What is the Shelf Life of Your Social Media?

The Internet is forever…or is it?

If you’re active in social media, you likely struggle with how often to tweet or post, especially when you have something to promote (like a book). How can we get our message across to the most number of people without pissing everyone off?

A first step in figuring out what works for your needs is to learn more about the shelf life of your posts on social media. You’ve posted it…now who will see it?

Twitter

In any given minute, 277,000 tweets are sent on Twitter. That is a lot of competition.

So it may not surprise you to learn the life of your tweet is short. Some estimates place it at one hour, but some estimates have it as low as 18 minutes.

Facebook

Facebook’s lifetime is also short. Check out this graph by Wisemetrics:

A breakdown of what you see here is…

75% of the engagement on your posts happens in the first two hours.
after 2.5 hours, your post will have made 75% of its lifetime impressions.
after just under 2 hours, your post will have achieved 75% of its reach.

The third-largest social media site, LinkedIn is a professional networking site. Your reach depends on your number of connections, but it’s generally thought that posts here live around 24 hours.

It’s also tricky because the site’s focus is less promotional and more professional. Your promotional tweets may not be well received by your connections.

Pinterest may be the fourth biggest social media site but, because of its visual appeal and the way the site is used, Pinterest posts have a longer shelf life than the rest. It’s less a “news” site (like FB and Twitter) and used more for inspiration. It also doesn’t hurt that Pinterest’s design is an infinite scroll, so you can see older content more easily.

This report found that:

40% of clicks happen within the first day.
70% of clicks happen in the first two days.
Remaining 30% of clicks occur in the next 30 days.

People respond more often to visual content, which is why Pinterest and Instagram are taking off. It also explains why FB and Twitter posts with photos get better engagement (retweets, likes, shares, comments).

So More is Better, Right?

Not necessarily. Posting the same promotional messages on a strict timetable is a bad idea. (On Twitter, this is expressly against their Terms of Service.) You are not a spammer or an autobot, you’re a human being. People want to connect with YOU on social media, not your book. Yes, share news when you have it, but do so sparingly. Respectfully.

There are many theories out there for what percentages of your content should be personal, from others, and promotional in nature. Of all the ratio theories, what’s important is the promotional number is always the smallest. So whatever you decide, know that your personal and shared content should far outweigh the promotional.

If you do retweet or repost a promotional message, vary it slightly so it looks fresh. No one wants to see the same-old, same-old three or four times.