Don't Overdo Online Marketing on Social Media

One of the most frequently asked questions I get about online marketing is how much is too much? Usually this is in respect to the use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn because these are the parts of the online marketing plan that are most frequently updated.

There is no direct answer to this question, you just want to make sure that you are giving users a chance to benefit from all of the information you post on your social media platforms. Additionally, if they are bombarded with information, even if it is useful, it is likely they will stop following you. Nobody wants to  stream your Facebook posts to their page if you post too often. It will make it so your posts are the only thing appearing on their page and they want diversity. For Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn I think the general rule of thumb should be between 1 and 5 posts a day at the absolute most. With Twitter I think you should also try to stick within this range for your original posts, but that does not mean that you can't retweet and respond to comments. Remember that these ranges are for your original posts, it does not include comments on other people's posts or responding to questions, comments, or concerns from your users.

Everywhere you look you will probably find a different answer to this question because everyone has a different opinion. My answer is in respect to your small business online marketing plan. The whole idea of online marketing is to provide useful content to your customers so that they keep coming back and pass the information on to their friends through social media. As we have discussed, this can lead to exponential amounts of new customers. Some people will tell you that there is no such thing as too many posts, but I disagree. Posting too often will annoy your customers. Nobody will be able to stay on top of them all and they won't want to bother to sort through to find the ones they are interested in.

Sometimes you have a lot of good ideas in a day and you want to get it out and that is understandable. One suggestion is to use a social media management application, such as Hootsuite. You can use this application to schedule future posts. So if you hit your max for one day, schedule the post to hit the next day.

Additionally, I suggest that you do not stream one social media account over another as part of your online marketing. I have tried this and just feel that it is a waste. Firstly because it eats away at your daily post max for each application. Secondly because if the content from Twitter is available on Facebook, then nobody has any reason to follow you on Twitter. You want to make it so customers have a reason to follow you on each application that your small business uses as part of its online marketing. To do this the content on each has to be fresh and useful.

The final decision on how often to post on each social media application is up to you, but before you make the decision take all of these points into consideration. Put yourself in the shoes of your followers and think of what you would want if you were the customer. By doing this you are more likely to have a successful online marketing campaign.