I often get asked how often to post on each social media channel, so I finally decided to write about it. I’ve been avoiding it because as with everything related to social media, there really isn’t one definitive answer to this question. The answer is “it depends” because:
Content is Queen (Yes, I replaced king with queen). It is better to post fewer high-quality posts than post many low-quality posts. Never sacrifice the quality of your content to increase your quantity of content. Evenso, just because you create great content, it doesn’t mean that it’ll automatically get seen. Your reach depends on how much of a presence you’ve built on each social channel, and the more you’ve grown your audience and taught them to engage with your content, the more your content will be seen.
It Changes When The Algorithms Change and that happens a lot! Each social media channel will drop hints about what it wants to see and how often they want to see it. So we’ll update this post quarterly to make sure you’re up-to-date.
What Your Audience Wants Matters. Every audience is unique, so what is desired depends on your niche. Your audience may expect a particular frequency of posting from you if you are media versus if you are an edtech company. Fortunately, you can teach your audience to expect a certain cadence of content from you if you post consistently.
It Depends On Your Activity. If you’re running a conference, a special event, or a chat, you may post frequently and exceed general guidelines. A good rule of thumb is if your post is going to give your audience value and it’s timely, don’t hesitate to post it.
Timeliness > Best Practices. If you’ve already posted your limit of posts for the day as outlined in your programming strategy but you have something timely come up, post it. Timeliness is something that ALL social media platforms and audiences want. If you do this, make sure you’re not jumping on the timeliness bandwagon just for timeliness sake. Whatever you post should be appropriate for your brand, first and foremost.
So even though the answer may generally be “it depends,” I’ve outlined some best practices that can give you helpful ranges to get started. Something to keep in mind: Since we are marketers that work with education brands, these recommendations are specifically for education brands that talk with educators, administrators, and parents.
Before we go into each channel, be sure to download this free infographic as a handy resource to use in conjunction with this post.
In 2020, most of the studies I’ve seen say that once per day is optimal, with a maximum of two posts per day. Note: If your brand develops a significant amount of content, you can stretch this to 3-4x/day. Interestingly enough, Hubspot found that pages with under 10,000 fans that posted more than once per day received a 50% drop in engagement per post.
Golden rule: At a minimum, you should post to your Facebook Page three times per week. Many education brands without paid advertising support are choosing to deprioritize Facebook more and more, as Facebook’s algorithm forces brands to pay for the reach they used to earn organically. If you’re starting out on Facebook or have less than 5,000 fans/likes, expect minimal reach and engagement.
Posting Do’s + Don’ts:
Don’t: Share several posts one after the other.
Do: Allow at least three hours between posts.
Twitter is a micro-blogging platform composed of the ephemeral tweet. Post and it’s gone two seconds later. Poof! The Twitter feed moves so quickly, you’ll be lucky if your followers see any of your posts. Don’t ever assume that your followers (or people monitoring certain phrases or hashtags) will see all of your tweets. Generally, people expect you to tweet up a storm, but again, make sure to only post things that are high quality and truly valuable to your audience. That means the max on this platform is just a suggestion. You can tweet a lot more, just pay attention to your metrics, specifically your engagement rate and follower/unfollow rate. If you have a live event or anything else timely, do not hesitate to tweet.
Posting Do’s + Don’ts:
Do: Thread your tweets if they are similar or in response to each other.
Do: Tweet at the times that your audience tends to be online most.
Don’t: Repost the same, exact tweet EVER.
Don’t: Repost the same, exact tweet with another account. You’ll be flagged by Twitter eventually if you do this a lot.
Pinterest is a visual search engine that can drive referral traffic and revenue. It’s also a great channel to reach parents and teachers. However, to play on this platform, you’ll need to create a lot of original content (or already have a healthy inventory of content). You’ll also need to have an eye for design; you can use templates and services that make it easier like Canva. Pinterest prioritizes variety and new images within the feed.
The optimal quantity of Pins you post will depend on how much time you have to dedicate to making fresh, quality Pins. For example, three original Pins will perform better than 25 recycled Pins.
Posting Do’s + Don’ts:
Don’t: Post too much. There is a limit of 60 Pins per day that Tailwind enforces and Pinterest will eventually flag your account.
Don’t: Flood the feed (pinning 1 resource to several boards, all within the course of a few minutes or the same hour). Pinterest may block or suspend your account!
Don’t: Re-Pin the same resource within 2 days.
Don’t: Place the same Pin on more than 10 boards.
Do’s: Create 5 Pins for every new piece of content you are linking to.
Do’s: Make your Pins images as pretty and engaging as possible.
Although LinkedIn has been around for a while, it’s gaining momentum to be the platform to reach your audience if you’re a B2B brand. Although many teachers generally aren’t on LinkedIn, influencers, educators like instructional coaches and education administrators are active on this platform. A LinkedIn post has long legs, which means when you post to LinkedIn, it takes at least a couple of days for it to marinate so people can see it. Generally, people aren’t on LinkedIn all hours of the day engaging with their feed. Typically they jump on once a day or a couple of times a week. Your goal is to make sure that your best and most timely posts for LinkedIn are there for them when they check in.
Posting Do’s + Don’ts:
Don’t: Share several posts one after the other.
Do: Allow at least three hours between posts.
Like Pinterest, Instagram is a very visual platform. The huge difference between Pinterest and Instagram is that Pinterest is a visual search engine with very little social or community features available, and Instagram is all about the engagement! People like and comment a lot on Instagram. As a brand, you can also create visual assets such as images, videos, stories, reels, and more (see our complete list of post types by social media channel). Regardless of the type of post you create, to succeed on this visual platform, you’ll need to be consistent at least daily and you don’t want to go overboard and inundate your followers.
Don’t: Share several posts in succession
Do: Be consistent (i.e. don’t disappear for weeks or months at a time)
YouTube
Youtube is the second largest search engine on the Web. It houses the most videos in the world, but don’t let this intimidate you. Pick the type of content you want to create, and then consistency is key. You can’t build up an audience of any sort if you generally post less than once a week. YouTube is a bit more nuanced, though and slightly more complicated than just that, so watch this video to understand all of the details.
Posting Do’s + Don’ts:
Don’t: Forget to encourage people to subscribe, so they will get notifications when you post.
Do: Post consistently on a schedule so your subscribers know when to count on new content
TikTok
Ah..there is a special place in my heart for TikTok. TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media platforms and generally attracts a younger audience, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not right for your brand. To decide if TikTok is right for your brand, you’ll need to:
Estimate what size of your audience is on the platform (Note: Even if it’s not huge, you can make the case to still be on the platform if you believe you can increase your brand awareness or engage this audience to convert more).
Be familiar with your capacity. (Do you have time to jump on another platform and do it well?)
Ensure that the goals you think you can achieve on TikTok align with what the platform does best AND also align with your overall social media, marketing, and company goals.
TikTok is all about entertainment and education. You are competing with celebrities, viral trends (think OceanSpray), and really anything you can think of that’s either entertaining or educational. Pick your angle and make sure your content is valuable enough to catch someone’s attention and ultimately get them to like your content and follow you. Getting in the swing of TikTok will take some practice and you can’t get good, solid practice without posting at least 3x/week. Plus, your audience expects you to be consistent and show up regularly.
Posting Do’s + Don’ts:
Do: Post a mix of evergreen content and things related to trending hashtags and sounds.
Don’t: Get discouraged when your content doesn’t go viral right away. Building a presence takes time on any platform, including TikTok.
We hope that was helpful! As a reference tool, be sure to download the free infographic we created to show ideal posting frequency by social media channel.