Social Media Posting Frequency: 2020 Edition

While some might feel you can never promote yourself enough on social media, there comes a point when too much sharing simply starts to feel like spam. Here we look at just how much is too much when it comes to promoting your music on the major social media platforms.

Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0

While many have the opinion that you can never post too much on a social media network, research shows that there’s definitely a threshold after which additional posts begin to feel like spam. That point varies for each network however. In this excerpt from the latest edition of the Social Media Promotion For Musicians handbook we’ll take a look at the different posting frequency points in all the major networks.

Facebook

Posting on a personal Facebook page has a different post limit than on a fan page. You’ve most certainly had friends that shortly after being introduced to Facebook felt that their every action during the day was of the utmost interest to everyone and as a result would post incessantly.

Luckily, just at the point where you make the decision to block them they begin to realize that posting that much during a day is a lot of work and inherently back it off to a still slightly unreasonable four or five times a day or less. Still others never quite get the message and end up being blocked by even their friends.

The limits on a fan or band page are far lower however, since fans expect only quality posts, and have a much lower tolerance for non-relevant content. Studies have found that the more you post, the less effective each post becomes. This is definitely a case of less is more. Limit your posts to one per day; two at most.

TIP: Play close attention to the number of unfollows or unlikes relative to your number of posts.

Twitter

Twitter is another case where a higher number of tweets on a personal account can be tolerated by your followers because the lifespan of each post is short (about an hour). There have been studies that have found that the average number of personal tweets range as high as 22 per day, and there are certainly circumstances where that many can be effective, like during a news-worthy event. Under most circumstances, more than four per hour lowers engagement considerably, and the possibility of a copy miscue that incites a flame war increases with each additional post.

As with Facebook, the frequency landscape for a brand account changes as well. Studies have found that the sweet spot is between two and four per day, with engagement dropping as the posts increase beyond that number. That said, some recent studies have found that 15 times a day can get good results. 

Don’t be afraid to thank anyone who either retweets a post or comments, although more than five to ten per day in your Twitter stream can also be deemed as excessive, in which case it’s best to do a direct message instead.

TIP: Be sure to space out your posts throughout the day. Too many tweets at once can clog up your follower’s Twitter streams or may even be considered spam by some.

Instagram

Instagram is pretty much of the opposite of most social networks in that the more you post, the more Likes and followers you get, according to a set of 14 studies looked at by CoSchedule. 

That can be a little deceiving however, since it’s been found that, like blogging, consistency in posting is what counts. The result of these studies is that you should post on Instagram every day but only once (twice at most) to get the most engagement and increase your followers.

Posting Videos

Videos on YouTube or IGTV are different from the above networks in that a polished music video can’t be produced quickly, but what’s off-the-cuff and behind the scenes shot from your smartphone can. In fact, sometimes these impromptu videos are the ones that are the best received precisely because they’re not slick and show your human side. 

That said, when it comes to video posting frequency, less is more. If you’re doing just a quick smartphone movie, then once every two to three days is optimum, but more often can be possibly tolerated if you’re shooting something that’s newsworthy. If you’re at a trade show, for instance, and keep running into celebrities that are willing to speak to you on camera, more frequent posts can be acceptable. Even in that case though, the best strategy is to save them for later and space their releases out, either over the course of a day, or even better, over a longer period of time.

Posting frequency is something that you should keep an eye on, because it can have a real effect on your online audience.

You can read more from the latest 4th edition of my Social Media Promotion For Musicians handbook and my other books on the excerpt section of bobbyowsinski.com.