A good question.
The answer depends on the size of your business, the type of business, the audience, which platform you are using and if you have quality content TO post.
You may not always post links to quality information on your own website or blog (sometimes it will be a friendly photo or you’ll share a quick update), but you should frequently have decent content to post about, even if it is other peoples content.
I think we all agree that posting a lot of rubbish and posting too often will annoy followers and drive them away. Your customers have enough to sift through these days.
See my post – What is SEO writing? For help with creating content.
Not posting on social media enough?
But not posting enough or posting inconsistently can result in people losing faith in your company or just totally forgetting you exist! You slide down their news feed, never to be seen again.
However if you really have nothing of interest to post then don’t bother! Only post content of interest or it can be damaging. People will un-follow or ‘hide’ you from their news stream.
Sharing content of others help. Always check articles and links first, don’t just share at random.
Sharing others content also makes for great networking – if you share their content they are likely to share yours.
Not posting at all loses leads
Having social media accounts that never post is damaging. When people are ‘culling’ they will unfollow or unlike you, and will likely never come back.
Not posting and not interacting with your audience means that you get limited exposure on your fans news feeds.
The more you post the more chance you have of being heard over all the noise. People will see different posts at different times of day.
So, how often should a business post on social media?
Every business is different. It’s as simple as that.
There is no secret time, day or frequency. Your decisions should be made based on your knowledge of your audience.
Use Google Analytics and Bit.ly to track when people click on your posts, learn where they are coming from, how long they spend on your articles, every little helps.
Get to know your users. Know when they will be online; test posts at different times of day. Even at the weekend if your audience is likely to browse then.
Take notice of the posts they’ve engaged with and post more about that subject, or at that time of day.
