Lesson: Social Media & Branding with Crystal Lee

Step #4 Logistics: Improve the timing, and impact of your social media accounts

We have a wonderful social media guru and her name is Jill. She does it for a living for other companies too, but she volunteers for us and I've learned a lot from her because she tweets on a regular basis and she loves it and she's very good at understanding that timing is also important. So that's one thing that social media has completely revolutionized. It's made everything faster.

Whenever I'm at an appearance, if I post a photo of that appearance the next day it's really not as valuable because people want to see what you're doing now. If I'm at a Christmas party they don't want to see it in February unless it's a Throwback Thursday photo, #tbt, which is also used on Instagram too. So the timeliness is important, getting photos right away and being the first account to post a photo that might be retweeted or shared often is also valuable because it almost gives you social capital. It makes people think, "This account is where the best new information is, so I'm going to be more likely to follow this one than another one," and that translates to influence. The news channels do it the same way. Journalists are constantly in competition with each other to see who can get the story broken first. It's the same with social media.

So there are better times and there are worse times to post on social media. Depending on your demographic, I think posting in the morning might be better, while for other demographics during lunchtime or even at night when people are done with work just catching up on their day's feed might be better. I think Facebook is good in the afternoon and at night because Facebook is I think mostly viewed after people come home from work. I think Instagram is good in the morning because most people will check their Instagram as they get up, before they start their day, right after or before they check their email on their phone. Lunchtime is also good because that's when people have an hour or two to really just relax and catch up on the news.

So what's interesting is the world is not one time zone. So anytime you post is pretty much good for someone in the world, especially if you have an international following. But the more frequent you post the better and it's better to post even at an odd hour of the day than not at all if it's good content. But there is a good way to optimize for a farthest reach depending on the time of the day.

Too much is when you can't sustain it. When users get used to seeing you post with a certain frequency and when you suddenly don't, they think something is wrong or they lose interest quickly. So it's important to continue tweeting and posting in a habit that you can sustain and the more often the better. But you also want to make sure your content is quality because the more you post the less likely your content is going to be quality. Just be cognizant that you think your tweet or your post might be shareable or retweetable.