Volume is an important factor in content marketing – the more you produce, the more people will likely see your content. But even volume has an upper cap. HubSpot’s VP of Content Joe Chernov recently made a change on the blog in which the company scaled back their content production significantly because they had reached a point of diminishing returns.
While their eventual number is 100 posts per month, well above and beyond what you and I can produce, it shows that there is a limit to what volume alone can do. Quality is equally important, but I believe above and beyond all of those factors is consistency.
Without consistently produced content released on a regular basis, a number of issues can pop up. Here’s a look at the benefits you gain from releasing content consistently.
Regular Readers
If you produce high quality content, you’ll gain a small loyal following of regular readers. This is a great thing, but if you want to keep them you’d better be consistent. This goes double for content that falls into the “limited demand” category of podcasts and videos.
People only have so much time in the week to consume content. If you fall behind in posting, you can easily fall off of their regular rotation. Podcasters live and die by this with new ones focused heavily on how to get into that rotation and old ones working to stay in it. Skip an episode and you’re out. The same goes for video production and regular blog production (especially if you write long posts that require a lot of time to consume).
SEO Friendly Production
The search engines like regular content – they also reward it with more consistent and frequent crawling of your site. This can lead to better results in the search engines for all of your content.
At the same time, there are a number of directories that will only list your content if it is updated consistently. AllTop, one of the better expert-level blog directories will only list your blog if you post consistently with fresh, expert-level content on your subject matter. Stop posting and you lose that spot.
Feeds a Regular Social Schedule
Social media lives and dies by the content you produce. No content means nothing to put into the cyclical social machine, which of course means less activity on all of your channels. If you have a regular posting schedule for your blog, YouTube channel, and podcast, you have a solid log of content you can then post related to your brand in social media.
It also allows you to schedule in advance more readily because you’ll be drawing from an editorial calendar that is hopefully ahead by several days or even weeks.
What Role Does Frequency Play in Consistency?
It doesn’t matter how frequently you post to your blog – do it consistently. If you decide to post only once a month make sure you’re posting on the same day every month. If it’s weekly, choose a day and stick to it. Consistency has to become an integral part of your digital marketing strategy.
This helps you plan time for content creation as well. If you know that you will be posting every Tuesday, you can set aside 2-3 hours every Monday to focus on content creation, scheduling, and social media publication. If you know you post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you can schedule a full day at the end of each week to prepare for the next.
This kind of time is hard to set aside when you’re running from behind – and blogging, like so many tasks that offer incremental benefits – falls to the bottom of the to do list too easily if you let it.
And if you’re unsure of next steps or how to keep your content moving into the funnel quickly enough to feed your schedule, download our blog creation checklist. It will help you prepare for and get new content out regularly without stressing over missed deadlines.
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