Do you yearn for success with social media? Are you trying to figure out where your plan or campaign is falling short? You might have some amazing, wonderful content that’s already out there and ready for people to see but nothing is happening with it. Why? There are a couple of things that you may have forgotten to take into account in the ever changing world of social and they can make all the difference to both your individual updates and campaign.
How many updates should you post?
Well, this is tricky. Everyone will have their own perfect number of how many updates to send out, what they should include and such. This will depend on your social media marketing strategy, how much time you have allocated and what you have to say. I’m a firm believer of saying something for the sake of it is a waste of time but if you look around long enough, you’ll most likely find something of value.
There has to be a balance of your own information, knowledge, updates and what you find elsewhere. If you don’t have time to scour meaningful updates, then make your updates as valuable as possible so that the smaller amount will still be worthwhile.
One update a day is considered a good plan, while others will call for three or four a day to reach as many people as possible. Whether these are always unique or different ways of spreading the same content more than once is up to you but it needs to be of value whatever you do. Then again, one or two updates a week, while more likely to be missed, will give you more time to plan and develop ideas a times. It depends on your needs, audience and platform(s).
When to post updates
As with everything else, you need to learn when your updates will have the biggest impact. You want to reach as wide an audience as possible and achieve as much engagement as possible. LinkedIn, for example, is probably better suited to updates within normal business hours while Facebook might be more geared to evenings and weekends because it is less professional. Just an example, but something to bear in mind when deciding when to post updates.
You’ll be able to use each platform’s analytics and insights to see when your audience is most active, giving you an indication of when you should aim to post or schedule your updates. It’s important to remember that this can change at any time so make regular checks – especially if you notice engagement or reach dropping.
Third party resources are useful but come with their own risks. Take Hootsuite for example, a great way to schedule updates and even create reports to see their impact but this data is going to be different than what you get from each resource directly. Also, their view of the best time to post updates may be different and automatic scheduling may mean you are targeting the wrong audience. It’s not always the case but something you need to consider.
Use the right social platform
Every social platform is different – but you know that. What you should be clear on is what each one is used for. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and all the others have their own audiences and are used in different ways. Where one update on Facebook might work for a period of time, you might need four or five on Twitter to generate a similar impact or reach. That’s just a loose example, but it shows how you need to adapt and change your strategy for each platform. The updates may be similar but the same wording will work differently on each audience too.
There’s no set formula. Use insights and analytics, learn what works and model each update on that platform accordingly. Then, you’ll start seeing some results.
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