Marketing Director

Understanding Social Networks: Frequency


Last month I discussed understanding social networks with a focus on delivery. I continue to see lots of people cross posting from Twitter to LinkedIn, something that I consider to be a bad move due to the nature of the different audiences on each social network. Today let's discuss something with even less hard and fast rules than delivery: Frequency. We've all had someone in our online social network who updates their status too much or with items we don't find interesting. I am sure I have been that person before (please let me know with a comment below, thanks). On LinkedIn most of your network is professional and oriented towards different goals and habits than on Twitter or Facebook. Here's an example from LinkedIn today:

To be kind to friends and connections I have blacked the cross posters' information. As you can see these folks are cross posting from Twitter. I already get these messages on Twitter from these people. I used the colored dots in the top right of the updates to identify the same user's updates. The frequency of these people's tweets is preventing me from viewing as many different LinkedIn updates as I would like. I see the same people constantly in my LinkedIn updates section. 

The frequency of tweets (1-20/day) is very different than the usual frequency of LinkedIn updates (1-3/week). I know I am going to get into a bit of hot water here as everyone has different ideas about how often updates should be made on different social networks. There are NO hard and fast rules here, but when people ask me how frequently they should post I give them this list:
My Twitter Stats from tweetstats.com



  • Twitter: 1 ~ 100 times/day (few can be productive, see: @unmarketing's Best tip: 75% @replies.)


  • LinkedIn: 1 - 3 times/week


  • Blog: Set a standard and stick to it. (Daily, weekly, monthly)


  • Facebook Personal: As you please.


  • Facebook Page: Set a standard. Observe page insights & likes, comments, etc. Don't Spam.


  • These are frequencies I recommend using for posts. What do you recommend or use?

    We are all busy and seeing things we aren't interested in can turn people off, consider how easy it is to "unfollow" on Twitter or "hide" on Facebook. This is why it is so important to understand and respect each audience for their differences in the frequency and delivery they expect.

      1 comment:

      1. Kemp, glad I'm not the only one to have a problem with this. I've asked Linkedin to create an option to NOT see Twitter posts. I get so many that the real Linkedin updates are obscured. And pretty much all my Linkedin connections are also Twitter follows so I get their tweets twice.

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