Content Overload: 5 Strategies to Stop Overwhelming Your Social Media Audience
Finding that magic amount of content without overwhelming your social media audience makes social media marketing one of the toughest online marketing tactics to perfect.
In the world of social media marketing, we are always looking for more engagement. We want a higher follower count, more likes and comments, and most importantly, more clicks. The temptation can be to post as often as possible, sending a volley of messages out to catch the most people. However, this strategy can overwhelm your audience, and consequently turn them off.
Here’s how to stop that from happening with 5 clever strategies.
1. The 2:1 Ratio
This ratio was first proposed as a way to keep marketing from feeling too salesy. The idea is that for every post you make about your business, you should add two more which are not. Your posts should still provide value for your customers and give them a reason to follow you: content curation is the best way to fill the gaps. For example, let’s say that you are a make-up artist specialising in bridal make-up. You could share an image from a recent client advertising your services, then add two more links about how to find the perfect dress or what needs to be done in the 6 months before the wedding. Without diluting your own message, you give the client a chance to breathe.
2. Daily Posting Times
Using the right daily posting times will boost your engagement without having to post more often. You can use analytics to see when people are more likely to like or comment on your posts. Generally speaking, most people find the same kind of trends. For example, it is better to post on Facebook between 1pm and 4pm, whereas LinkedIn tends to see better results between 10am and 11am. Make sure that you post during these time windows only to see an upswing in engagement. If you have more content to post, save it for the next window when you will see good results again. This prevents posts from getting lost in the shuffle in-between.
3. Schedule Ahead
Planning ahead can really help you to keep your posts in check. There are a number of scheduling software programs which will allow you to queue up posts for certain days and times. Use this to ensure that everything goes out when it should. This will also stop you from being tempted to overshare, as you can only stick to the schedule you have set out. It also means that when you have lots of content ready at once, you can spread it out for longer. While you might want to come off-schedule for reactions to current events or live posts, try to limit these and perhaps remove a post from your schedule to make up for it.
4. Limit Post Numbers
You should also limit the number of posts to ensure that you get the best results. There has been some research done into this already: for example, two posts per day appear to be best for Facebook. However, for smaller pages with less followers, this may not be the right number. A good way to find your number is to experiment steadily. See what kind of results you get over a week with two posts; repeat another week of posting three times; try a third week of posting once a day. Analyse the results and see what works best, then stick to it.
5. Only the Best
Another method for cutting down your posts and stopping your audience from being overwhelmed is to only post the best. Let’s say that you have 7 potential images you could post of a certain product. Now cut it down to only the 3 best images. You can share those 3, but no more. After this point, your customers may get overwhelmed and fed up of seeing the same product. This will work well if you are often guilty of throwing up every single piece of content that you have.
If you find that your engagement rates are plummeting, try using these posting strategies to ensure that you are not giving a content overload. You should see your numbers begin to come back to a level that you are more satisfied with. The secret to success is sticking to your strategies.
