Timing Your Posts
29
Dan Zarella, HubSpot's Social Media Scientist, used 2 years-worth of data to figure out the optimal post frequencies for
Facebook and Twitter. The data showed that for Facebook, posting once every two days was the optimal frequency
for generating likes. For Twitter, tweeting between 1 and 4 times per hour proved to be the most effective frequency
(as determined by the average click-through rates of tweeted links).
And while these numbers can serve as great reference points, it's important to remember that your ideal posting
frequency will depend on how many overall posts are filling the feeds of your social followers and subscribers.
For example, if the majority of your Twitter followers only see around 20 total new tweets in their feeds every hour, and
you tweet at a rate of four times an hour, that amounts to 1 in every 5 of the tweets they see coming from you. Seems a
little spammy, right? By learning about your follower and subscriber base — and testing different post frequencies —
you can mitigate social "spamminess" and optimize for engagement and lead generation.
1
Test post frequency to find your sweet spot for each network.
Here's a simple strategy for determining your optimal post frequencies. First, for each network you're testing,
schedule your posts apart by two hours, and stick to that posting frequency for a week. During that time, make sure to
keep an eye on your key social metrics (likes, shares, click-through rates, leads generated, etc.).
The following week, reduce the buffer time between your posts to an hour and a half, and see if (and how) that
reduction in post frequency affects your metrics. Continue to reduce the buffer time between your scheduled posts
week over week, and through some simple analysis, you can hone in on the post frequencies that maximize the
metrics you want to optimize for.
