Repeating social media posts are a great way to increase reach and save time – when you schedule them right. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably already sold on the benefits of recycling social media content and repeating tweets, but maybe something has stopped you from doing it.
The stumbling block for me has been how often should I repeat content so I don’t appear like a spammer, or suffer from post overlap. It turns out the solution is relatively simple.
You just need to create a schedule based on the best frequency and times for posting on each social media platform.
Sounds easy right? Insert eye roll here.
Trust me the idea seemed a little daunting to me at first, but it doesn’t need to be with these tips.
Frequency depends on the social media platform
Before you hit the repeat button on hundreds of social media posts, you should consider each social media platform first.
Each platform has slightly different rules of engagement when it comes to the number of acceptable posts.
For example, social media analytics gurus Socialbakers found that the sweet spot for reach and engagement for Facebook was 5 to 10 posts per week.
They concluded that for most types of brands, posting only once a week wasn’t enough for engagement, and posting more than twice per day was annoying.
When it comes to Twitter you can afford to post more frequently.
Social media marketing influencer Track Social found that response per tweet peaks at five tweets a day, and then engagement performance drops off after that.
Specifically, Track Social identified that when a brand tweets 2-5 times per day they get more retweets per tweet, by up to 300%, compared to when a brand tweets only once a day.
Five tweets per day are ideal for optimal engagement.
That is unless you’re a prolific tweeter and are more focused on overall reach and presence. In that case, you could aim for around 20 tweets per day. Track Social also found that when it came to reach, significant spikes in overall engagement (across all tweets) also occurred between 21-30 tweets.
As for posting to LinkedIn, the company itself recommends 1 update per weekday – averaging 20-30 posts per month. In fact, LinkedIn’s 2014 marketing solutions report claimed 20 posts per month enabled you to reach 60% of your audience.
Frequency on Instagram is a completely different beast.
Neil Patel points to a study showing that what matters most for Instagram is posting consistency, not frequency.
He says that posting to Instagram up to even 20 times a day doesn’t necessarily have a negative impact on your Instagram engagement.
“That is until you change the frequency. If you make a habit of posting several times a day and then transition to only a few times a week, you will start to lose followers, and generate less engagement per post.”
So when it comes to Instagram, you should choose a posting frequency that works for you and that you can reasonably sustain.
Choosing a day and time to schedule posts
The most effective way to choose the optimal day and time to post is to review your analytics for reach and engagement.
Web analytics firm TruConversion has outlined basic guidelines based on their research.
- Avoid posting before 8 am and after 8 pm.
- Activity and engagement is better between 1-3 pm and at its highest on Thursday and Friday.
- Highest click through rates come from 12-6 pm.
- Posting at 5 pm is the best time for retweets.
- Avoid posting a lot after 8 pm.
- For B2C businesses, the best times to tweet are on weekends and on Wednesdays.
- For B2B businesses, the best days to tweet are Monday through Thursday.
- Unsurprisingly the best time to post on LinkedIn is typical work hours of 8 am-5 pm, Monday through Friday.
- The best times to post to Instagram are 3-5 pm.
- 9 am is one of the worst times to post for engagement.
- Wednesday is marginally the best day to post for engagement.
That all being said it’s nearly impossible to identify the exact best time to post.
The most effective way to determine when and how often to post is to consider follower behavior, in conjunction with the above guidelines. That is, “predict and measure” frequency and times, then repeat.
So how often can I repeat social media posts?
Repeating or recycling social media posts can significantly increase reach, engagement, traffic, leads, and sales.
Its effectiveness though relies on how often you repeat the content, and whether other content is posted in between.
Some of our tips for repeating content include:
- Stagger repeat posts throughout a campaign, and post them at different times of the day.
- Use a variety of different content between repeated social media posts.
- Create variations of repeat posts, tweaking the headline, image or hook, so you can promote the same content even more frequently.
Repeating new content vs evergreen content
Recycling new social media content such as blog posts, and repeating evergreen content require different approaches.
For new content, you may wish to repeat your post and/or post variations several times in the first week it’s published.
Social media analytics experts Kissmetrics also suggests pre-scheduling some repeat posts of new content for the following week and month.
After that, you may wish to add the original or tweaked post to a repeat campaign for evergreen content.
Evergreen content should be repeated less frequently than brand new content and can last for a longer period of time.
An evergreen social media campaign may include a series of recycled posts spread over several months.
It’s incredibly important though to use variety and stagger the posting times in any repeat campaign. You also need to take into account the acceptable posting frequency for each platform.
Creating an automated schedule for recurring social media posts
The great news is that it’s incredibly simple to automate and schedule recurring
social media posts with MavRepeater.
You can create as many campaigns as you like, fill it with your posts, and set it on a repeat.
MavRepeater will post to the specified social media platforms, at the times and days you nominate.
It will cycle through all posts in your campaign before returning to the beginning of the campaign, and repeating the same cycle.
You can also change the content and posting times, as well as delete and add new posts within a campaign at any time.
Where do I start?
You may wish to create a campaign for repeating some new social media content, mixed with some other content.
You can also create a campaign for repeating a series of evergreen content.
The best place to start is to check out the below video on how to set up a recurring campaign with Repeating Queues.
Takeaways
When setting up a recurring schedule or campaign, always stagger posts and use a variety of different content between repeat posts. And keep in mind the following posting guidelines as a general rule of thumb for overall posting to your accounts.
Facebook – post 5-10 times a week.
Twitter – post 5 times a day to get the most retweets; Around 20 times a day if focused on overall presence and reach.
LinkedIn – post once a day on weekdays.
Instagram – post consistently in terms of frequency and days.
