Calculating the Best Social Media Posting Schedule for Your Business
An important part of every online marketing plan is the strategy for using social media but whether you plan a comprehensive social campaign or just intend to keep a company blog it will be pointless unless your target audience sees it. The timing and frequency of posts is even more important when using social networks like Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic to your business and to get these details right will require some trial and error in order to develop a practical schedule.
It is worth taking note of the peak usage times for different forms of social media so that you can begin by posting your status updates at a time of day when they have the best chance of being seen1. Most readers visit blogs in the morning with the number steadily declining as the day progresses. If you are using your blog to promote special offers or time sensitive deals then it will be important for relevant content to be online for these morning readers. Facebook users also show a spike in numbers first thing in the morning and this is repeated early in the evening at around 7pm. Facebook shares show a trend for gradually increasing through the week to a peak on Saturdays and Sundays are generally the quietest day for engagement on the site. Twitter tends to have a steady stream of random tweets all day long with a spike of re-tweets late in the afternoon while overall the use of Twitter increases as the week progresses.
The average lifespan in the newsfeed of a Facebook status update is currently about six hours but may be anything from ten minutes to ten hours. It is possible to use Facebook’s Edge Rank insights feature to track the traffic that is generated by your posts to help to calculate how long they last on average. The general rule of thumb is that to be sure of staying in the newsfeed for as long as possible there should be two or three Facebook status updates every day. The first one should be before the 8am spike in users logging on, the second one may be mid-afternoon and the last one for the day would be at about 6pm to catch the evening users. Because Twitter links have a slightly shorter life it is a good idea to make a few extra tweets throughout the day and five is often a practical number, remembering to make one or two late in the afternoon to increase their chances of being re-tweeted.
The company blog should be the foundation of all of your social media marketing but it is important to only commit yourself to as much blogging as it is practical for you to handle while maintaining the quality of the content. It is ideal to try and schedule one post per day but it is better to only post two or three times a week if you can’t guarantee a daily supply of engaging copy. The important thing to remember when you make a new blog post is to support it with your other social media.
It is also important to schedule time for maintaining your social media accounts so that you have time planned for updating pictures and, perhaps most importantly, for engaging with and commenting on the posts of the people in your network to build a good affinity with your target audience. Once you have developed a practical schedule for your social media marketing it is important to track the ROI that you are getting and to be constantly vigilant for opportunities to improve on it and evolve it to be more successful.
How to Calculate the Best Social Media Posting Schedule for Your Business
An important part of every online marketing plan is the strategy for using social media but whether you plan a comprehensive social campaign or just intend to keep a company blog it will be pointless unless your target audience sees it. The timing and frequency of posts is even more important when using social networks like Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic to your business and to get these details right will require some trial and error in order to develop a practical schedule.
It is worth taking note of the peak usage times for different forms of social media so that you can begin by posting your status updates at a time of day when they have the best chance of being seen1. Most readers visit blogs in the morning with the number steadily declining as the day progresses. If you are using your blog to promote special offers or time sensitive deals then it will be important for relevant content to be online for these morning readers. Facebook users also show a spike in numbers first thing in the morning and this is repeated early in the evening at around 7pm. Facebook shares show a trend for gradually increasing through the week to a peak on Saturdays and Sundays are generally the quietest day for engagement on the site. Twitter tends to have a steady stream of random tweets all day long with a spike of re-tweets late in the afternoon while overall the use of Twitter increases as the week progresses.
The average lifespan in the newsfeed of a Facebook status update is currently about six hours but may be anything from ten minutes to ten hours. It is possible to use Facebook’s Edge Rank insights feature to track the traffic that is generated by your posts to help to calculate how long they last on average. The general rule of thumb is that to be sure of staying in the newsfeed for as long as possible there should be two or three Facebook status updates every day. The first one should be before the 8am spike in users logging on, the second one may be mid-afternoon and the last one for the day would be at about 6pm to catch the evening users. Because Twitter links have a slightly shorter life it is a good idea to make a few extra tweets throughout the day and five is often a practical number, remembering to make one or two late in the afternoon to increase their chances of being re-tweeted.
The company blog should be the foundation of all of your social media marketing but it is important to only commit yourself to as much blogging as it is practical for you to handle while maintaining the quality of the content. It is ideal to try and schedule one post per day but it is better to only post two or three times a week if you can’t guarantee a daily supply of engaging copy. The important thing to remember when you make a new blog post is to support it with your other social media.
It is also important to schedule time for maintaining your social media accounts so that you have time planned for updating pictures and, perhaps most importantly, for engaging with and commenting on the posts of the people in your network to build a good affinity with your target audience. Once you have developed a practical schedule for your social media marketing it is important to track the ROI that you are getting and to be constantly vigilant for opportunities to improve on it and evolve it to be more successful.
