It’s still the number one question I get asked. And for good reason. Setting and keeping goals for frequency of posts can have a major impact on your fan count, your web-traffic referrals and your engagement levels. For journalists, the answer to this question is different than for other brands because journalists have more valuable content to share. Here are some basic parameters:
Facebook: The most current data from Facebook suggests that optimum frequency for newsroom posts depend on the goals of that newsroom:
5-10 Posts per day yeild the highest feedback (likes and comments)
11-15 Posts per day yeild the highest referral traffic
Twitter: I have yet to find a study related to Twitter frequency specifically for Journalists. However, several studieshave shown that 1-4 Tweets per day yeild the highest referral traffic. These studies focus on brands and individuals. My general thought is that newsrooms can get away with a much higher frequency rate so long as they’re putting out valuable content.
Of course the real key is enforcement. It’s not practical in a busy newsroom to run around with a stopwatch, keeping track of when the next Tweet is due. This was the inspiration for one of SocialNewsDesk’s most popular features: the Frequency Manager. It’s worth mentioning since we are on the topic and since SND is the ONLY social media manager with this feature. Inside SocialNewsDesk, newsroom managers set an individual frequency goal for each of the accounts attached to the system. Then, SocialNewsDesk monitors how often posts are made and displays information about when the next post is due. Here’s a snapshot:
If you’re interested to see how it works in a live demo, reach out to me anytime. kwilson [at] socialnewsdesk.com.