By zack
Recently we had a customer return from a funeral and cemetery conference and asked about how frequently she should post to Facebook. A so called “social media expert” advised them to post less frequently in order to get more engagement. Needless to say, I was surprised by this advice. But rather than write it off out of hand, I decided to do a little digging to determine the right answer to the question, “How often should your funeral home or cemetery post on Facebook?”
As the creators of the most popular social media solution in the funeral and cemetery industry, we have access to unprecedented data to determine questions like this. So I set to work analyzing 10,000’s of posts over the past couple months. I created 4 groups of funeral homes and cemeteries:
- Frequent Posters (those who post 2 times per day or more)
- Daily Posters (those who post around once per day)
- Occasional Posters (those who post every other day)
- Infrequent Posters (those who post just a couple times per week or less)
For each group, I ran the numbers to determine how much reach and engagement they are getting for an average post. Take a look.
Funeral homes that post frequently (over once per day), actually see 41% more reach per post than those that post daily or less! Firms that post infrequently (a couple times per month or less) see the least reach for an average post.
The likely reason is that firms that post frequently generate more fans and affinity with their fans. As people see and engage with their frequent posts, Facebook ensures they see more subsequent content from your firm. The more you post, the more likely you’ll reach people at one time or another to start building that affinity.
When it comes to engagement, firms that post frequently again see the highest average engagement per post. Interestingly, occasional posters have the second highest engagement. My hypothesis is that firms that post frequently or occasionally are most likely the firms that post obituaries (as either their only posts, or as a supplement to their other content), and obituaries are particularly engaging in smaller cities.
Now we just looked at how firms that post frequently have the best reach and engagement on an average post. But the real value of posting frequently is that you’ve got MORE posts to build your total reach. In other words, if firms that post frequently get the most average reach, and they are posting the most often, then the resulting total reach is compounded. Here’s how the total reach looks, per group:
Firms that post frequently reach a whopping 153% more people than firms that post daily, and 558% more people than those that merely post a couple times a week!
Not surprisingly, the story is the same with total engagement. Firms that post frequently engage 143% more people than those that post merely daily.
Conclusions and Takeaways
From these results, it’s clear that your firm should optimally be posting as frequently as you can, up to 2-3 times per day if possible. This results in the highest average reach and engagement, and by far away the most total reach and engagement.
Obviously as a busy funeral home or cemetery, your time is probably not best spent posting on Facebook twice per day. That’s where the Social Media Copilot comes in. The Social Media Copilot is the industry’s most popular Facebook marketing solution, posting great, educational and branded content automatically for you, even while you sleep.
Finally, one more piece of advice: be careful who you listen to when it comes to social media. Anyone can call themselves a “social media expert,” but unless they can show you real numbers to back up their claims, always take their advice with a grain of salt… or two!
