What is the Lifespan of your Content?
All content has a lifespan. We know that.
What may not be so clear is just how long each piece of content we create will be visible for. For example, do you know how long a post will typically be in the feeds of your Instagram followers? Or how long a tweet will be typically be seen in the timeline?
It’s good to know these lifespans and have them in mind when crafting your content strategy.
After posting to Facebook, a post can usually be expected to last for around five hours, with it receiving three-quarters of its total engagement during this time. Impressions stagnate in around half that time, receiving about 75% of total impressions in around 2.5-hours.
It should be noted that the content of the post will affect the lifespan, due to how Facebook’s timeline algorithm functions. The numbers above are based on the default, non-chronological timeline.
Despite being owned by Facebook, content on Instagram tends to last much longer. Typically, 48 hours can be expected to be the lifespan of content posted to Instagram. It’s in this time that a post will receive 75% of total comments, whereas engagement tends to taper-off around the six-hour mark.
Keep in mind that this is based on a non-trending post. If your content gets onto the Discover page, expect it to perform better, and remain “active” for much more time.
Twitter is a micro-blogging site, and as such new content is constantly being shown to users of the platform. Because of this, it should come as no surprise that anything posted to Twitter will have a dramatically reduced lifespan, in comparison to Facebook or Instagram.
You can expect your tweets to have a lifespan of around 18 minutes on Twitter. Crazy, I know!
There are two metrics to keep in mind when posting to Snapchat when we’re thinking about lifespans.
When someone opens your story, each snap within typically lasts around 10 seconds, but that can be less. What this means is that unless a person specifically goes back to view your story, it will be lost almost instantly in their feeds.
However, to contrast this, Snapchat Stories last a total of twenty-four hours before they disappear. It should also be noted that the same applies to Stories posted to Instagram and Messenger. This is also likely to be the case with Twitter’s upcoming Fleets.
In terms of content lifespans, Pinterest is the top-dog. With there being a constant opportunity for your content to be pinned by Pinterest users, is can be expected that a post will last anywhere from three months to a year. In some cases, pins can remain active for years at a time, or even indefinitely.
Although what determines the lifespan of content is much more nuanced on each of these platforms, and each has a different algorithm at work, the above is a general outline of what can be expected when posting content to them.
A great way of extending the lifespan of your content is creating posts that are highly engaging, and that people love to share. Find out what these types of posts are here!
Are there any other topics that you’d like to see covered here? If so, then please let me know via the contact page, and I’ll see what I can do!
As you can see from being on this site, I’m also a freelance graphic designer, so if you need help with any projects you’re working on, I’d be more than happy to get involved! I’m currently available for both short and long term hire.
Thanks for reading!