How Often Should I Publish Content for Social Media, Blogs and Emails?

Let’s face it– blog posts, social media posts, and emails are like a doorway to a website. But there’s always a lot of confusion when it comes to the frequency of posting new content for each of these channels. The first question that comes to every marketer’s mind is: How often should I publish content? While there’s no hard rule on the frequency of posting, it’s difficult to come up with a precise number because every business is different. But still, it’s helpful to have some kind of frame of reference. In this blog post, you will find out some general best practices for publishing content for yourself or your business.

How Often to Publish Content for Social Media Marketing

The post frequency for social media will depend on the platform you use. If you post too often, it may become a complete nuisance to your audience. And if you post too infrequently, your target audience could forget you exist. So, be sure to publish content at the right frequency according to the rules below.

Facebook

It’s estimated more than 89% of marketers use Facebook to boost their brand. Unless you’re short on time, you should post twice a day on the platform if you have over 10,000 followers. However, for pages smaller than that, you should post only once per day. According to Metric Marketing, smaller pages can get 50% less engagement if they post twice per day. While you may be tempted to post more frequently, that doesn’t guarantee social media success. The content you publish matters. For instance, posting a video instead of an article will have a bigger impact. Fortunately, you can do testing to see what works for you. You should first determine the average engagement for your Facebook page. After that, you should evaluate how your posts improved your engagement over time. Once you observe which content does best, try to focus on posting more of that type of content, and less of the content that generates a lower engagement rate.

Instagram

How often you post on Instagram will determine the visibility of your content. A general rule of thumb is to post one to three times per day. If you post several times a day, you’ll start to lose followers. As long as you publish a super polished aesthetic, you can boost user engagement. It’s better to post quality content once a day than low-quality content several times a day. It’s worth mentioning that if you post too often, you can be muted by your followers. If this happens frequently, your engagement will decrease significantly. In recent years, the Instagram reach algorithm has changed so user engagement is more important than ever. The more someone engages with your content, the more Instagram will show them your future posts. So, try to post engaging content one to three times per day on Instagram.

Twitter

Since the average lifetime of a tweet is about 18 minutes, you should post five to 10 times a day. But you don’t just tweet for the sake of it. You must have interesting content. If you only post links to your website, people will get bored. You should spread out the tweets during working hours. Tools like Hootsuite can help you to schedule your tweets so you don’t have to be on Twitter all day to stay consistent.

LinkedIn

To expand your LinkedIn presence, create engaging content and post regularly. How often? Once a day is enough. Since this platform demands a more professional level of content, you don’t need to post memes, pictures, and lengthy rants. The posts should be conversational and not too academic. Similarly, the content should not be too short or too long. Even if you have time to post more, one post a day is the magic number.

YouTube

If you upload videos to YouTube as a part of your marketing strategy, there are some best practices for uploading. According to Filmora, the best days to post on YouTube are Thursdays and Fridays, from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM for the majority of your subscribers’ timezone. Most people upload two to three times per week depending on the amount of time they have. Filmora also recommends being consistent with your uploading schedule and make your schedule public. This way, your subscribers know when to check in on your channel for new content. Keep in mind, planning, filming, and editing YouTube videos takes a great deal of time. So, if you only have the time to post once every Friday, then do that. Never let your frequency of posting jeopardize your content’s quality.

How Often to Publish Content on Your Blog

When you start a blog, you should set clear goals. To attract new readers, especially in the early stages, you may want to put some effort into posting as frequently as you can. But what is the theory behind posting frequency? Let’s assume you like buying newspapers. If the content doesn’t change, would you continue buying them? The simple answer is no. The same principle applies to blog posts. If you keep posting the same old content, people will not read them. But if you publish fresh, useful content in a timely fashion, people will read it.

While you may be tempted to pick a number randomly, the times you post will depend on many factors. Each post is an entry that can help you attract your target audience, through search engines like Google. So, targeting more keywords, and the more blog posts you have, the better your chances of finding new readers.

The Optimal Frequency

So, what’s the optimal number to shoot for? This will depend on how much time and money you’re willing to spend on your blog. Three times a week is a good frequency to start with. As you publish your content, be sure to use a wide range of keywords and most importantly, maintain quality. But this is not easy to manage. You may need a dedicated team of writers to stay consistent. As recommended by Pro Blogger, high-quality blog posts that make a large impact can be much more effective than posting every single day. Do not overwork yourself and force yourself to stay up until midnight to ensure you have a blog post for the next day.

