How Often Should I Post on Social Media?
This is one of the questions I get asked the most by small business owners and entrepreneurs.
The answer, as it is so frequently, is: it depends.
It depends on the platform. It depends on your business goals.
Table of Contents
How often should I post on Google My Business
How often should I post on Instagram
How often should I post on TikTok
How often should I post on Facebook
How often should I post on X/Twitter
How often should I post on Google My Business?
Post at least once per quarter on Google My Business.
Google My Business is, for my money, underrated, especially for brick-and-mortar small businesses, like wineries and restaurants.
Google My Business is often the first thing prospective customers see when they search for your brand name. In my experience, entrepreneurs know Google is important, yet spend more time focusing on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Posting regularly on Google My Business not only gives your prospective and current customers handy info about promos and operating hours, it also improves your website’s search engine ranking (including in the Google Maps search).
If you are able, post once per week in Google My Business. But chances are you’re a busy entrepreneur, so try to post at least quarterly, including updating your business hours, indicating which holidays you are open, and adding new videos and photos.
Customers are 70% more likely to visit businesses with completed GMB profiles.
How often should I post on Instagram?
Post at least once per day on Instagram, whether Stories, Posts, Threads or Reels.
Each channel on Instagram has its own algorithm, and each algorithm prioritises rankings differently.
Each Instagram channel also has its own number of users. About 500 million people watch Instagram Stories daily while Instagram Threads has over 15 million users.
Instagram’s Adam Mosseri recommends posting two Stories (the circle things at the top of your app) per day while Hootsuite recommends three to five Posts (the square things on your feed) per week.
Why?
Instagram Stories are flashes in the pan lasting only 24 hours (like Snapchat), while Posts live forever (like on TikTok or LinkedIn). The algorithm prioritises Stories based on your engagement with those brands or people.
This is why I caution my entrepreneur friends on using Instagram. It’s a powerful platform when used right, but it gobbles through content, and your content needs to be visual. You better be handy with a camera or Canva to create the amount of visual content it requires.
That said, Instagram is a no-brainer for restaurant owners. Good Robot’s beer gardens leverage Stories daily to inform guests if we are open (weather dependent) while Posts are used for ongoing product and promotional content.
How often should I post on TikTok?
Post as much as possible on TikTok.
As a millennial marketer with the brain of a boomer, I’m simply too slow for TikTok.
Nor can, nor should, many of my fellow entrepreneurs or small business owners. You are probably too busy to do it yourself.
TikTok is hard to master. What trends on the platform changes rapidly. It’s not nearly as popular as Instagram, YouTube or Facebook. And the more you post on TikTok, the more likely you are to get in front of an audience. So you must post frequently, ideally daily or more.
All of that said, it is an impressive platform, especially for product marketers and DTC businesses. I can’t count the amount of impulse-buys, especially sandals and jewellery, my friends have succumbed to on TikTok.
If you sell products online, or if you’re a fast and effective content creator, TikTok is worth considering. Just make sure you know what you’re doing. If you don’t, may I recommend starting with Facebook?
How often should I post on Facebook?
Post at least once per day on Facebook.
Full disclosure: I like Facebook. Historically, I’ve done well with it, probably because of its heavy emphasis on copy. (I’m a better writer than photographer.)
Like Instagram, Facebook has Stories and Posts. And like Instagram, Stories are good for flash-in-the-pan announcements while Posts are evergreen.
Facebook is the third-most-visited website. So, your Feed will be competitive.
For brick and mortar businesses, Facebook could simply be used to update your hours and specials. While it won’t turn you into a Facebook superstar, it will let prospects who use the third-most-visited site in the world to see that you are open for business.
There are myriad music venues, for example, that simply use Facebook to share event posters. The posts rarely perform well. But just because a user doesn’t interact with a post doesn’t mean that user won’t visit that venue.
I recommend taking a page out of Ross Simmonds’ book: leverage Facebook Groups. Find Groups (effectively, niches) that have a problem you can solve, and share content in those groups. For example, if you host a trivia night at your taproom, in addition to posting about it, share it in a local Facebook Group for trivia enthusiasts.
This Facebook Post from The Marquee Ballroom in Halifax generated very little reach or engagement, yet the event sold out.
How often should I post on X/Twitter?
Post two-three times per day on X/Twitter.
Like TikTok, Twitter is a content-machine. Its design intent was for conversations and news bites.
Some argue that quantity matters more than quality on Twitter.
The good news: scheduling Tweets is easy. They don’t require visuals and they are short.
Why, you could take this blog post and probably turn it into 10 to 20 Tweets. Even this section could be turned into a handful of Tweets:
Twitter is a content machine.
When it comes to Twitter, quantity > quality.
Want to know how to generate 40 Tweets from one blog post? Check out my latest blog post.
One blog post = 10-20 Tweets.
How often should I post on LinkedIn?
Post at least once per week on LinkedIn.
If Facebook is an old man on a porch, then LinkedIn is sippin’ whiskey right next to him.
Besides YouTube, LinkedIn is currently my personal favourite social medium.
Like Facebook, many people sleep on LinkedIn because they see it as an online resume (fair point). As a platform, however, it cycles content through feeds for long periods of time. This means you can post less quantity and more quality content.
It’s also a powerful B2B marketing platform. According to LinkedIn, 82% of B2B marketers realise their greatest successes with LinkedIn… whatever that means.
Oh, and just as with other social media platforms, LinkedIn works best when posts come from users’ personal profiles rather than business profiles. So if you run a B2B company, try writing your own content. I can help you learn to write.
How often should I post on YouTube?
Post at least once per week on YouTube.
YouTube is the second-most-popular website in the world (after Google). Its value cannot be understated.
Like all the other platforms, quality matters more than quantity. And if you are an interesting person, which many entrepreneurs and founders are, creating videos could be easier than creating photos or graphics.
Creating a selfie video with a relevant topic in a well-lit, quiet environment once per week could be sufficient for your brand.
Peter Zeihan, for example, posts selfie videos once per week or so with very little editing or processing. His content is so educational that he need not spend time on making it visually stunning.
How often should I post on MySpace?
You’re too late, buddy.
