I just returned from a two-hour workshop I conducted on social media marketing.
After everyone asked their questions, thanked me and went on their merry way, a marketing manager came to me and posed the question "so how often should I post on Twitter and Facebook?" It is seemingly a simple enough question, however the truth is that is that after looking at their accounts they didn't have any followers so the answer is "it doesn't matter, no one is listening".
I find that this happens more often than not when a company realizes the value of Social Media Marketing as a factor in SEO (search engine optimization) and a lead generating opportunity so they decide to jump in.
KUDOS for that, however the first thing that should be done - even before a strategy is developed is to LOOK, LISTEN and LEARN.
Social Media will not be nice to you if you treat it like a sales and marketing platform.
Therefore what I advised was that for the first 30 days post nothing! That's right, post nothing.
Spend the 30 days retweeting, commenting, replying, suggesting and sharing.
Also start finding people to follow or fan and see what is going on and only jump in if you have something of value to share or a complement to give.
The time invested is to build an audience of friends, followers and fans.
Understand what they are interested in and value and how to engage them.
Once you have observed, studied, and even tested the waters and your audience starts to build then you can develop a strategy.
If you don't know who you are 'talking' to then you can't possibly know what to 'talk about' or how often they are going to pay attention.
If all you are doing is posting things about your company or links to your site then when someone goes to check you out to determine if they are interested in following you will look at your stream of marketing chatter and discard you as a spammer or having nothing of value to offer them.
I will always encourage clients to jump in but to avoid death by drowning.
Tread lightly until you understand the audience and what gets and holds their attention.
Then you can craft a strategy to build up awareness of your company's and your special talents and knowledge and you will have an audience that is listening.