Is there such a thing as too much content? Maybe.
Creating content is no easy task, and while other marketing tasks can easily be streamlined using third party tools, creating high-quality content is not one of them.
It takes a lot of time and creative effort to create content that catches an audience’s attention and keeps them engaged.
If that’s what really matters, then the question shouldn’t be how much content is too much content, but rather how effective is your content?
From this perspective, the quality of your content clearly matters more than the quantity. However, before we get into why quality matters over quantity, let’s rewind a bit.
What is difficult about content creation?
Everything. In fact, most businesses struggle to know where to even begin, let alone know how to create content that dazzles and amazes.
They struggle with things like:
- What type of content to post, eg: videos, blogs, infographics, etc.
- What topics to cover
- How content should be distributed
- What is working and what isn’t
This is unfortunate because these are all crucial aspects that, if left unaddressed, could be detrimental to business growth.
How much content should you create and post?
Most businesses seem to end up publishing either too little content (one blog post every 4 months) or too much (several blog posts, social posts, and videos per day).
The disadvantage of posting too little is that you give visitors (and Google) no reason to visit or crawl your website because you simply aren’t active, but what about posting too much? These disadvantages are not as clear. So let’s take a closer look.
1. Too much content ends up overwhelming your audience
Overwhelming your website visitors and social media followers with too much content will most likely just end up confusing and frustrating them.
Unfortunately, a lot of businesses make this mistake, thinking that the more content they put out, the more it will help increase their online visibility, and as a result, their authority in their field. When in fact, the opposite actually occurs.
Case in point, have you ever followed a business’s Facebook page only to unfollow it after a week or two because you got tired of the business constantly posting boring or obnoxious content?
You’re much better off as a business posting less frequently, and making your content more thoughtful. As opposed to posting off-brand content that confuses your audience about your core points and values, and dilutes any strong message you may have originally had.
2. Know your target audience and create content for them
Knowing your target audience is one of the most important aspects of any successful content marketing strategy. For example, if your business sells cupcakes, would it be wise to write content focused around fitness? Probably not, since your target audience most likely consists of people who are more interested in baking than fitness.
If you post content that isn’t relevant to your target audience, they won’t just ignore it, they probably won’t visit your website again.
So don’t try to appeal to everyone. When you try to connect with everyone, you end up connecting with no one.
3. The Mini-Skirt approach
The mini skirt approach is one in which your content should be long enough to cover the essentials, but short enough to keep it interesting. Providing relevant information to audiences that is concise and easily digestible.
This approach works well, given the fact that most readers have short attention spans and often don’t have time to read boringly long pieces of content.
The bottom line? It’s not necessary to provide all the information in one go. If you have a lot to say on the subject, rather break it up into multiple posts.
4. Measure what works
Almost as important as content is measuring its effect on your audience. This is where analytics comes in to help you establish a balance between volume and quality.
To achieve this balance, test your content and its effects against your objectives and see if it measures up.
Your audience will be closely judging the quality of your content, so fine-tuning it before putting it out there will do a lot of good.
Also, measure the degree to which your audience engages with each post as well as the sections that are most interesting to readers.
So how much content is the right amount of content?
It depends on your competition and your industry. So research them and be realistic about the amount of content you produce.
Only post useful and unique content, and develop a content calendar to provide you with an overall picture of what to produce for your audience and how often.
