I’ve often been asked the question, is it possible to have too much of a presence when using social media? Recently, I noticed this same question on a LinkedIn group discussion so I thought I’d share my take here on my blog.

The answer to this question requires you to take a step back and understand first WHY should you have a presence in the first place. You first need to be able to answer simple questions like; Why should we be on Facebook? Why should we have a company blog and who will care?

It’s important to identify a relevant need (the “why”), then take the proper steps to set objectives, understand your audience, devise a strategy and execute tactics (which is simple to say, but hard to do right). However, when you know all that, then the answer to “how often” you should physically post content will reveal itself.

Having a profile on every social network that exists on the Internet is not the right strategy. You must first truly understanding your customers / clients behavior and where they are online. This can and should be done through as many measurable activities as possible (pending budget constraints, of course). Some examples I would suggest are: focus groups, polls, surveys, social media monitoring software, email marketing analysis, web analytics analysis, SEO analysis and direct competitor analysis. When this data is combined and analyzed, you will then have a more complete technographic assessment of your audience to help inform your decision.

If you understand why you’re here in the first place and what the landscape of “where YOUR fish are” is- then a well constructed strategy should outline the quantity of how much and where (tools) you should post to achieve the objectives you have (that’s the hard part). Furthermore, social media monitoring tools, comments and feedback from your users should help you understand the frequency that’s acceptable to post and what your audience responds to. Personally, I find myself frequently tweaking + testing my content and interactions to get things just right.

“How much social media presence is too much?” <– at first glance, it seems like a simple question- but it requires some prerequisites to be answered before you can answer this question correctly.

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