Social media at scale isn’t essential for every brand or business. Sometimes, it’s just important to own your handle on all platforms, and prove you are still operational while you market through other platforms. Other times, you’ll truly benefit from being a content king or queen, gaining an engaged audience who will become loyal to your brand.
Each business must decide what is right for them, based on the business, the target audience or based on the needs of the person who would be the face of the brand, like the owner.
Let’s break down the three most common approaches, so you can identify which you fit into now, and which approach you should be taking for each platform.
All platforms: Average of 1-2 posts per week, or less
This is the option with the least input. You’re simply posting enough on social media, and regularly enough, that people know your business is still running and gain a small amount of insight into what is happening in your business. People can always scroll back through the feed in your profile or watch your Stories Highlights on Instagram to learn more about your business, but the baseline you create over time can show off your offering, success and the way you do business.
If people want more information, they can also visit your website, so you just want your profile to show enough that people can assess what you offer and whether they might be a good fit, and help them find the link to your website.
Posting a few times a month is often enough for this to work. You can even pin a post on most platforms like TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, as well as organising pins on Pinterest. This is a great place to explain your approach to social media and where else people can interact with you more.
When taking this approach, you have to understand that your profiles will not see growth, and depending on what you have done before, you may even see a decline in following.
The only purpose of this approach is to show people you have posted this month and are still in business. This is only an alternative to not posting at all. It’s not really an alternative to posting more.
TikTok: Daily
All other platforms: Average of 3 - 5 posts per week
This option allows you to share enough content to show off a wide range of information about your business and your offering, and mix things up with something fun or behind the scenes each week.
This amount of content allows for variety, and for you to start to compare types of content, posting times, and hashtags and other discovery tools, to learn what people engage with most. For example, if you’re on Instagram, you might alternate between posting a traditional feed post with an image, video or carousel, and posting a Reel on the opposite day, to find out what people prefer.
Use your pinned posts, available on some platforms, to share about how people can gain insights or content from you. Let them know where they can find each of the places you show up consistently including social by explaining what your schedule is and what you tend to share, as well as your blog, email, podcast or community.
You might also like to be consistent on some platforms, by re-sharing similar content from another platform. It’s just important to understand that since the content wasn’t created in the perfect context for these other platforms, you are simply making the most of your time, so don’t expect big results by simply reposting. Just because the platform likes vertical viral content doesn’t mean it has the same nuances. Each algorithm works differently since people have different preferences and habits on different platforms.
You might however decide you have enough time to repurpose content by re-recording a similar idea, in the context of other platforms, allowing you to batch ideas and content, while creating unique posts.
TikTok: 3+ times a day
All other platforms: Daily or more
You’ve reached trendsetter status if you’re sharing valuable content every day, if not multiple times a day. You are creating content often enough to spot trends and react to them in a timely way, and set some of your own trends.
You can share many aspects of your business, and many viewpoints and ways to connect with you personally within any given week, regardless of the length or depth of the content. This quantity of content allows you to better refine objective quality, by gaining data at scale.
You’re able to produce at scale, so that you can have more semi-viral moments in any given month or year, simply through volume. More posts equals more opportunities to show up for your followers and for people to discover you.
In the past, some platforms relied solely on followers, with a very small percentage of discovery, so there was a limit as to how much your following could support you posting in any one day. Now, partially since the content is shorter but more enjoyable, it’s common for people to post multiple times a day, be seen by a good volume of their followers and gain discoverability.
This option is most accessible to those who have a team behind them so they can outsource some of the editing, production, publishing or idea generation. Otherwise this option does require sub-human level productivity. It can also be common for those who have a more passive business, or one where spending so much time on this type of content is valuable, like a more personal brand with media placements, or being a public speaker or course creator.
This is why you might select only one platform to be a trendsetter on, and aim for consistency on all others.
You might land in the middle of these options, but don’t feel like to “do” social, you have to post multiple times a day to gain traction. There are more acceptable options than posting a large volume or not posting at all.
There is a way to approach social without it taking over your life, while still creating value for your business.
However, you shouldn’t take a consistent approach and expect trendsetter results, that would be rare. Match your goals and expectations to the approach you have chosen, setting a goal that is achievable, and slowly raising the bar over time.
If you don’t have a whole team behind you helping you make content, it’s unlikely you can be a trendsetter on every platform, they each require their own strategy. Instead, choose which platforms you want to post on, and assign each to one of these approaches.
If you’re starting out, or coming back from social media burnout, start with all platforms being at the proof of life level, and choosing one to be consistent or a trendsetter on. Only once you are more comfortable and find a rhythm and ways to save time, upgrade one platform at a time to a higher volume approach.
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