How often should I post on my Facebook page?

“How often should I post?”

As a page manager, this is a question I struggle with daily. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when deciding how often to post:

A post’s life is very short

A post will reach 75% of the total number of people it will be shown to within 2 hours! And about 90% within 4-5 hours.

This means that if you want your page to reach fans after 6 hours, you need to post again.

EXAMPLE: You have 1,000 fans. Facebook shows your posts to 10% of your fans i.e. 100 people. 75 of these 100 people will see your post within 2 hours of your posting it.

Takeaway: Your post reach is dead after 5-6 hours.

NOTE: Some posts with very high engagement rates may have a longer lifespan.

Different fans are online at different times

Your fans may be in different time zones or have different professions and may be online at different hours. You can see what time your fans are online in your Facebook page insights.

EXAMPLE: If you are in San Francisco (US) and post at 7 pm every evening, your fans in London (UK) will miss this post as it will be 3 am for them.

Takeaway: By posting only once daily, you may be missing out on a number of fans.

Different fans are likely seeing different posts

Only a small percentage of your fans see your posts.

And different posts are often shown to different fans based on their time zone, level of engagement etc.

This means that only a very small sub-section of your fans will see all (or most) of your posts. The majority of your fans will only see an occasional post by you.

EXAMPLE: You have 1,000 fans and 10% of your fans see each of your posts. You post 3 posts in a day, so 100 fans see each post.

The important thing here is – it won’t be the same 100 who are seeing all posts. As you can see in the image below, only a few fans (depicted by the orange triangle) will actually see all three posts.

Takeaway: by posting multiple times daily (within reason), you won’t actually be spamming your fans.

NOTE: the above examples are simplified for this post. Facebook’s formula includes a lot more factors.

So how often should I post?

Each page is different and you’ll have to test and tweak your strategy constantly.

However, here are some general tips:

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1. Post at least once daily:

Out of sight really is out of mind. Try to post fresh content daily to keep fans returning to your page.

However, don’t post more than 3 times a day.

2. Spread out your posts:‍

Post every 3-6 hours if possible.

This way you’ll hit different fans with each post and will be able to maximize the number of people you reach as a page.

To make this easier, use Facebook’s free post scheduler.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you are using Facebook as your business and not as your personal profile, or the Scheduler won’t show. You can change this by clicking the grey ‘settings’ arrow on the top right corner of your page.

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1. Post only relevant content:

I cannot stress this enough. It’s better not to post than to post content that your users don’t want to see.

Identify your target audience and tailor your posts to them.

Poorly targeted content can lead to negative feedback which could greatly hurt your page reach.

Here are some examples of engaging content to post on your Facebook page.

1. Test, test, test:

Try a few things – post at different times, vary the gap between your posts – and see how your page reach and engagement is doing in your page Insights.

NOTE: Facebook Insights are only available to pages with 30 or more ‘Likes’.

Conclusion

• If you post too often (more than 3 times a day): You run the risk of posting irrelevant content and spamming your fans resulting in potential unlikes and hides.
• If you post too little (once or twice a week): Your users will not get a chance to engage with your content, your Edgerank will fall and your reach will suffer.
• So try to post relevant content, 1-3 times day and spread your posts out through the day.

Now that you have a good handle on how often to post, let’s take a look at the best times to post on your Facebook page.

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