The 5:3:2 Rule for Social Media posting has made its way around the internet for a few years now. I generally have found this type of usage pattern to be helpful for small businesses, so we’ll discuss it briefly here. 

This type of Social Media posting can be helpful to a small business owner as it creates a variety that is more likely to be engaging to customers. The first mistake I made as a small business owner was to use Facebook and Twitter to bombard my followers with discounts and advertised specials. THIS DOES NOT WORK! For the same reason that people are “turned off” from SPAM emails and aggressive telemarketers, spamming your Social Media with discounts is a poor strategy for a small business owner. Large companies can play “numbers games” with their marketing; however, for those with a smaller messaging base, this proves disastrous. 

Social Media Mix (for every ten posts):

Create five posts that are interesting to your target audience (curation). An example of this would be a small music shop sharing an article about the benefits of teaching music to children and adults.

Create three posts that you have created specifically for your customers (creation). A few examples of this would be short “getting to know you” posts, acknowledging your team or employees, blog posts, infographics, and testimonials. 

Lastly, create two posts that provide a personality or human touch to your brand (humanization). These are posts that share your values or humor (tread ever so carefully with this!). An excellent example of this might be a picture of a mascot, a local sports team/community event, or a funny joke. Again, tread carefully! Humor is highly subjective and can potentially lead to lost revenue or lawsuits. 

These posts should be woven together or random and not sequentially five curations, then three creations, then two humanization posts. 

Why it works:

Variety is the spice of life! More importantly, social media companies “reward” successful online engagement with content. Engagement includes likes, shares, comments, and other metrics. Customers are more likely to engage with visual and written posts that are informative, controversial, or solicit advice. Once engagements have increased, the algorithm shares posts with more people who have subscribed to or ‘liked’ your page (organic reach). If you have a lot of followers/subscribers and are not seeing much engagement, try using this approach, or creating a reward/incentive for online participation with your brand.