The 411 on social media:
I’ve spent a lot of time playing with social media posting frequencies. I’ve found it’s best to abide by the 411 rule of social media to help balance content for my own channels, as well as for my clients. This means posting four informational, inspirational, or conversational posts for every one “soft promotion” (such as an event promotion or a link to a blog post) and every one “hard promotion” (such as “buy this here”). We have a lovely little printable to help you do this (just join Gem Nation for FREE to access it)! Keep reading for how to optimize the worksheet.
- The first 4 column headings on the top indicate content types
- Informational – This isn’t referring to posting information on your business. Instead, try to share information on relevant industry news, how-to tutorials, etc. The follower should come away from the post gaining valuable knowledge.
- Inspirational – Content that provokes emotion such as quotes, article links, and stories.
- Conversational – Get in the conversation! Ask questions and answer questions. Or, engage in a Twitter chat!
- Promotional – This one is all about you! Share the latest updates from your business, the new products you have coming, push sales, etc.
- Use the columns to indicate how many times you post content of each type throughout the day.
- The “Important Interactions” column should be used to note engagements that you may want to act on later. For example:
- If a blogger retweets your tweet or leaves a comment on an Instagram photo, you may want to note that and consider reaching out later about working together.
- In the last section, we’ve left a spot for you to keep track of your follower numbers each week. Granted, followers are not everything and I strongly believe in the quality over quantity principle here. BUT, by intentionally writing down your followers each week, you’ll be able to see which content you posted resulted in a few new followers so that you have a basic method to measure your effort.
Suggested Average Posting Frequencies (just to keep in mind):
- Facebook: 3-4 posts per week
- Twitter: 4-11 tweets per day
- Instagram: 1-3 posts per day
- Pinterest: 5-10 original pins per week
- Google+: 3-6 posts per week
Note: The above frequencies are referring to posting original content and do not include sharing posts, retweeting, repinning, etc.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions!