I’m taking Rich’s great suggestion in the Small Business Club and creating a topic of the week that we can discuss.  So how many times should you post, how much is too much, and have you ever un-liked a page because of too much posting?

I post on average 3 to 5 times a day with a mix of humour, quotes, great pictures, and useful information. I also think it’s not just down to numbers. It’s down to the actual engagement you have with people who “like” comment and share.

I tend to treat people as I would my offline friends and I engage, and show an interest in what they do. If people come over to my wall, I go over to their wall and leave comments etc.

I find posting several times a day, covering all time zones (if possible) is also a good way to “catch” the most people as obviously, people in different parts of the world come on to Facebook at different times.

I find if you help them, people will naturally help you and seek out your pages and site. I also make a lot of instructional videos and include my squeeze page URL in the video.

I hope this helps.

Keith

Laura, the issue with that approach is that if you applied that to multiple profiles like linkedin, twitter and many more you would be spending 8 hours a day doing posts. the goal here is to learn to start scheduling your posts with tools like MarketMeSuite.com so you can have some face time with the people you love offline and not be chained to your computer..
Just my two cents on the subject.

@andrea-vahl Excellent question, to which I am afraid there is only one answer: it depends!

I believe it depends on a variety of factor:
What’s your brand?
Who is your target audience?
When is your target audience online, and active on Facebook?

Answering the questions above should point in the right direction to begin with. Then, it’s a matter of trial and error, looking at posts that worked (got people liking, commenting or sharing) and those that did not.

Before asking how often should you post, I would ask what content you have to share with your audience. Sure, you can get creative with photos, videos, contests, having live guests answering questions (like SME does every other Friday)… but for some brands, there just isn’t that much to say, and one post per day may be more than enough.

A ski resort, for example, will want to post more actively and many times per day during winter season, in particular when there is a snow storm, or before a busy period, i.e. Holidays, Spring Break. Evenings and week-end is thus an optimal time to reach people, as they are planning their ski trip the following day, or searching information about snow conditions.

At the end of the day, it boils down to posting with 3 things in mind:
- Consistency
- Relevancy
- Timeliness

Being consistent meaning you post with a certain schedule in mind. Say every morning around 8:30am and/or in the afternoon around 4:00pm.
Being relevant is providing content that resonates with your fanbase. If you post 5 times per day stuff that is considered awesome, nobody should complain. On the contrary.
Being timely is finding the sweet spot for when fans interact best. I find that evenings work best when reaching out to people with lifestyle content, while posts during the day are more effective when it relates to business matters.

That’s my two cents.
Cheers,
Frederic

On the pages I manage, I notice that people start un-liking pages if I post more than once a day. It still depends on how active/engaged your fans are, but I try to follow the once a day max as a general rule of thumb.

very well said @fredericgonzalo.

I did unlike page when it posted 2 often (e.g. > 2 newsfeed on my loop)

How do you justify the posting frequency for brand page with a lot of fans across different time zones?

@andrea-vahl

I now post an average of 3 to five times on my main FB page, HTMYHB.  I started with one daily comment and have slowly increased the numbers.  I also allow other people to share what they do on my page. (as long as they follow our comment rules)    This also ups the number of comments. Somehow, it works for us.  People like the valuable content we share, and enjoy reading the comments of other horse business owners and what they are doing.  We have also noticed that little by little, people outside of the horse world are joining in on the conversations. 

We also have “Friend Friday”  A very busy day that must fill up the newsfeeds of all of our fans.   We may have lost a few fans in the process, but our numbers continue to climb.

Maybe it really is a matter of the quality of comments we are sharing instead of the quantity. From my experience, I would say this is true!

Mari Smith shared a post on this topic  “How the Timeline Changes Your Facebook Marketing Strategy” 

I have noticed how often you post is dependent upon the type of page. I think you could post relevant content ten times a day on my https://www.facebook.com/SteelerTerribleTowel page. The fans can’t get enough. Other pages once a day or if something relevant comes up that would interest your community.

This is a very good topic. Useful information from everyone.  At my dealership I post 2 to 3 times a day during the weekday. And once on the weekend, usually on Saturday. Now there are those special cases where I’ll need to post several (no more then 5) times a day. Like if there is a special event going on at the dealership or if I am at a local event such as an Auto Show or Car Convention.  Something like:  This is Social Media Specialist Dave Schuster for @ChevyChaseAcura tweeting live from the International Auto Show in Detroit. 

