There’s quite a bit you are able to do to spice up your probabilities of success on social media — optimize your content material for engagement, discover your excellent posting occasions, grasp the artwork of thumb-stopping hooks…
However even these good ways do not assure success. Few issues do in relation to navigating social media algorithms and ever-changing viewers conduct.
From our analysis and expertise at Buffer, there’s just one factor that comes shut: posting constantly.
It’s a social media tip profitable creators, entrepreneurs, and even platform bosses (thanks, Adam Mosseri) share on a regular basis.
The extra you submit, the higher your probabilities of success on all social media platforms.
And guess what? Now we have now some knowledge to again this up.
Buffer’s resident genius (sorry, knowledge scientist) Julian Winterhiemer just lately carried out an enormous evaluation that measured the influence of constant posting on engagement throughout all of the channels Buffer helps — Instagram, Fb, TikTok, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, X, YouTube, Mastodon, and Pinterest — during the last six months.
As you may think about, the numbers are fairly darn cool.
Spoiler: Probably the most constant posters acquired a whopping 5x extra engagement — likes, feedback, and shares — per submit than customers who posted inconsistently.
Even of us who have been reasonably constant acquired 4x extra engagement on their posts. I’ll clarify how we categorised these ranges of consistency under.
We’re (sorry) Julian is engaged on weighing up the influence of posting constantly on every platform, and we’ll share that quickly, however for now, we wished to check out the massive image, long-term.
Let’s dig in.
Breaking down the numbers
To grasp these numbers, it’s useful to see how we arrived at them.
We appeared particularly at customers who created posts within the final 26 weeks (which is 6 months). That method, we have been evaluating folks equally and never together with of us who hadn’t posted in any respect or who had simply signed up.
Greater than 100,000 Buffer customers met these standards. From there, Julian grouped them into three classes to measure the consistency of every person. Then we measured what number of weeks these customers posted inside these 26 weeks.
Utilizing that definition, we arrived at three teams of customers starting from inconsistent posting habits to constant posting habits:
Inconsistent customers posted 4 weeks or much less out of the final 26 weeksConsistent customers posted 5-19 weeks out of the final 26 weeksHighly constant customers posted 20+ weeks out of the final 26 weeks
(Observe that we measured posts on a weekly cadence, so this is not the variety of posts, however the variety of weeks {that a} person posted at the very least as soon as — extra on this under!)
As soon as we had outlined these person teams, we appeared on the median engagements per submit for every group — and this is the place it will get attention-grabbing.
“The definition of engagement varies by platform,” Julian notes. “So for this evaluation, the full variety of engagements is the sum of feedback, retweets, favorites, reactions, likes, shares, repins, reposts, quotes, and replies.”
Engagement is usually the strongest sign in social media algorithms {that a} submit is efficacious. On most platforms, the extra engagement a submit receives, the extra probably it’s to indicate up in feeds — so it is a robust indicator of profitable posts.
We used the median engagement fee as a result of it offers a extra correct illustration of datasets with outliers, corresponding to social media knowledge. Outliers, like viral posts, can skew outcomes, so the median affords a clearer view of typical submit engagement.
The sample was crystal clear: The extremely constant posters noticed greater than 5 occasions the engagement per submit in comparison with those that posted sporadically.
Let’s put that into perspective with some percentages:
The extremely constant group noticed a formidable 450% extra engagement per submit than the inconsistent group and 26% extra engagement than the constant group.The constant group noticed 340% extra engagement per submit than the inconsistent group.
Not too shabby, is it?
What’s fairly neat too, is that even the constant posters (the center group) noticed an enormous soar in engagement in comparison with the inconsistent posters — getting quadruple the engagement per submit.
In fact, there’s some nuance right here. Let’s break that down even additional.
Right here’s a take a look at median engagement per submit measured in opposition to the variety of posting weeks.

Check out 21 weeks — that spike seems to be the “candy spot” for balancing effort and engagement, with a median engagement of 4.47 engagements per submit.
Our findings counsel that posting constantly over 20 weeks can result in the very best ranges of engagement, however past that, there could also be diminishing returns.
After 21 weeks of posting, engagement began to plateau and finally decline (although it’s nonetheless considerably larger than many of the constant group), suggesting diminishing returns for customers posting each week with out breaks.
In fact, this doesn’t essentially imply you must map out your content material calendar for the subsequent six months (26 weeks) and make sure you skip at the very least 5 of them. What it suggests to me is that posting at the very least weekly is good, however you can provide your self per week’s grace right here and there whilst you’re on vacation or going via a busy time.
If posting weekly feels a bit out of attain for you for now (I fully get it!), there are a number of important steps up that I assumed I might be attention-grabbing to say:
Week 3: A 58% improve in comparison with Week 2.Week 4: A 27% improve in comparison with Week 3.Week 5: A 17% improve in comparison with Week 4.Week 7: A 16% improve in comparison with Week 6.
These numbers actually present how impactful even only a few posts might be! So, simply because you may’t submit usually, doesn’t imply you shouldn’t in any respect.
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It’s value noting that this evaluation didn’t take into consideration the influence of posting a number of occasions per week, which is able to undoubtedly be fascinating — we’re engaged on that evaluation and can report again quickly!
Why this issues
Social networks wish to hold their customers entertained, engaged, and coming again for extra. To try this, they want a gradual stream of high quality content material — so once they get that from creators such as you, they’re extra prone to reward you for it.
And — if these yellow bars is intimating — let me offer you some perspective. The extremely constant customers posted in at the very least 20 weeks out of a attainable 25.
They didn’t submit each single week. They took a number of off right here and there — they usually might have solely posted as soon as inside these weeks.
Posting as soon as per week over the subsequent few months — fairly doable, proper? And it might have a big impact in your engagement and, consequently, viewers progress.
If that feels like a bit a lot, let’s check out the constant center group.
The excellent news? You do not have to submit each single day to see outcomes. Our knowledge exhibits that even transferring from “considerably constant” to “constant” posting could make a big distinction in your engagement charges.
Begin small, suppose huge
For those who’re feeling overwhelmed by the concept of constant posting, bear in mind you can begin small:
The important thing is not perfection — it is progress. Even posting as soon as per week constantly is best than posting every day for per week after which disappearing for a month.
So, what’s your subsequent transfer? Perhaps it is time to mud off that content material calendar, set some reasonable posting objectives, and begin displaying up a little bit extra constantly on your viewers.
Seeking to make your begin? We’ve got some actually helpful assets to assist: