Why small businesses need to post on social media at least once a week
When used correctly, social media can be an incredibly valuable part of your marketing toolkit, especially as a way for small businesses to level the playing field against larger and more established brands.
However, if your social media efforts are inconsistent and infrequent then it's unlikely that you’ll be able to maintain a steady rate of growth or engagement — which could cause you to miss a major opportunity.
In general, you should be aiming to post on each of your social channels once a week — at the very least — if you hope to reap any benefits from your social media marketing efforts.
Keep reading to find out why a consistent social media posting schedule is so important when it comes to growing your small business or side hustle.
But first...
Content Scheduler within Adobe Express allows you to create and schedule your social media content to publish to your social channels at your chosen time and date, allowing you to more easily maintain a consistent posting schedule.
Why do small businesses need to post at least once a week on social media?
Social media algorithms love consistency
Although every social media algorithm is a little different, all platforms agree that consistent and frequent posting is an important factor for ranking in the feed.
Posting on social media allows you to collect engagement, grow your followers, and expand your reach and impressions, which then leads to more engagement and more followers. All of these metrics signal to social media algorithms whether a post is enjoyable or valuable to its viewers, which will cause it to rank higher in feeds.
Social media algorithms will also generally show you content from accounts that you have already engaged with in the past meaning that if you are posting consistently, and getting engagement each time, you should be expanding your reach as well as your algorithm ranking with each post.
Is there such a thing as posting too much? Well, there is an optimum number of times to post per week and this varies by social media channel. Luckily for you, we’ve explained the ideal posting frequency for each channel below:
Optimum posting amounts for social media platforms:
- Facebook: 1-2 posts per day
- X: 3 posts per day
- LinkedIn: 2-5 posts per week
- Instagram: 1-2 Reels per day + 1 image or carousel post per day
- TikTok: 1-3 posts per day
- Pinterest: 4-10 posts per day
A study by Social Bakers conducted over a three-month period discovered that most global brands posted to Facebook once a day. This study also showed that posting only once a week could lead your audience to disengage and unfollow.
X (Formerly Twitter)
The ideal posting frequency for X is three times per day — but only if it’s high-quality original content. Keep in mind that if you have a high number of followers in a variety of time zones, you need to spread out your publishing times to cater to everyone in your audience.
For LinkedIn, it’s ideal to post between two and five times per week and no more than once per day. LinkedIn’s algorithm is a little different from other social media platforms in that the lifespan of a post in the feed can be much longer. LinkedIn is also focused on providing users with content from a variety of pages and people. Therefore, if you post too frequently, not all of your posts will make it into the feed.
As Instagram continues to push Reels and lean into the popularity of video content, posting Reels one to two times per day will certainly help your content to be favored by the algorithm while still maintaining a flow of image or carousel posts once a day.
TikTok
The TikTok algorithm works best for consistent and frequent posters. The ideal number of TikToks you should be posting is one to three times per day to remain in people’s feeds.
Pinterest altered their algorithm in 2019 to prioritize “Fresh Pins” over re-pinned content. The optimum amount of posting on Pinterest is between four and ten times per day to get the maximum amount of engagement.
Further reading: How often to post to X, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest
Stay front-of-mind
Social media is a non-stop, 24-hour flurry of activity from creators, influencers, brands, and businesses from across the globe, and you are but one account in a sea of millions. But don’t lose heart, as long as you make the effort to post consistently high-quality content, there’s no reason why you can’t become just as successful as some of the more established brands in the social media sphere.
With so much activity online, these platforms make it easy for your customers to forget you; it’s also all too easy for users to discover one of your competitors and make a purchase from them instead. According to a survey of over 900 respondents from Fractl and BuzzStream, respondents indicated that they prefer brands to post on all social networks between two to five times per day to maintain their interest, demonstrating just how important it is to stay consistent and present on social media platforms.
Posting frequently and consistently means staying front-of-mind, expanding your brand awareness, and making a regular effort to connect with your audience and maintain their loyalty.
Build a good reputation
Having a consistent social media presence isn’t just good for brand awareness, it’s also a big part of building a good reputation for your brand. Brands that are consistent and present on social media are more likely to be seen as reliable, trustworthy, and credible — all qualities that you should want as a business owner.
According to a report from Edelman, 81% of consumers agree that brand trust is one of the most important factors when making a purchase decision. As a result, it’s easy to see how powerful a good reputation can be when it comes to purchase decisions, brand loyalty, and word-of-mouth recommendations.
Relationship creation
Social media presents a great opportunity to form a closer relationship with your target market, turning leads into customers, customers into loyal customers, and loyal customers into brand advocates. As a way for you to show your human side — that is, the faces and the processes behind your business — you can easily increase your likeability. After all, people buy from those they like and trust.
Social media also allows you to post updates about your business, promote your products and services, inspire people, create conversations, and strengthen your connections.
The more you post, the more you learn
Social media marketing does come with a learning curve, but the best way to get up to speed is simply to dive in. The more you post, the quicker and the more you will learn.
By accessing the social media analytics available within each social media platform, it’s easy to assess the performance of individual posts, as well as your performance overall. This will allow you to draw conclusions about the content that is resonating the most with your audience, as well as where improvements need to be made. You can also gain insights into your audience on their demographics and location to make strategic decisions relating to your content and posting schedule.
But in order to start learning, you must start doing. Posting regularly and consistently will enable you to assess your performance over time and understand where your strengths and weaknesses lie.
Simplifying your approach to social media with Adobe Express
Social media is intimidating if you’re just getting started, but rest assured you don’t have to go it alone. Content Scheduler within Adobe Express is an incredibly useful tool that will help you to stay consistent in your social media efforts by allowing you to plan and create your social media content in advance, and schedule it to be published at your chosen time and date.
Further reading: Three new ways to grow your social channels