How often should you post on Facebook? The answer has usually been “It depends.” That might be changing this year. Facebook has started sharing how many posts a day each page publishes. The information can now be found within their on-platform search results. So now instead of just asking how often you should post, you will also be asking how Facebook’s listing of page posting frequency affects your brand’s marketing strategy. The good news for marketers is that this Facebook change could provide additional context for social media marketers who are trying to get a better understanding of their optimal posting schedule.
Posting Frequency
It’s likely that the intent of the change was to give regular users some idea of what to expect from each page. Before liking a page they might want to know if that page posts once a day or 20 times a day. The posting frequency could affect whether or not a user clicks that Like button.
Posting frequency has often varied between pages. The optimal posting schedule would depend on your followers’ age range, interests, and Facebook habits. In the past Facebook best practices have advised a level of restraint when posting to Facebook. The thought was that you don’t want to overwhelm your audience’s feeds. When users sign in to Facebook they are getting bombarded with content. 1,500 possible stories from friends and liked pages are filtered per day on an average Facebook user’s News Feed. And most users are on Facebook to see updates from family and friends, not businesses. There just isn’t time to see them all.
Because pages haven’t wanted to overwhelm their audience, the general magic number has been around one of two posts per day. This frequency level should help keep your page top of mind without alienating your fans with over posting.
Frequency and Reach
The evolution of the News Feed algorithm has changed that magic number slightly. Now Facebook’s own advice tells pages that they should post frequently and not to worry about over posting. Instead, “the goal of News Feed is to show each person the most relevant story, so not all of your posts are guaranteed to show in their Feeds.”
Getting your content seen on Facebook is no small feat. Every 20 minutes on Facebook there are 1 million links shared, over 4.8 million photos uploaded, and over 760,000 updates sent out. As pages have seen organic reach drop they can surely attest that not all of their fans are seeing all of their posts. So then what is the magic number? In Facebook’s course for journalists, they note that some pages are posting up to 80 times a day and seeing good results. These are also news pages with a plethora of timely content to publish. But if a post reaches 5 percent of your audience on average, it makes sense that posting more frequently can have benefits.
Another piece here is the number of fans your page has. Pages with more Facebook followers tend to get more interaction with each of their posts. Pages with over 10,000 followers tend to see a correlation between posting more frequently and an increased number of clicks per post. Pages with fewer than 10,000 followers see a decreased number of clicks per post as they increase their posting frequency.
Quality or Quantity
The question for Facebook posting frequency might come down to quality or quantity. Posting frequently might be the best way to reach the largest number of your fans. But posting higher quality content might have a higher reach, in the end giving you more impressions.
It is also important to remember that not every post is right for Facebook. The most popular posts on Facebook tend to be either educational or entertaining. And the best posts are a combination of the two. Which brings us back to the magic number of one to two posts per day. This allows the Facebook algorithm to focus on delivering one piece of content to your audience.
The consensus seems to be, don’t overwhelm your customers with content on Facebook. And try to be selective about what you’re publishing. Spend your time crafting better Facebook posts instead of crafting a lot of Facebook posts. Target your content to a specific audience. Users are more likely to click on posts that are relevant to their interests and needs. Experiment with your posting frequency to see what yields the best results for your page.
The clearest answer for how Facebook’s listing of page posting frequency affects your marketing strategy might be the ability to compare your page to your competitors. Want to see if more successful pages publishing more frequently than you? Now you can find out. Look them up in search and check out how often they are publishing. However, while it’s a useful tool, remember that reach and quality are also important factors for determining your own marketing strategy.
Sign up for a free website analysis
