How often do I need to post to Facebook?

April 10, 2014

When it comes to determining how often you should be posting content on social media sites, the answer is different with each type of social media. As of January 2014, there were 128 million daily active users on Facebook in the U.S. Facebook is still ranked as the most popular social networking site, followed by Twitter and then LinkedIn.

Post Frequency

In a study by LikeAlyzer, the posting habits of 25,000 different Facebook pages were analyzed. Results showed that pages that post 1.5-2 posts per day engage twice as many users as those who post only once or twice per week.

Facebook rewards you for engagement, which means your content will be displayed higher up in the news feed if you have better engagement.

• User engagement develops affinity (more interaction with a page or person = more affinity). Affinity is one of the three factors used in the Facebook ranking system (EdgeRank) to decide how important an object or post is to each user.
• Weight is another factor EdgeRank considers. Photos and videos are given the highest weight, followed by links and then status updates. Comments also add weight to a post.
• The third factor is time, so the older a post is, the less likely it is to display in a news feed.

Posting two times per day may seem like a lot but this frequency can be beneficial to your business. Different users check Facebook at different times of the day, so by posting multiple times per day, you increase the chances of more people seeing your posts. Also, since time weighs into whether EdgeRank will display your post, strategically choosing times throughout the day to post will keep your content higher up. Even if the post is the best post ever, if it’s old, EdgeRank won’t show it to your followers.

Quantity vs. Quality

Remember that quality always wins over quantity. If you’re forcing out low quality content for the sake of posting twice a day, stop and rethink your strategy. The main goal is engagement. If you’re not posting sharable, quality content, your fans won’t engage with the content, which will lower your affinity score.

Get Personal

If you find your business is posting at the optimum frequency and time of day but is still not engaging users to the degree you desire, reevaluate your post content. Our content always does better if it’s personal. People like people. Personal interactions on Facebook are part of creating a healthy social media mix.

Can I post the same link on Facebook twice?

The quick answer is yes. If a certain link didn’t perform well the first time you posted it, you may want to consider posting it again. Review the time of day and the day of week you initially posted the link. Experiment with re-posting the link at a different time and day and then evaluate its performance. It’s hard to guarantee that a certain link will perform better the second time around but there’s no shame in testing it out.

Disclaimer: Have a Plan Before you Begin

Whether Facebook is a new medium for your business or a tool you’ve been using for a while now, it’s important to have well defined social media goals before you start worrying about how often you need to be posting. Most companies embark on their social media journey with a specific goal in mind: to gain more business. Figure out what you plan to gain from participating in social media and how you will measure and track the gain from the get-go. Consider that the more specific your goals are, the easier they will be to measure.

It’s also important to keep in mind that social media is only a piece of your marketing pie, not the whole thing. You social media message exposure is limited in comparison to other marketing techniques, such as direct email. If social media is the only platform your business uses to share a message, only a limited number of followers will be exposed to that message. Communicating with your audience using multiple forms of media tends to be the most successful because you are communicating with everyone in a way that they find most comfortable.