you are measuring engagement, sales, or traffic, you need to have a solid strategy in place with KPI’s.
When should you post on social media? How often should you post on social media? What should you be posting on social media? What’s the best time to post on social media? These are all questions that have custom answers depending on your business — and should be factored into your social strategy.
How Often Should You Be Posting On Social Platforms?
Your social media posting frequency shouldn’t be overwhelming, and it shouldn’t be fluffy. Think about it this way: you shouldn’t be posting just to prove that you have a presence. It is always better to have no presence than to have a negative, dated or out-of-touch existence on social media. If you’re wondering how often to post on Instagram, Facebook, or any other social platform, note that it may actually be better to do less on social.
You can actively see brands that used to post 3-4 times per day on social media a few years ago, now only post a few times a week on select platforms. This isn’t a slip; it’s part of a strategic social schedule.
Hubspot tested Facebook data from over 13,500 customers and found that brands who posted on social media 1-5 times per month saw their engagement almost double! It’s also important to note which networks you should be on. Depending on your business, you should identify which networks will resonate the most with your current and target audience.
Quality Over Quantity
You need to think of social media as a competition. Are you producing meaningful content better than your competition is? Are you bringing value to your consumer? Is your post just adding more noise to an already saturated social landscape? While no one wants to think that their posts are just scrolled past, the average person scrolls through 300 feet of social media a day! Not to mention that on average, businesses spend between $200 and $350 per day on social media marketing. That’s a lot of noise.
The only way to stand out against the noise is to create truly premium content. Ask your audience what they want to see and then deliver it. Focusing on the number of posts you create will make people unfollow you, but emphasizing quality content will make your page stand out. Think about how difficult it is to get someone to stop their incessant (and sometimes mindless) scrolling on a social media platform to view your content — you’ve got to create a post that speaks up.
Standing Out Through the Noise
Now more than ever, it is important to have a solid social media strategy and understand what you are trying to get out of each platform. Social media has completely changed over the past few years, so it is important to evolve with the landscape. Don’t let your business fall behind. Contact the experts at Ballantine to get a hand crafted and analytical social media strategy for your business. Our team is constantly on top of social media trends and the changes that happen day-to-day within the industry.
I'm the Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine, a family-owned and operated direct mail & digital marketing company based in New Jersey. and started in 1966 by my great uncle!
