How Often To Post On Social Media? [Proven Research From 14 Studies]

Posting once on social media every day will get you some engagement, shares, and traffic. Sure. But wouldn't scheduling two social media messages a day get you even bigger results? What about three? And if you shared more messages every day to every social network, wouldn't that also get you even more results? Let's just pause for a second because this is probably how you're feeling right now: Those kind of questions bring you down the rabbit hole with the real question being this:

How often to post on social media?

As it turns out, several studies have sought to answer that exact question, all with varying data. So we decided to compile the best of the best for you so you no longer have to think about how often to post on social media while still getting all of the benefits of increased awareness, engagement, shares, and traffic.

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About The 14 Social Media Frequency Studies...

There's a lot of advice out there. So I've found the best data-driven information I could find to answer the question of how often to post on social media. I'll be referencing these sources throughout this post as a way to answer the posting frequency question for each specific social network:

1. The social rules of Pinterest from Ahalogy
2. Research and tips compiled by Buffer
3. How often to post on social media by Constant Contact
4. Research and experience of optimum level of posting on social media from DowSocial
5. Industry benchmarks from HubSpot
6. The posting plan from Localvox
7. Expert Pinterest tips and data from Michelle MacPhearson
8. Suggested minimum and maxium number of times to post on social media per week from Nulou
9. Compiled research from Quick Sprout
10. Researched posting frequencies from Mari Smith
11. Insights from Neil Patel from Forbes
12. General findings from Social Media Week
13. Jay Baer's thoughts and insights from Convince And Convert
14. Collected research from Adobe

Each of the following sections will answer the posting frequency question, and includes information on the best times to post on each network along with recommended amounts of social media content curation for each network. All of these suggestions are based on deep research we've done for this post, along with these two:

• What 20 Studies Say About The Best Times To Post On Social Media
• How To Schedule Your Social Media Content Curation For Massive Growth

Here we go.  

How Often Should A Business Post On Facebook?

Ahalogy suggests that posting to Facebook no more than once a day is best or you'll start to feel spammy. Buffer says you can post to Facebook twice a day before likes and comments drop off. Constant Contact says to post on Facebook a minimum of three times per week while keeping your maximum posting frequency to 10 times per week. DowSocial says two Facebook posts per day as a minimum works well for increasing your reach. They also suggest that sharing fewer posts and then promoting them is the best way they've seen to increase their engagement. HubSpot's benchmarks suggest to post to Facebook a minimum of three times a week. They say to set your maximum number of Facebook posts to 10 times per week. LocalVox likes to post once a day to Facebook as a maximum while three times a week is their suggested minimum. Nulou suggests to post a minimum of three times a week to maintain your consistency while keeping your maximum number of Facebook posts to no more than 10 a week. Quick Sprout found that Facebook pages with smaller amounts of followers should post about 16–30 times a month, or roughly once every day or two. If you have a bigger fan base, Neil Patel suggests posting at least 31 times a month, which he says is about once or twice a day. Mari Smith recommends 5–6 Facebook posts per week. And some good advice: Skip weekdays if you have to, but not weekend days since Facebook users tend to be active on the weekends and in the evenings. Social Media Week recommends posting 5-10 times a week. That evens out to around one or two posts per business day. Adobe suggests posting 6-11 times per week. That's fairly consistent with what other studies suggest. Neil Patel makes another interesting point in his Forbes piece. If you have less than 10,000 followers, he says, you may want to post just once a day. That's because doubling your frequency may half your total clicks. Following his advice, wait until you have a bigger audience before increasing your schedule to twice a day.

How To Tell If Your Facebook Posting Frequency Is Working

Facebook has a handy analytics tool called Insights. Simply log in to your Facebook Business Page, click on Insights, and select Posts. From here, you can check out your posts' performance individually to see when your engagement increases or decreases depending on how frequently you post.

How Many Tweets Per Day For Business?

Buffer says three tweets a day is the most you should share before engagement starts to drop off. Constant Contact recommends a minimum of five tweets per day while suggesting there is no maximum. DowSocial suggests tweeting a minimum of six tweets per day, and to do it daily. Since Twitter is a fast-paced network, they say that tweeting about once an hour during business hours is a good guideline, coupled with engagement tweets. HubSpot's data is broken down by industry, which is an interesting thought. So industry voided, HubSpot suggests tweeting a minimum of five tweets per day, while suggesting there is no daily maximum. LocalVox recommends tweeting a maximum of five tweets per day while maintaining a minimum of five tweets a week. Nulou says to tweet at least five times a week with no maximum. Quick Sprout found that the most retweets happen within an hour after tweeting, so a higher daily frequency is best. Start by tweeting 5–20 times every day. Writing for Forbes, Neil Patel suggests tweet frequency should be tied to your goals. If you want maximum engagement per tweet, aim for 1-5 tweets per day. However, if you want more total responses to your tweets overall, 50 tweets or more are acceptable. Mari Smith's sweet spot is between 6–7 tweets per day on weekdays, and 3–4 tweets a day on weekends. Abobe recommends just 3 tweets per day. For larger enterprises and major brands, this less is more approach may be the way to go. Social Media Week offers up a similar suggestion, stating that 3-5 tweets per day is the sweet spot.

