Just as with advertising, content marketing strategies need to have clear goals, timelines, budgets and KPIs. But since publishing on the internet is free, it’s hard to figure out how often can you afford to do it. And how much is too much. Will your followers leave if you pester them with a tweet every half an hour? Hard to say.
And experts are not particularly helpful. This week, social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk fired some arguments for full content offensive by relaunching his blog and “tripling down” on content. He even has an employee at his consultancy following him around, recording his remarks and turning them into social media content, according to Forbes.
Don’t be an asshole
Gary Vaynerchuk has a massive following, but also some very observant critics. Notably, B.J. Mendelson, author of a very helpful little book Social Media is Bullshit, regards him to be a prime example of the so called “Asshole Based Economy” of egomaniacal leaches who charm money out of people’s pockets by promising instant success on the internet.
While I wouldn’t put it exactly this way and would definitely avoid using such language, I had absolutely the same opinion as Scott Monty of Ford when I read about Vaynerchuk’s new strategy: “I would imagine that only the most ego-driven leader would consider it necessary to employ someone in order to catch the pearls of wisdom coming out of his or her mouth.” I even thought of the same reference! Really!
It just seems medieval. In Scandinavia, this strategy would be even more absurd due to our sacred Law of Jente, which prohibits bragging and other means of ego promotion. And it seems that it only works for Vaynerchuk because he has fanatical followers, who believe that keeping up with his frantic pace of publishing is their way to get rich quickly.
Tweet.. And it’s gone
However, as Mitch Joel correctly argues in Harvard Business Review, Vaynerchuk isn’t the only brand that can benefit from publishing way more than it does now. I would add that when you have something exclusive, very helpful or just something that is very important to you, you shouldn’t hide it. Half life of a link posted on Twitter for example, is only 2,8 hours. Tweeting several quotes from your article at different points of a day is not likely to scare anybody off and if you’re running a global business, it’s the only way to hit all time zones.
There are good statistical reasons to post content on your social media channels more than once a day. But as for other aspects of content strategy, you should not rely on pretty infographics from the internet. Do your own research. And not just about the numbers of likes and comments. It seems to make common sense to do interviews and focus groups, just like you would do with off-line marketing initiatives.
So should you focus on quality or quantity? Obviously, doing both, while keeping an eye on your overall strategy, budget and goals, is the only right answer.
