There's a lot you can do to boost your chances of success on social media — optimize your content for engagement, find your perfect posting times, master the art of thumb-stopping hooks…
But even these smart tactics don't guarantee success. Few things do when it comes to navigating social media algorithms and ever-changing audience behavior.
From our research and experience at Buffer, there's only one thing that comes close: posting consistently.
It’s a social media tip successful creators, marketers, and even platform bosses (thanks, Adam Mosseri) share all the time.
The more you post, the better your chances of success on all social media platforms.
And guess what? Now we have some data to back this up.
Buffer’s resident genius (sorry, data scientist) Julian Winterhiemer recently conducted a massive analysis that measured the impact of consistent posting on engagement across all the channels Buffer supports — Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, X, YouTube, Mastodon, and Pinterest — over the last six months.
As you can imagine, the numbers are pretty darn cool.
Spoiler: The most consistent posters received a whopping 5x more engagement — likes, comments, and shares — per post than users who posted inconsistently.
Even folks who were moderately consistent got 4x more engagement on their posts.
I’ll explain how we classified these levels of consistency below.
We are (sorry) Julian is working on weighing up the impact of posting consistently on each platform, and we’ll share that soon, but for now, we wanted to take a look at the big picture, long-term.
Let’s dig in.
Breaking down the numbers
To understand these numbers, it’s helpful to see how we arrived at them.
We looked specifically at users who created posts in the last 26 weeks (which is 6 months). That way, we were comparing people equally and not including folks who hadn't posted at all or who had just signed up.
More than 100,000 Buffer users met these criteria. From there, Julian grouped them into three categories to measure the consistency of each user. Then we measured how many weeks those users posted within those 26 weeks.
Using that definition, we arrived at three groups of users ranging from inconsistent posting habits to consistent posting habits:
- Inconsistent users posted 4 weeks or less out of the last 26 weeks
- Consistent users posted 5-19 weeks out of the last 26 weeks
- Highly consistent users posted 20+ weeks out of the last 26 weeks
(Note that we are measuring posts on a weekly cadence, so this isn't the number of posts, but the number of weeks that a user posted at least once — more on this below!)
Once we had defined these user groups, we looked at the median engagements per post for each group — and here's where it gets interesting.
“The definition of engagement varies by platform,” Julian notes. “So for this analysis, the total number of engagements is the sum of comments, retweets, favorites, reactions, likes, shares, repins, reposts, quotes, and replies.”
We used the median engagement rate because it provides a more accurate representation of datasets with outliers, such as social media data. Outliers, like viral posts, can skew results, so the median offers a clearer view of typical post engagement.
The pattern was crystal clear: The highly consistent posters saw more than 5 times the engagement per post compared to those who posted sporadically.
Let’s put that into perspective with some percentages:
- The highly consistent group saw an impressive 450% more engagement per post than the inconsistent group and 26% more engagement than the consistent group.
- The consistent group saw 340% more engagement per post than the inconsistent group.
Not too shabby, is it?
What’s pretty neat too, is that even the consistent posters (the middle group) saw a massive jump in engagement compared to the inconsistent posters — getting quadruple the engagement per post.
Of course, there’s some nuance here. Let’s break that down even further.
Here’s a look at median engagement per post measured against the number of posting weeks.
Take a look at 21 weeks — that spike appears to be the “sweet spot” for balancing effort and engagement, with a median engagement of 4.47 engagements per post.
Our findings suggest that posting consistently over 20 weeks can lead to the highest levels of engagement, but beyond that, there may be diminishing returns.
After 21 weeks of posting, engagement started to plateau and eventually decline (though it’s still significantly higher than most of the consistent group), suggesting diminishing returns for users posting every week without breaks.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean you should map out your content calendar for the next six months (26 weeks) and be sure to skip at least five of them. What it suggests to me is that posting at least weekly is ideal, but you can give yourself a week’s grace here and there while you’re on holiday or going through a busy time.
If posting weekly feels a bit out of reach for you for now (I completely get it!), there are a few significant steps up that I thought I would be interesting to mention:
- Week 3: A 58% increase compared to Week 2.
- Week 4: A 27% increase compared to Week 3.
- Week 5: A 17% increase compared to Week 4.
- Week 7: A 16% increase compared to Week 6.
These numbers really show how impactful even just a few posts can be! So, just because you can’t post often, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at all.
Why this matters
Social networks want to keep their users entertained, engaged, and coming back for more. To do that, they need a steady stream of quality content — so when they get that from creators like you, they're more likely to reward you for it.
And — if looking at those yellow bars is intimating — let me give you some perspective. The highly consistent users posted in at least 20 weeks out of a possible 25.
They didn’t post every single week. They took a few off here and there — and they may have only posted once within those weeks.
Posting once a week over the next few months — pretty doable, right? And it could have a huge impact on your engagement and, as a result, audience growth.
If that sounds like a bit much, let’s take a look at the consistent middle group.
The good news? You don't have to post every single day to see results. Our data shows that even moving from “somewhat consistent” to “consistent” posting can make a significant difference in your engagement rates.
Start small, think big
If you're feeling overwhelmed by the idea of consistent posting, remember that you can start small:
- Pick one or two platforms to focus on
- Set realistic goals for your posting frequency
- Use social media management tools (👀) to schedule content in advance
- Build a content bank or library for those busy weeks
The key isn't perfection — it's progress. Even posting once a week consistently is better than posting daily for a week and then disappearing for a month.
So, what's your next move? Maybe it's time to dust off that content calendar, set some realistic posting goals, and start showing up a little more consistently for your audience.
Looking to make your start? We have some really handy resources to help:
