The short answer: not very long at all.
When you post a link or something else online, you have probably noticed that people will “Like” or comment mostly within the first few hours after posting. After a couple of days, the post is all but forgotten, and the chances of anyone noticing it then are slim to none. Whether we post a link or a blog entry, the most attention these posts receive is usually generated right away.
Research conducted by Bit.ly (the service that shortens URLs) reveals that stories and news shared online initially receive a surge of attention, peak, and then basically are defunct. News stories, in particular, fade away quite rapidly, since news changes all the time and there’s always a new story.
A study from Visibli Social Analytics showed that Facebook posts receive 50% of their total “Likes” within the first hour and 20 minutes. The posts receive 80% of their “Likes” within the first 7 hours, and 95% within 22 hours. After about a day, your links and posts are obsolete, and it’s time to move on.
Now, this doesn’t mean you should post every hour and 20 minutes. If you post too frequently, visitors to your page can become overloaded and annoyed. You don’t want to risk alienating people by being an over-eager poster. Once or twice a day is probably sufficient for most pages, like a company’s Facebook page.
A helpful suggestion from Visibli was the following, “To avoid cannibalizing Likes from earlier posts, companies may delay future posts until they have maximized engagement on previous ones.” In other words, if you post too often, you may actually lessen the attention your other posts get. Offer one new link or post and give it some time to receive all the attention it can. When you have capitalized on all the interest that link or post can realistically generate in the short term, you know it’s time to move on to something new.
John Bradley Jackson
Entrepreneur, Professor, Author
Deja New Marketing
© Copyright 2012