How Many Social Media Accounts Should You Have?

how-many-social-media-accounts-should-your-brand-have

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

When it comes to social media outlets, are two heads better than one? It’s common for schools to wonder if they should have one common brand page or multiple brand pages for specific aspects of the school’s community and programs. What is best for you?

It’s important to consider a number of factors when determining how many accounts your school should run on each social media platform. My preference is to streamline all my information into one main brand account for each outlet (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). Here’s why …

Social Media Algorithms

Algorithms can be a real nuisance for social media marketers, and even top brands have seen declines in their organic reach. However, considering the value of these outlets for reaching and connecting with our audiences, we have to adapt.

These algorithms are a way for your networks to show posts in a users’ feed based on relevancy instead of when they were published. Content is prioritized according to the likelihood that they’ll actually want to see it. While users have the option of seeing posts in reverse chronological order (newest first), not many will adjust this setting.

Despite the dismay of brands, algorithms actually have a purpose. Consider the number of users and brands on social media today, and how much content is being published and shared regularly. Algorithms serve as a way for networks to serve up the content that users want most, without bombarding them. So, it’s important to play the game and do your best to get your content seen.

Content Generation

No social media account is going to be successful without high-quality content. As you debate the number of accounts, it’s important to think about how much content you’re going to be able to create for each. Content freshness is one factor that algorithms consider. Most users don’t want to see week-old content, so priority is placed on the newest content, which means keeping a steady stream of content published is crucial.

Most experts suggest that posting on social media outlets regularly is vital to working with algorithms to ensure that your content is seen by followers. What constitutes regularly? Many will debate, but I recommend, at a minimum posting high-value unique content as follows:

  • Facebook: 1-3 times a day; max 5
  • Twitter: 5-7 times a day; max 20-25 a day
  • Instagram: 1-2 times a day; max 2-3 a day
  • LinkedIn: 1-2 times a week; max 3 times a week
  • Pinterest: 1-2 times a day; max 10 times a day
  • YouTube: 1-2 times a week; max 3-5 a week

Engagement Levels

Relevancy is also important, so posting random content just to meet a daily quota isn’t going to be much help. It’s important that your users will want to interact with what you post. The more your users engage with your content, the more the algorithms will feed your content to your users.

Basically, social media is a popularity contest. The more popular you are, the more airtime you get. This is where the number of followers you have will come in handy. The more users you have on an account, the more likely you are to gain engagement on your posts.

Types of Accounts

While program-based accounts let you hyper-focus on your audience’s interest, it does often limit the quantity of content you can publish. And, most likely, your users will have multiple interests, meaning you’re asking them to follow multiple accounts. Will your users find everything that interests them?

Many schools also segment their social media accounts is by the user’s stage of life: prospective, current, and past. While this allows you to segment content based on user needs, it does mean that you need to migrate users from one account to the other as they change stages of life within your organization.

One main brand account lets you combine all program content and constituent lifecycle content into one channel. They can consume what they want and ignore the rest, and it means that once you have a user in the mix, you don’t have to migrate them to new accounts throughout their career with the school.

Plus, you get the added benefit of allowing your current and past users to promote your school to your prospective users. Why wouldn’t you want prospective families to see posts from your alumni as they remember their fun times and lament about how much they loved their teachers?

The Bottom Line

If you’re trying to win a popularity contest, you need to have a strong following. You’re not going to get a strong following if you don’t have high-value content to share. If you can’t generate the minimum number of high-quality posts that will gain engagement for each account, is it really worthwhile to have all of them?

Looking for help with your social media management? Let’s talk.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.