If you and your marketing team have finally dialed in a schedule for social media posts and blog updates, kudos!
By blogging and updating regularly, you’ve come further than those who occasionally have good ideas of what to blog about but just can’t take that next step and do it often.
As Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu stated thousands of years ago, “the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”
But there’s a downside to this – after 1,000 miles your feet start getting kind of sore. Likewise, after dozens or even hundreds of posts/updates, you start running out of interesting things to say.
Content marketing is hard. Not in terms of advanced math/rocket science hard, but not terribly easy to always say something interesting and memorable.
The goal, of course, is to get people interested in you and what you’re saying. But if you’ve been at this for a while, you know there are some strange metrics at play– the posts you’re particularly are proud of barely measure a peep, and some you consider simply ordinary go viral.
Plus, as updates become part of your routine and a daily duty, it’s likely tempting to lower this task’s priority and focus on the larger projects that need your expertise.
Not helping are bloggers like Darren Rowse, founder and editor of ProBlogger. He seems like a good guy and generally gives encouraging advice. In 2013, he put together an interesting piece about how often to blog. His advice: don’t shoot for daily updates, but shoot for regular updates.
He has good points, sort of – forcing yourself to follow a rigid schedule is good for practice and for building self-discipline, but could eventually cause burn-out or posts that are lacking in substance. Likewise, if you have a lot to say on a topic, you’ll also be forced to break your own rule of “only one post a day.”
Joel Frielander, at the BookDesigner blog, suggests that daily updates may even work against some authors who aren’t necessarily interested in building traffic and SEO but more concerned with interacting with existing fans and the literary process. Even monthly updates could be a welcome treat to those who already love every word you print or don’t check your site all the time.
But don’t do these things.
Today’s best practice for a marketing plan really is to keep that content coming, preferably daily.
Opinions may vary on how often and when during the day, but enough experts seem to concur that at least once a day on every platform seems to be the norm. Social media sites are also notorious for not letting everyone see your content organically – but the more you post, the more likely people will be able to see your activity in their feeds.
If you start to run low on promotional content, there are plenty of other options.
- Spotlight a member of your team, especially someone who is outside the blogging/marketing group.
- Spotlight a customer or vendor. Tell how long they’ve been working with you and why.
- Re-run a “classic” post – it could be a fun bit of nostalgia – or something new!
Joe B has not gotten very far on his 1,000-mile literary journey, and distracts himself well with watching other people’s journeys.