How To Tell If Your Tweeting Frequency Is Working

Twitter has a handy analytics feature to help you see which days are getting the most engagement. When you know how many tweets you've shared on certain days, you can easily correlate your frequency to engagement. Just log in to Twitter Analytics, navigate to Tweets, and check out the bar graph of dates coupled with the number of tweets that went out on those dates below. Hover on a bar for any specific date, and you'll see the number of tweets you shared that day.

How Many Times To Pin On Pinterest Per Day?

Ahalogy sees the best results with 15–30 Pins per day when spread out throughout the day. Buffer says the top brands have experience a ton of growth by Pinning more frequently. The magic number? Pin five times a day on Pinterest. Constant Contact says Pinning at least five times a day is a good minimum, while Pinning 10 times per day should be the most you Pin. DowSocial suggests Pinning a minimum of three times per day to Pinterest. Sharing regularly, and curating others' content in your frequency mix, will help build engagement. Michelle MacPhearson says that 20–30 Pins per day is the sweet spot for visibility on Pinterest. Nulou recommends Pinning at least five times per day while keeping 10 Pins a day as your maximum. Quick Sprout agrees with Buffer, suggesting the best Pinning frequency is five Pins a day. Like Quick Sprout, Mari Smith suggests the advice from Buffer to Pin five times per day. Adobe says "Pinterest users love lots of content," and recommends 4-10 Pins per day.

How To Tell If Your Pinterest Pinning Frequency Is Working

Pinterest has a revealing analytics feature that helps you understand how your Pins are performing on a daily basis. Simply cruise to Pinterest Analytics and select the Profile option. Check out your Impressions to understand how your Pins performed on certain days of the week. You can also export the data into a spreadsheet to read this like a true data nerd.

How Often To Post On LinkedIn For Business?

Buffer says 20 posts a month or posting once a day helps you reach 60% of your followers on LinkedIn. Constant Contact recommends posting on LinkedIn at least two times per week. Post a maximum of five times per week. DowSocial recommends sharing daily to LinkedIn, but doesn't provide a solid number. They suggest that daily shares keep your followers in the loop, but not overwhelmed. HubSpot's benchmarks recommend posting at least twice a week on LinkedIn, while your maximum posting frequency should be no more than five posts per week. LocalVox says that once a day should be the most you share to LinkedIn. Post at least once a week to remain active. Nulou says to post to LinkedIn a minimum of two times a week to maintain consistency while five times a week should be your maximum number of posts. Quick Sprout cited LinkedIn's own recommendations for an ideal posting frequency of 20 times a month, which is about once every business day.

How To Tell If Your LinkedIn Posting Frequency Is Working

LinkedIn has a sparse analytics feature that will help you see the engagement each of your messages attracts. You can use that as a starting point when you test your frequency to see how posting more or less impacts your engagement. Just navigate to your Business Profile and select the Analytics tab to start your analysis.

What Is The Ideal Google+ Posting Frequency?

Buffer recommends posting consistently is the best approach for Google+, with three posts a day being the sweet spot. Constant Contact says to share on Google+ a minimum of three times a week while 10 times per week should be your maximum. DowSocial likes to share to Google+ at least three times per day. Google+ shares can show in search results for your Google+ followers, so sharing fresh content often can help you get in front of more eyeballs. HubSpot found that you should post to LinkedIn at least three times a week while posting 10 times should be your maximum. LocalVox suggests posting once a day to Google+ should be your maximum. Post at least three times a week. Nulou says to share a minimum of three times per week on Google+. Keep your maximum to 10 times a week. Quick Sprout agrees with Buffer that the ideal posting frequency for Google+ is three posts per day. Mari Smith agrees with Buffer and Quick Sprout's findings that posting three times per day to Google+ is the way to go.

How To Tell If Your Google+ Posting Frequency Is Working

Like LinkedIn, Google+'s Insights feature leaves something to be desired to help you find the ideal daily posting frequency. However, you can use Insights to gauge your most successful days and review the number of posts you shared on those days. Cruise to your Google+ Business Profile, and go to the Insights feature. Click on Posts, and you'll see a graph of the popular days, followed by even more specific data related to the posts you've shared.

How Often To Post On Instagram?

Buffer says that major brands share on Instagram on average 1.5 times a day, but not more, so that's also what they suggest you do. DowSocial says to post to Instagram a minimum of three times per day. Since images are super sharable, posting a little more often would be fine, too. Adobe says your Instagram posting frequency should be consistent with your goals. They say some brands succeed with as many as 10 photos per day. That might work well if you're sharing photos from an event, for example. And on Forbes, Neil Patel says "posting frequency is not all that important for your Instagram marketing." Instead, what you should focus on is consistency. Whether you post once or twenty times per day, do your best to maintain that same cadence.

How To Tell If Your Posting Frequency On Instagram Is Successful

Iconosquare has an Instagram Analytics feature that will help you understand when to post. Part of its functionality lets you export your data into a spreadsheet where you can see the time you posted and the engagement each post received. As you test your posting frequency, that could be helpful to gauge your engagement by day while analyzing the number of times you posted on Instagram. This post was most recently updated on Oct. 18, 2017.