How To Achieve The Ideal Content Marketing Balance
How much content is too much content? It’s important to keep online assets up to date. But at what point do you risk making your clients jaded and unresponsive? Facebook is more forgiving when it comes to excess content, because it gives certain channels priority. This makes it far less likely for your fans to be overexposed to your brand. Unfortunately, it might also mean you get blacked out from their timeline completely. On Twitter, the timeline zooms by and is constantly refreshed. Unless you can prime your customers with real-time interaction, you’re likely to get lost in the crowd. So, how do you strike the perfect balance when it comes to content marketing?
1. Current Best Practices
At the moment, conventional wisdom suggests uploading five to ten posts on Facebook every week. For Twitter, start with five posts a day and work your way up. On Facebook, every time someone responds to a post, it flies back to the top of the timeline. This means frequency is less important than interaction. Put up content that will encourage active responses. This way your single post can generate leads for days or even weeks at a time. The Twitter feed doesn’t work the same way, but direct responses to tweets lead to more engagement and retweeting. Don’t just post passive pieces. Put some thought into it and update content that will drive interaction, spinning customers off in tangential directions. A good hashtag helps too.
2. Keep Track Of Important Events
It’s always a good idea to take a long-haul view to content generation. A good content calendar can help you. Ideally, begin by noting all the important dates such as national holidays, regional events, and so on. List them down to make sure you have a dedicated update for each one. For example, plan a post for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, and so on. Then, make sure you don’t upload other posts on that day, since you will risk oversaturating your feed. Once you’ve blocked off national holidays, you can agree how many more posts you will need in a month. Spread the rest of your content on days that have no specific significance. This approach has the added advantage of giving you time to pre-plan holiday-themed sales promotions.
3. Stay Up To Date On Industry News
Your content marketing strategy isn’t restricted to generating content. You need to gather data as well. Find a way to keep abreast of advances in your respective niche. You can use an online news aggregator or subscribe to reputable industry publications. Use this knowledge for your content marketing. Whenever something new is discovered or a keystone event takes place, address it. You want to be the first person to share it with your customers. But you want your material to be accurate. Don’t rush to share unverified information, and don’t paint your brand as a blind "me too" follower. If it happens that everyone is talking about the same thing, give it a new slant. Make your content stand out. Let it be the one link that gets clicked in a sea of similar links. If your content is engaging, your customers will forgive you for inadvertent frequency.
4. Answer Questions In A Timely Manner
Once you have decided on your ideal frequency, make every post count. Don’t waste your frequency budget on fluff. A good way to create top content is to use search terms. Go onto the public feed and flag topics. Use a trawler or hashtag to find out what people are asking about your product, or your industry in general. If you can identify a good customer question and address it directly, you will get points for engagement, customer care, and PR. This could lead to a direct real-time exchange with several customers. Creating an active thread is a great way to generate leads and build a healthy brand image. You could even aggregate a few questions and make a funny little FAQ clip, as well as pre-empting queries to solidify your expertise.
5. Use Your Analytics
Many social media platforms have inbuilt tools that can tell you which links got clicked. They show what time you had the most traffic, and which days are popular with your fans. As you work on your content plan, include these analytics in your feedback loop. If you notice that a certain post didn’t get much traction, try a different time slot. Try offering the same content in another format e.g. text versus video, or blog post versus meme. Another thing to keep track of is the changes in social media algorithms. Facebook, Twitter, Google and blogging online platforms often change their structural timeline policies. Check them frequently and adjust your content style and frequency to make the best of each new tweak. A good example is that lately, there is a leaning towards groups rather than pages. They seem to get more visibility, so keep that in mind as you plan.
When it comes to frequency of online content, quality trumps quantity. Posting five spammy articles can do more damage than leaving your page idle. A good starting point is five daily tweets, up to ten weekly Facebook posts, and two weekly blog posts. Develop a content calendar to generate date-sensitive updates. Make relevant comments on industry news. Answer customer questions, ideally before they are asked. Use analytics to refine your frequency sweet spot. Learn from others, but chart your own best path to online customer interaction.
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