If you’re a new blogger or a startup looking for steady growth, you can post once per day. The latest statistics show that 60% of bloggers who post daily report very strong returns. However, if you have a well-established blog and find your content quality lacks when you post every day, stick to posting one to three times per week.

Our Frequency

In case you find this info helpful, at the time of publishing this blog post, we publish twice a week and each post takes us anywhere from 3-10 hours to create. It takes time to create quality content and to set yourselves up as an industry thought leader. And if our blog posts were shorter, we could definitely increase our frequency. Blog post length can definitely impact the number of posts you publish per week or per month. Also, we will likely start publishing blog content three times a week, in the near future.

To learn more about blogging, read our blog post titled Five Tips on How to Write a Great Blog Post.

How Often to Send Emails

This is a crucial question for email marketers. There’s no definite answer on how often you should be sending emails to your clients. But here is the catch. If you keep bombarding your subscribers with emails (promotional or non-promotional), you may shrink your subscriber list. In one study, the researchers found that 69% of users unsubscribe when they receive too many emails.

To understand how many emails you should send to your prospects every month, you should take a closer look at your industry’s statistics. How many emails do your competitors send every week and what is their return on investment? But that doesn’t mean that you should copy their strategy blindly. This is because they could have a different goal, or they may have too many subscribers in their email list.

What Products and Services Do You Offer?

Another determinant is the nature of your products or services. For instance, if you sell air conditioners, you may have to send more emails during summer. Since the first email has a high CTR (click-through rate), you must get it right. But you need to go beyond these measures. It’s estimated that most marketers send two to three emails per month. How many emails should I send in a day, week or month? You must analyze how many subscriptions you’re getting and the open rates. This information will help you come with an exact number.

Since not all emails are sent with purchase intent, you should pay attention to user engagement. Even if you send a non-promotional email, make sure it adds value to your readers. If you have 1000 subscribers in your email list, you can send one to four emails per week and find what works for you. For both B2B and B2C companies, you should consider sending emails to your subscribers at least two to three times a month. See what works and evaluate your frequency according to the results.

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General Guidelines For Email Frequency

If you are unsure how often to send emails to your list after analyzing your competitors and your services, here is some more information to help you decide. Just like with other forms of content, if you are sending so many emails that are low-quality and offer no value to your list, don’t send them. Your emails should be a pleasure to open and interesting to read through. If they don’t achieve that, change your frequency. Read through these options so you can decide how often to send your emails:

1. Let your subscribers choose the frequency. Create a landing page giving them the option to choose which emails they would like to receive from you and how often. This way, the choice is in your subscribers’ hands.
2. Look at your sales vs. your email frequency. If your sales increase the more you send emails and you have a high click-through rate, it is safe to say your email frequency should be higher. However, if you are getting a higher number of unsubscribes per email than you are sales, then lower your email frequency.
3. For now, play it safe at one to three emails per week. According to most studies, 25% of businesses send one email per week, and 36% send two to three emails. These numbers are safe to use when you first start sending emails. It is highly unlikely your email list will unsubscribe because they are annoyed with your emails at this rate. If they do unsubscribe, it will likely be because they aren’t interested in your business, which means they were never going to produce a sale anyways.

Email Frequency Conclusion

In conclusion, try to send at least one email per week to keep your subscribers engaged. If you’re just starting an email marketing campaign, you should send one to three emails per week. Be sure to pay close attention to all important metrics for success. Crafting an email marketing strategy may take some time to perfect, but analyzing the statistics will help you figure out the right frequency for you. If you haven’t yet created an email marketing funnel, take a look at this blog post: https://www.jjlyonsmarketing.com/how-to-create-an-email-marketing-funnel/

Final Thoughts on How Often to Publish Content

While the posting frequency will depend on a number of factors, including the platform you use, what matters most is consistency and high engagement. Make sure you post high-quality content and look at the stats to see what works for you. Of course, posting more often doesn’t mean that you’ll meet your marketing goals. Be sure to use the above information as your guideline. If you need help writing your content or implementing your marketing strategy, feel free to contact us. Our content team would love to help you write your blog posts, emails or social media posts.