If you’re using social media, you probably already know that it’s filled with people who love to talk and interact with each other. For example, according to Facebook’s latest statistics, the site’s users share more than 30 billion web links, photos, status messages, videos, and other content every month. Twitter claims that its users post 140 million tweets per day. While there are some people who join social media sites just to listen and observe, it’s clear that most do it to engage, converse, and participate.

So how do you, as a small business or nonprofit organization, get in that mix? How often should you post, and when? The specific answer is different for everyone; it depends on who you are, what your goals are, and who you’re trying to reach. Like with email marketing, knowing your audience will help you determine how often to post. That said, here’s some good conventional wisdom for two of the most popular social sites:

Facebook: Best practices suggest posting to your Facebook Page at least a few times a week so you have a consistent presence. Unlike with Twitter, a single post of an item is enough since those posts tend to have a little more stickiness in a user’s news feed. It’s important to note that most Facebook users spend the majority of their time reading their news feed, not visiting specific Pages. With this in mind, you’ll want to post compelling content often enough to get noticed. Using photos and videos in your posts can be a huge help in this area.

Twitter: 140 million tweets sure is a lot, so to get noticed in that fast moving stream, you want to make sure you’re posting more than once in a given day, and at different times in the day. It’s alright to post a link to the same blog post or article multiple times in a single day or week, but do so at least a couple hours apart and change up the wording of your tweet each time to freshen up the content. Otherwise, you’ll look like a spammer that repeatedly posts the same content, and people may unfollow you.

The good news is that services like HootSuite let you schedule tweets and Facebook updates, so you don’t have to be sitting at the computer all the time posting to your social networks. This way, if you want to post something in the morning and afternoon, you can do that. And then, whenever your customers log in, you’ll be there, ready to greet them with great content.

Good Luck...

 Commpiled by,

Makena Mugane,

Business Devt Unit - Dolphins Training and Consultants ltd

Dolphins Group