One question I get a lot is, “How often should I post on my (fill in the blank).” It can be a blog or social media, but everybody wonders about the magic formula that will bring more traffic and engagement. I’ve Googled the question myself to see what others recommend, and I always see the same advice. It’s also advice I never follow.

How Often Should I Post?

The most often quoted advice here is: Be consistent. Most articles will advise you to post according to your comfort level, but to post regularly on the same day, at the same time. The theory is that your audience knows when to expect things and gets used to seeing it.

The result is it will eventually feel too demanding and you’ll burn out trying to keep up with your own schedule. Next thing you know, that thing you enjoyed becomes just work that you have to get done because you think your audience is expecting it.

I’ve tried a lot of thing over the years, and keeping a schedule was one of them. I had a planner and an editorial calendar. I planned, scheduled and published posts. And you know what? It does actually work. It’s a lot of work, but it works.

And then I got totally burned out and didn’t blog for a month.

Find Your Happy Place

The one thing most of the blog articles will tell you NOT to do is something like blog every day, then don’t for a week, then twice, then every day again. In other words- you are all over the place and just posting when you want.

Well, that’s what actually works for me.

But in an ironic twist, it works because I’m consistent in that approach. I’m consistently inconsistent.

I’ll be fired up about something and crank out lots of content, and then need to withdraw a bit and recharge. All the posting and online interaction can be draining. It’s OK to take a break from blogging and social media. It’s good for you.

The Magic Formula

So here’s the secret- whenever you want to see a quick and visible boost in blog or social media traffic, post. The more you post, the more results you will get.

If you want to see a boost in engagement, then engage. The more you comment on other people’s stuff, the more they will stop to see what you are doing and engage in return.

If you don’t feel like posting, or have anything to post, then engage.

And if you don’t feel like posting for a while? Don’t. Don’t force it.

This is the reason I’ve been able to keep this blogging/content creating thing going and growing for the past seven years. It’s the reason I haven’t totally burnt out and the reason I still have fun doing this.

So the magic answer is: post when you want, but just keep at it. Be realistic. If you take a couple weeks off here and there, no big deal. But if you take months off at a time, then you won’t succeed. You’ll lose all the momentum you created every time you take a break like that.

The Current Posting Schedule I Follow:

This is my “no schedule schedule” that I try to stick to for each platform:

The Blog: Once a week at a minimum, more if I can. I also space out sponsored, or “Guest Geek,” posts. If I have a sponsored post, then I try to make the next one a personal post. I’d love to keep it at a steady three posts a week, but so far I’ve only been able to stick the “post when I want” schedule.

Instagram: I try to post on @SewGeekMama at least every other day. This is the account that I earn the most $$ from, and curate the most. I aim for at least one Reel a week or more. If I don’t have anything to post, then I make an effort to check out what other people are doing and engage. This will almost always result in the last post I did getting more views/likes. I post on the @GeekMamasBlog account whenever I feel like it, but I aim for once a week at the least. Guess which account performs better?

Pinterest: Once a week I pin a pic from every blog post I did that week, and if I didn’t do much then I pick out some old posts to share. I don’t really know how to do Pinterest well, I don’t engage on there, but I have over 100K views a month and a lot of traffic from it, so whatever I’m doing it’s working pretty well. This is one platform I want to explore more.

Facebook: I aim for every other day on Facebook, which lines up with my Instagram post. Usually it’s the same thing which makes it easy. I don’t post a lot of videos on Facebook because they never do as well as picture posts. Facebook is the only platform where I will get continuous engagement on a photo for 2-3 days after posting. On Instagram it’s like you have one day and then it goes silent.

Twitter: I always forget about Twitter. In fact, I should go post something over there now.

TikTok: Nobody is paying attention to anything I do on there. The only reason I post there is because I already have the Reels done and might as well use them.

YouTube: I also just post whenever I have something here. I do get good traffic when I do, but I can’t keep up with everything and doing full videos too, so I usually just post shorts, which is the same Reel and TikTok I already posted.

If it sounds like a lot of posting…it is. So even without a schedule I still post all the time. But every post is the possibility of more people funneling into the blog, which has ads on it, which earns me money. So if you read down this far, there’s probably an ad below this paragraph and maybe you earned me a penny or two, so thanks. I just hope it’s not an ad for toe fungus cures or belly fat because those are just gross and I wish they’d stay off my posts, lol.