How many times should you post a day to Facebook?
If you search the internet you’ll find studies that tell you to post to Facebook between and one or two times a day. Ignore them.
Your recipe should not be dictated by numbers but instead by quality.
You could post any old tosh twice a day and think you were doing good. You won’t be. The algorithm will take one look and show it to one man and his dog.
Newspapers will post anything from 20 to 60 times a day. For them, if the story is good enough and the content passes muster then they’ll press the send button.
Instead, don’t think about numbers think about how good your content is. Be a gatekeeper.
STEP ONE: Check your audience
First things first, think of your Facebook page as a room and the people who like your page as the audience in it. Go and check your insights to see where they live, how old they are and if they are male or female. This will tell you who is in your room.
Once, I was asked to run a social media review on an organisation who lived in a tourist town to see why their content wasn’t working. They had a page with lots of local people but also a tranche of visitors.
When they posted about dog mess and scooping up after it the visitors would leave. This wasn’t the vision of holiday beauty they had signed up for. The answer was to keep the page for residents and create a separate page for visitors.
So, if your Facebook page is largely females aged 35 to 55 use that as the yardstick for work. Ask yourself before you post ‘Will this work with them?’ If the answer is ‘yes’ then post it. If it’s not, then don’t.
If you get pushback on your refusal to pollute your Facebook page with content that won’t work with the audience sweeten the pill by taking a screen shot of the insights. Tell them how you’d love to post it but the insights say it won’t reach your audience. Then ask them what their audience is and see if you can help them by doing something else.
STEP TWO: Remember the 80/20 rule
If you’re only posting calls to action then your page will fail.
People want to be entertained and informed as well as lectured.
Police forces, for example, will often post pictures of their dogs and their horses because they know this gets a good reaction. If you’ve liked a pic of the new police puppy you’ve more chance of being served something the admin really wants you to see.
STEP THREE: Links are bad
Mark Zuckerburg does not want you to leave Facebook if he can help it. He wants you to stay so putting a link to somewhere else will see you penalised by the algorithm.
Instead, tell the story on the platform itself. If you need to put the link in as a comment. It’s what joe.co.uk already do.
STEP FOUR: If its good enough then post it
If it works with the audience then think about posting it.
Video is the most engaging content then pictures and then text.
Facebook is keen on content that will lead to meaningful interactions. Ask yourself if the content will lead to debate and discussion.
Avoid at all costs repetition. The same picture of gritters when you go out gritting is a bad idea. The image of the police car wit the text ‘breaking news’ needs to be avoided. Familiarity breeds contempt. The algorithm hates it because it wants to be fed with fresh content.
If all this means you post three times a day then post five times a day. If its only three times a week then do that.
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