Hello,
I'm Mervi Eskelinen!
An artist, nerd and sorcerer, dedicated to make world softer and better for everyone, and to get you to make more art. Make art, change the world!
When and how often to post on your Facebook page?
There are many theories on when and how often you should publish posts on a Facebook page in order to bump the reach and visibility of a post. Some will tell you how you should post during weekdays and never after 8 pm. Another will say you should post only 3 to 4 times a week. And they are both quite possibly wrong. First it is very important to note that when and how often to post depends on various things. The foremost issue is when your fans (the people who have liked your page) are on Facebook. This is not necessarily during weekdays and before 8 pm. If your fans are mainly office workers, with access to Facebook from work, then yes, they are very likely to be procrastinating over there during their working hours. This doesn't take time zones into account. Unless all your fans are at the same time zone, then you cannot follow any of the general rules of when to post on Facebook. When it's 8 pm at your time zone, it is 10 am at some other.
How often to post on Facebook is another question. As I mentioned above, I have seen people claiming you shouldn't post more than 4 times a week. This claim is based on the idea that a new post trumps the visibility of the previous post. However this is not the case. Facebook doesn't show posts by pages or profiles in a chronological order. Additionally it doesn't show all the posts to all the fans. The way the post visibility is determined is much more complicated. These days your fans can choose if they want to see posts by a page (or profile) first or "as usual". The "see first" option is more chronological than "as usual". In case you decided to rely on the rule of posting less, you would have to assume all your fans use the "see first" setting. Pretty bold assumption, as (at the moment I write this) many don't even know that setting exists.
So when and how often should you post on your Facebook page? The question of when you can answer only by testing and checking the insights of your page. In order to get the insights your page needs to have at least 30 likes by people, not other pages. At the Insights of your page you will find section called Posts. It offers you information on when your fans are online, shown at the local time of your computer. Mine are there mostly at 10 pm my local time, during Saturday and Sunday. That's not weekdays, nor before 8 pm. Additionally I know my fans are from different time zones and not all working at office hours, so I will try and spread my posts to different times.
The how often is a bit easier. You should post at least once a day, every day of the week. Preferably post several times a day, if you can come up with the content to post. Just don't appear spammy. In order not to appear spammy, try and post things that are relevant, funny and interesting to your page and its fans. If you post less, Facebook will also show your posts to less of your fans. I know, because I have tested this. When I have been posting more infrequently to my page, the reach and engagement of each one of those posts has been lower. When I post at least once a day, every day, each of those posts have had better reach and, in addition to that, a better engagement.
The reach and engagement your posts receive doesn't only depend on when and how often. Those two variables are actually a pretty small factors in gaining the visibility. Have you noticed how some posts pop up to your main timeline several hours or even a day after it has been posted? I just checked my timeline and I saw three posts by a page I have liked. The first one, higher up on my timeline had been posted 16 hours ago. The second one was posted 10 hours ago and the third one, showing up to me after a handful of other posts, had been posted 2 hours ago. This firstly proves that a new post on a page doesn't necessarily decrease the visibility of a previous post. The order of these posts appears to depend on amount of likes, comments and shares, but not in that order. The one posted 16 hours ago has less likes and less comments than the one posted 10 hours ago. It however has more shares than the other one. This is because Facebook ranks shares as more important engagement factor than comments or likes. This said, the visibility of a post on Facebook is determined by the engagement it gains. In order to boost the reach of your page's posts, you must boost the engagement. And then again, in order to boost the engagement, you must boost the reach. I have previously wrote down some tested and working tips for that.
Another thing to take into account is the content of each post. Facebook tries to suppress the most promotional posts and give more space for posts which, according to its algorithm, seem more relevant to the people who like your page. So the content matters too. If your posts are all very salesy, they are less likely to be seen by your fans. In order to gain more visibility for salesy posts, you must rely on your fans to really be fans and to like, comment and share those posts. Otherwise they will be silenced to the oblivion.
By now you are probably frustratedly asking: "Well, when and how often should I post on Facebook?" I know, I'm not giving you that many straight answers about it. This is because there's no straight, universally applicable answer to that. The best way to determine when and how often to post on your page you need to run some tests. Testing does seem daunting and time consuming. It is the only way to make sure you are posting the right amount and the right times to your page, for the optimal reach and engagement. The testing begins with posting at different rates and at different times. You can see the reach and engagement (likes, comments and shares) of each post straight on the posts, and later you can see them at the insights of your page. Additionally your page insights tell you when your page fans are online. You can export the page and post data for in-depth analysis in order to determine the optimal times and amount of posts. Note also that the post type, your caption and the image(s) shared along the post affect their reach, and the reach is different during different days. You will also have to adjust your post times and frequency periodically. Remember that when you get new likes or lose some old ones, the best times and amount changes. Also your fans may decide to unfollow your page for different reasons or perhaps they decide to take a break from Facebook or something else happens.
The answer to when and how often to post on your Facebook page is based on the people who like your page and their preferences, the type of your page, the content you post and many other smaller and bigger details. It also is not some set rule, which will remain the same week after week, month after month, year after year. Things change and your posting frequency and times gotta change too. Test, do, adjust.
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