Constant email marketing, sms marketing, sales calls and now even social media has become a spammers paradise and we all hate spam! No one wants to be ‘that friend’ who constantly posts on social media and you definitely don’t want to be the business that does it either! So the question is… how often should I post on social media? This question is posed by individuals from a personal as well as a business standing, pretty frequently.

The rules of engagement vary from platform to platform. Each social network has a posting frequency that is generally accepted by the users. Speaking from a brand-centric perspective, adhering to that posting frequency will help your business better connect with its audience.

However, if you don’t understand how often you should post on social media, your brand’s following could fall faster than the Pound did post Brexit. Understanding what the correct posting frequency is for each network is almost a science. The following is a guideline to how frequently you should post on some of the more popular social media platforms.

Facebook

Considering the fact that Facebook is the most powerful social media platform on the market, your posting frequency is vital to your brand’s engagement with your audience. There is a direct correlation between how long a post lingers in your timeline and engagement. During the week you should post once or twice per day and on weekends, don’t exceed posting more than once if it can be helped.

Twitter

Unlike Facebook, Twitter will not filter out your posts, so the lifespan of your tweet to be a lot shorter than other social networks. This means that you have more freedom to reach out to your fans – highly useful for bolstering your audience-brand connection. You can tweet up to 30 times per day for maximum results, however –  the tweets that will render the best performance would sit in your first five region. The short lifespan of your tweet makes it hard for the tweeter to be viewed as spamming.

LinkedIn

According to LinkedIn, you should post about 20 times per month and your posts should only go out on weekdays. That works out to about one post per week day. This approach makes sense due to the professional nature of the platform. Most users will take a break from LinkedIn on the weekends.

Instagram

It’s an unwritten rule that brands should not publish more than 1 picture per day. So, you should try to not post more than 7 per week. It’s not a major train-smash if you exceed that, say for an event or a special occasion, but rather play it safe and adhere to the platform’s norm.

The most accurate assessment of posting frequency is to experiment and also to pay attention to your analytics. Once you understand how often you should post on social media, you will be a step closer to achieving that desired level of engagement.