Dear Socially Stephanie,
I'm afraid of scaring my fans away. How often should I be posting on each network? Do you have any advice?
Shy in Charlotte
Dear Shy in Charlotte,
It's a good thing that you reached out to me. Why, you ask? Because I am going to rub some confidence off on you and bear hug those shy genes right out of you. Yes, all we need is a little tenderness and I'm going to give it to you.
Before we get too deep into the stats, data and analytics, I want to remind you of one thing. Your goal is to sell more. It's not to make friends or be popular even though if you have the right message and a great product you will become both of those things. Your goal is to sell more. You want that cash register ringing. It's a beautiful sound. Can you hear it?
Picturing those dollar dollar bills? Good. Now I want you to repeat after me.
"Anyone I annoy is probably not a buyer anyway."
Nice job! I'm proud of you, you rock star, you!
Now let's dive in and talk numbers. First of all, what kind of business are you? A brand or a media? Each of these have different approaches to their presence online. A media company or a blogger should post more often across the board than a brand. Why? Because you have more unique content to share. Media companies are in the business of creating content.
Now, let's talk about regular businesses, like yours. Your posting strategy will vary from network to network. So let's talk Facebook first. On Facebook, you should be posting daily IF you have something interesting to share. Posting more often than that can decrease your engagement from post to post. As a general rule of thumb, stick to no more than one great post per day. And don't fall below once or twice per week as you can really lose that connection between your fans and your business.
Twitter is a completely different game. The more the merrier here. In fact, I recommend anywhere from 5-10 posts per day and that doesn't include the engagement tweets. Engagement tweets are those where you are talking to people and building relationships with them. Of course, you won't want to tweet all ten or twenty right in a row, that wouldn't be effective. Space them out throughout the day and think about when your customers are spending time online. The businesses that see the best results are those who curate and create content to share.
Let's talk visual social networks next. Pinterest and Instagram are extremely effective social networks if you have a lifestyle brand. I love both of these networks and find myself engaging with more content on them than any other network. You should be pinning three to five pins per day. You can of course go deeper and further, but this is a good baseline. On Instagram, space it out and if you can post two to three times per day you will see a growth in your followers fast.
Remember, content comes first here. What you share has to communicate You are never going to reach all your fans on any given day, so diversify your content, share smartly, share often, measure and reassess. Don't be afraid of the haters, because as Taylor Swift says, "Haters gonna hate. Hate. Hate." Yup, I went there.
Good luck!
Socially,
Stephanie
Do you have a question for Socially Stephanie?
Please email [email protected] and let Stephanie help you solve your social quandaries, queries, and boondoggles. (Questions may be edited for length and clarity.)
Socially Stephanie is a column for Social Media Today published every other Friday.