Imagine going to the local grocery store to buy milk. When you get there, you discover they don’t have any. Then the next time you visit they’re out of your favorite flavor coffee and creamer. The next time you visit they’re out of your particular brand of bread and milk again (who eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches without milk?). Chances are irritation is going to set in and soon you’re going to find yourself at another grocery store.
You start a Twitter account and fire away updates (links to useful resources, you’re engaging) and you grow your following. Then, suddenly you stop Tweeting. Your last Tweet was 90+ days ago. Your Facebook Page hasn’t been updated for 3 months. Your last blog post was 3 weeks ago. How do you think your community feels? Engaged? Or annoyed because the grocery store was out of milk?
Consistency Matters:
When you start connecting with people through a particular medium (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs) and you share relevant content that they find useful, it becomes expected that you’ll continue to do so with them consistently and over time. It’s easy for someone to stop “following you” because you haven’t Tweeted in 90+ days. It’s even easier for people to forget about your Facebook Page because you haven’t posted in 3 months. And you’d better believe that they’re going to find another blog to replace yours on their Feed Reader; after all, you haven’t written anything in 3 weeks.
If you’re not consistent, you become irrelevant, because today we have an abundance of choice. Why read your blog when we can read Chris Brogan’s (he posts every day – almost)? Why read your blog when we can read Agent Genius (they have multiple authors who post daily)? Why would I subscribe to your blog if your last post is dated October 2009 (that’s 8 months ago now) – how are you relevant?
People are looking for information that’s relevant to them today. You don’t need to write a blog post every single day. But you need to be consistent. Weekly should be a minimum though twice a week is a good (better) number. At the end of the day, the success of your blog is dependent on your ability to develop fresh new content consistently.
How often do you write for you blog? Do you write one, two times per week? Once a month? Do you use an editorial calendar to stay on track or do you just sorta write when inspiration strikes?
Yes, consistency does matter. It matters for the here-and-now, and it matters because it's how we build a library of content for the future to use over and over again in multiple ways. I post three times a week most weeks. Sometimes just twice, but that's normally on or around holidays when traffic is lighter. The rhythm is a comfortable one for me and for the readers. I find if I post much more than that, the readers get fatigued in trying to keep up with the reading and commenting. So many wonderful blogs out there that it's hard to keep up with them. Things are looking awesome around here, by the way, and as always, your writing is sooooo good.
Re: “The rhythm is a comfortable one for me and for the readers”
That's important to recognize. Personally, I haven't set a number (tho perhaps I should). I'm stuck between finding a balance for content here and on my company blog: http://www.ribeeziemedia.com/category/blog
Anyway, I think you're doing an excellent job and it shows in your great community. Thanks for the comment and for the kind words Jean 🙂
Probably the number one rule to blogging. If you don't add content, you're not going to add readers. I'm pretty inconsistent, but that's because my time is spread thin between producing content for clients, responsibilities, and then trying to make sure whatever I do post to my blog is at least of an acceptable quality. I'd rather post only once or twice a week and have the content be decent, than post frequently and have it be full of fluff.
Paul: very well said: “If you don't add content, you're not going to add readers.”
I don't think there's anything wrong with posting once or twice a week. There's something to be said for producing quality content rather than a bunch of fluff. People don't share mediocre content, they share the good stuff after all.
Thanks for the comment and blog on!
Yes, consistency does matter, however sometimes real life steps in that calls you away from Blogging & Twitter. When that happens you hope that your readership & followers would understand.
This is true. Though I think their level of understanding is going to be related to how well you engage with them to begin with. If you do engage with them sincerely and often, I think it's all good. If all you do is broadcast, then fail to provide (or continue to provide) useful relevant info, you've lost out. And it's easy to lose subscribers and so much harder to win them back (in my opinion).