How to Decide on a Social Media Schedule

Do you know that by following the correct social media scheduling you can get a whopping 192% more traffic from your social media posts? Yes, we know how unbelievable that sounds, but that’s the truth – tried and tested. Unfortunately, many businesses employing social media in their marketing strategy are not doing it right.

That being said, here are a couple of things to keep in mind when scheduling your content on social media. Whether your aim is to improve your engagement, increase your followers, or boost brand awareness, these tips might give you a good place to start.

Find out which platforms allow for more sharing

Some social media platforms allow you to publish posts more than others without annoying your followers. But first, you have to find out the generally acceptable rules for each network. For instance, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram are some of the networks you can publish content more often daily as opposed to Facebook and LinkedIn.

Below shows how often you should post on social media. You can use it as a starting point to see which one will work best for you.

• Pinterest – 5 to 9 pins a day. Famous brands post multiple times to gain higher engagement and faster growth. Pinterest is a high-volume, high-value network which means you can post as much as you want and still receive a higher engagement rate.
• Twitter – 3 to 15 tweets a day. After the third tweet, you are likely to experience a slight decrease in your engagement. Twitter is a high-volume but low-value network which means you can post a lot because it is always active.
• Facebook – 2 to 3 posts a day. Likes and comments often drop off after the second post. As a low-volume but high-value network, it isn’t ideal to post too much on Facebook, or else you run the risk of being spammy.
• Instagram -1 to 2 posts a day. But you can share as many as you want as long as you can keep up the rate of posting.
• LinkedIn – 1 to 2 updates a day. To reach 60% of your audience, post once every work day. Linked is also a low-volume but high-value network so you will want to avoid sharing too many updates. And because most of its users are professionals, make the most of the work week.

Take note: While these findings are carefully researched, your strategy should not merely rely on what the average marketers are doing. As with any marketing techniques, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Explore peak social sharing frequency

Understanding the peak hours or when your audience is most active is an excellent step to get your content out when your consumers need them. Not to mention, it’s the easiest way to improve traffic, shares, engagement and brand awareness.

But the question is how do you determine the peak hours? Many businesses conduct their social media activities on work days during business hours – that is from Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm – and experiment which day and time perform well.

On an average, these are the considered peak hours for the following networks:

• Pinterest – Spread out throughout the day
• Twitter – About once an hour during business hours
• Facebook – 1 to 4 pm
• Instagram – 8 to 9 am
• LinkedIn – 10 to 11 am

You have to bear in mind that your schedule will all depend on your audience and when you think you can get more exposure for your posts. A great social media strategy will involve continually checking on when your audience is most active. Once again, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and some businesses might find that their audience is active at different times.

Figure out how often people are talking about you

More often than not, it pays to know how often your audience is talking about your brand. This will give you an idea and determine whether you can keep up with the pace. You can start by searching for posts or hashtags that have mentioned your business. Then find out how many posts per week are going out. Audience behaviors are useful tools to help you make some strategic decisions.

Test, test, test

Examine a variety of posting frequencies. You will want to test different days of the week and different times of the day. This will help you figure out when your content gets the best result.

In line with that, most networks have handy analytics tools which help you understand how your posts are performing on a daily basis. It will also show you when your engagement is increasing or decreasing depending on how frequently you post. Using the network’s analytics, you can pick the frequencies that offer the best outcome.

Now you’ve got what you need, it’s time to pull your schedule together!