Keeping up with Facebook changes can take a lot of time, but some make a big difference in how successful shelters and rescue groups will be in promoting their pets. One recent change is defintely worth some attention.

"I used to recommend a fairly light posting schedule for most Facebook pages, even as infrequently as 3-5 times a week," says social media consultant Christie Keith. "However, in the last few months, it appears that pages that post more frequently throughout the day have an edge over those that post less often."

Keith, who manages a number of animal welfare, pet adoption, and veterinary social media accounts, noticed that pages that posted 3-5 times a day, or even more, started having better engagement than those that posted only once per day. Additionally, while posts spaced out with fewer than three hours between them used to suffer in terms of engagement, that interval seemed to have decreased to two hours or less.

"Facebook usually doesn't announce these kinds of changes, which may be nothing more than minor tweaks in their algorithm but can result in huge changes in the day to day management of a Facebook page," Keith says. "Often, you can only discover them through trial and error."

What does this mean for shelters and rescue groups trying to get the most views on their Facebook page posts?

"Posts that get the most comments, shares, and likes, in that order, will go on to be seen by more of the page's followers throughout the day," she says. "To get the most out of your time on social media, it's essential to post things that will get a lot of engagement from your followers, and to keep an eye on how posts are performing so you can focus on the approaches that work rather than those that don't."

Keith says these are the most important tips:

Try posting three times per day, or more if you can. You can use the Facebook scheduler to space the posts out during the day.

Vary the type of content you post. For instance, if you post three times a day, mix up photos, videos, and links to outside websites.

Follow the number of views a post gets carefully. That's the only way to know how many of your followers are actually seeing your posts. You can do this right on the page itself, or by using Facebook's analytics for pages, Insights.

Does adding to the number of daily posts seem overwhelming? Don't worry, Keith says; content is still more important than timing.

"While adjusting the timing and frequency of your posts is helpful in ensuring the maximum number of people see your posts, the most important factor is how engaging the post is," she says.

"Be brief, be funny or heartwarming, use a great photo, and be very clear about what you want your followers to do. Even if you only post three times a week instead of three times a day, you'll still see higher engagement than if you post a flood of low-quality content."