James L. Rubart is the best-selling, and award winning author of ROOMS, BOOK OF DAYS, and THE CHAIR. During the day he runs Barefoot Marketing, helping authors make more coin of the realm. In his free time he dirt bikes, hikes, water skis and take photos. No, he doesn’t sleep much. He lives with his amazing wife and teenage sons in the Pacific Northwest and still thinks he’s young enough to water ski like a madman. More at www.jameslrubart.com Or e-mail him at: jim@jimrubart.com

How often should you post on social networks like Facebook and Twitter?

When I put together radio schedules for my clients, I need to hit listeners three times (or more) a week to burn companies into their minds. It’s a proven formula to drive sales.

Can that be overdone? Maybe.

In the mid ’90s I worked for an ad agency that pushed the “or more” to an extreme. We ran so many ads for a Seattle area mattress company that people hated the commercials. Hated the owner of the company who appeared in the spots. Local media made fun of her with parodies of her accent and style.

But guess what mattress company was top of mind in the Seattle area? Guess which mattress company sold the most beds? Yep.

Does this mean we should be posting machines on Facebook and Twitter? Uh, not so fast.

You buy a mattress only about every ten years. And you don’t have to like the company or their spokesperson. If you feel you’re getting a good deal, you’ll put up with the dislike of the ads as you’re handing over your credit card.

But with readers, we have an ongoing relationship. We want them to like us. We do not want to annoy them.

Have you de-friended someone because of too many posts? Yes, thank you, I see that hand.

A few people that show up in my in-box (telling me they’ve posted in one of my FB groups) I automatically delete. Four to six times a day is too much for me.

What’s the Right Amount?

Sorry, wish I could tell you. The frequency of three-plus times on radio and TV was determined after decades of trial and error. We don’t have the same backlog of studies for posting in social media (yet).

Until we do, think of your posts as visits from a friend. (It’s a social network, after all.)

Would you like to chat with your best friend once a day? (Some studies show the shelf life of a FB post is twenty-two hours.) Would you want to hear from him or her twice a day? Three times a week?

Use that as a guideline.

Content Is Always King

Remember, content will always be king. If you post three times a day and the content is so scintillating it launches people out of their chairs and have them dancing the mambo, post on!

But it’s the rare writer who can do that. Yes, some of your close friends care that Starbucks didn’t fill your cup all the way to the top. Most other friends don’t.

Far better to post five times a week with content that makes people say wow, than five times a day that makes people yawn.

Must go. I have some e-mails I need to delete.