@brianmcf

Brian: You wrote, “the issue with that approach is that if you applied that to multiple profiles like linkedin, twitter and many more you would be spending 8 hours a day doing posts…”

I neglected to mention that I rely on HootSuite for scheduling my tips of the day. I manage the social accounts for several of our clients, as well as my company’s accounts, so I am a diligent scheduler. I automate what makes sense to automate, but make sure I have a “live” presence on each network to respond to comments, follow up with people, and post the occasional “deep thought.”

You’re right — you can spend all day networking if you’re not careful. I have a business to run, and even though it is a social media marketing business, there are many other tasks to do each day that don’t necessarily involve crafting and posting updates. That’s what makes this biz so much fun!

I post an average of twice a day, usually to helpful or interesting information I find on the web. I have unliked pages in the past, but usually when they post excessively. More than 7-10 posts seems to much.  

@coreybuller I will tweet or Facebook post live all the time. Very rarely I’ll schedule any post or tweet.  There has been a very strong engagement response with Facebook and Twitter fans when I do live postings.

What a great topic! 

I agree that it depends on the page and the subject matter. I generally post 2-3 times a day via the schedule feature of Market Me Suite. And I jump on and off the sites I have or manage throughout the day to monitor responses, seek out good info on fans’ own sites to reply to, and to engage any other way I can in order to ignite and grow continued interest.

I try to post 1-2 a day. It depends what kind of brand we are representing.  And there is also very important what kind of post are you posting. I’m trying to keep with the 80/20  principle. 80% of post are for fun and 20% of post are for business.

On my page http://www.facebook.com/fbsmarty, I have about 375 fans and started it October 2010. I post at least 3 times a day and up to 5. I use Hootsuite to post to Facebook and Twitter. Yes, I know you don’t quite get the Edgerank using 3rd party app but want to be consistent with the postings.

I have one come out about 5am, one early afternoon, one after business hours.

Keep in mind that people have an average of what, 115 friends? What are the odds of them seeing more than one of your posts if they are on FB an hour a day? Very slim.

Very few unlikes and growing activity. I watch that closely. Also I note what the higher virality numbers are and try to mix up the media. For example, sound bites, video bites, photo albums, humor, questions and good 3rd party articles that my small business audience and marketers would find useful.

Michelle

I agree that it completely depends.  I have unfollowed or hidden people who post too much.  But, again, it depends on your audience.  There are coupon bloggers out there that post 20-30 times a day and people love it…where as I don’t post about deals, coupons or whatever and only post 3-4 times a day (normally 2-3 of those are posts that are auto sent to my feed).  If I’m looking for engagement I know I can post about my frustration with my kids or whatever and it gets people talking.  

@charlynshelton-socialmediainterpreter  Your comment highlights one major issue with social media. Too many companies think they are social eight to five Monday through Friday. They miss replying to their community questions, offering comments and engaging every day of the week. Worse case they should use a service like HootSuite and at least post something on the weekends.

@charlynshelton-socialmediainterpreter  It’s amazing how many people comment on pages and no one ever responds. I am guilty of sometimes asking a question or making a comment just to see what happens. I call it “market research”! Most people don’t get the social in social media.

@fredericgonzalo I agree, it does depend on strategy.

Fantastic input everyone! I was asking myself this very question, so thanks
@andrea-vahl for the thread.

@casmccullough, yes, but the bigger question…what would be your ROI??? xo

@charlynshelton-socialmediainterpreter
You mention the ROI on responding to comments. There may not be a direct monetary reward, but it’s building your community and showing them you care about their opinions. It’s more of a soft dollar return.

@charlynshelton-socialmediainterpreter
This was also the strategy we used building our telecom business. I gave away alot of info over the years. Tucson is no longer a small city, but when it comes to business it is a small community. Your reputation and integrity is everything.

@charlynshelton-socialmediainterpreter and @kathyweir to answer your question the ROI has been great! The more I respond, the more engaged the user is with our content, the more they know we genuinely care and the more likely they are to dig deeper and inquire about our services. It doesn’t happen instantaneously (sometimes it does) but it usually only takes a few weeks. I would like it to happen more often ofcourse! So, yes, post when you feel to but always respond.

I can post anything from once a day to 6-7 times per day.We do something get people commenting on posts saying “go away, why do i keep seeing you” and such but these are the minority. If you post at different times of the day not everyone is going to see every post and lets face it post from pages rarely get seen in the top posts filter so nothing to worry about from that.But yeah my point is you can get away with posting a fair bit and not worry about loosing all your fans as our page continues to grow. Just make sure the posts are relevant to your page and or engaging.