How often should I post on social media?

I have run several social media workshops over the last few years and at each one I can guarantee this question is asked and it's a really hard one to answer as there is no one size fits all answer. In my opinion it really depends on your business, but I would suggest that if you have a social media account set up and you have not posted on them in the last month, then you should think about why and ask yourself these questions:

Am I too busy?
Am I not sure what to say?
Am I not sure what I'm doing?
Is this the right platform?

Think about your existing and potential customers and clients, who they are, what social media platforms they are using and how often. This should give you an idea of where you should be concentrating your time and effort. I appreciate some of you may be solopreneurs and not have a team behind you or a marketing department therefore your time is even more precious.

I recently spoke with a solopreneur who has decided to close her Facebook page and concentrate purely on LinkedIn because she has realised that her potential clients were not using Facebook as much as they are LinkedIn. She was finding posting to both too time consuming so she took the plunge and closed her Facebook Page. A bold move and not one I initially agreed with, but the more we talked and I learnt about her available time and where she wants to take her business, I could see this was right for her, right now.

I would say posting to your accounts at least once a week is the minimum and on average my management clients like to post two to three times a week. It's definitely quality over quantity in my mind and you don't want to just be posting for the sake of it or to reach a quota for the week or month.

If you wish to post daily or several times a day you will need to make sure the content is structured, varied and planned in advance. Having a social media content planner with colour coded keys relevant to your business and industry and populated with relevant internal and external key dates will definitely help.

Scheduling posts in advance can not only be more productive and save time but also provide more structure to how often and when posts are being published. Some of the most popular scheduling tools are Buffer, Hootsuite & Sprout Social to name a few.

If you are not sure what to post, a good starting point is the 80% beneficial / 20% sales content ratio. In other words this is suggesting that each, or most, posts should contain 80% of helpful and useful information that would benefit the audience and then just 20% of what you are selling and a call to action.

Not every post will be suitable for every platform you have or need to be published at the same time either. Think before you post. Is this content relevant for this platform? When is my target audience online?

Okay so let's just take a minute to run through my checklist:

If you would like any further advice or are interested in having a chat, please get in touch.