How Often Should You Post on Social Media?

One of the most frequent questions we get asked is how often should businesses post on social media?

The short answer: There’s not a magic formula to social media success. How often you should post will depend on what platforms your audience are on, their schedules and the kind of content you’re posting.

For example, National Geographic post around 5-7 times a day on Instagram. They get on average more than 225k likes per posts at a 0.23% engagement rate. Whereas Nike who post a few times a month, get an average of 315k likes per post with a 0.38% engagement rate. Both profiles have found huge success despite having very different strategies!

Find out the average engagement rate of your own profile or influencers profile using our influencer marketing software

If what you’re posting is rubbish, it doesn’t matter whether you post once a day or thousands it won’t make a difference! However, you probably didn’t read this article to be told ‘it depends’ so we’ve done some research to discover on average how many times a week or a day you should be posting to each of your social media platforms. 

How often should you post on Instagram?

Once a day seems to be the general consensus.  Some studies even suggest that your following can grow by up to 56% by posting every day! 

Based on a number of studies, it seems that how often you post on Instagram doesn’t affect the visibility of your content. However, consistency does. 

“If you make a habit of posting several times a day and then transition to only a few times a week, you will start to lose followers and generate less engagement per post. This means that the best posting frequency for Instagram is the posting frequency that you can consistently maintain for the rest of your natural life.” states Social media pro, Neil Patel. 

Don’t forget about Instagram stories though! If you have less polished content, Insta stories can be a great way to show it off. Instagram stories can boost engagement without having to worry about things like maintaining a super polished aesthetic. Post as many or as few Insta stories as you want, however, remember that stories can be muted and if you spam your audience, they’ll probably get sick of them!

How often should you post on Facebook?

Once a day or less! If you have a large audience on Facebook you could probably get away with posting twice a day. However, posting more than twice a day doesn’t tend to lead to social media success. 

Reach on Facebook is significantly low these days. Remember, the type of content you post matters. For example, posting a video or live video will have much more impact than if you post a link to an article you’ve written.

Research from Social@Ogilvy found that for Facebook business pages with more than 500,000 Likes, organic reach was as low as 2% – and this was before the most recent algorithm update rolled out. It’s likely reached is even lower now! Success on Facebook isn’t impossible, great content is key!

Resource: Check out this blog on how to create social-first content! 

How often should you post on Twitter?

The average lifetime of a tweet is a mere 18 minutes! It is therefore essential that you post at least 10 or more tweets a day to ensure the highest reach of your content. However, if you haven’t got anything interesting to say, don’t just tweet for the sake of it.

Remember, not everything on Twitter has to be your own content. You can post useful articles, videos and tips from industry influencers or publications.

Resource: How to get more followers on Twitter 

How often should you post on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn itself recommends posting every business day on the platform. We’d say aim to post at least 3 times a week and no more than a couple of times a day! According to HubSpot, after posting more than once a day, engagement significantly drops.  

As discussed in our ‘when is the best time to post on social media’ blog,

Don’t underestimate the power of social selling. Social selling is a way of generating leads and increasing your sales opportunities – long term. Specifically, it’s about using social media for engagement and find potential prospects.

Webinar: Social selling on LinkedIn 

Posting on social media top tips: 

• Choose a routine, be consistent
• Think about your audience: when they are online? how often are they checking their social media profiles?
• Consider the timezones of your audience. If you have both EMEA & America wide audiences, you may want to post more frequently to ensure both timezones see your content
• Don’t post for the sake of it
• Consider the type of content you’re posting: for example, the Facebook algorithm likes video and thus video content will be more visible
• Consider what time you’re posting
• Always offer value!
• Create social-first content
• Optimise content for specific social media sites