More, more more.
http://youtu.be/RlJGrIyt-X8
That’s all I hear out there in the content marketing world these days – the relentless pursuit of more content. Companies are chasing that secret golden number that constitutes “enough” content, blindly chasing “more” like it’s holding success hostage.
Yeah, I’ve read the same posts as you have. The studies that show the more often you post, the more traffic you’ll earn and the more sales you’ll close. There’s lots of compelling cases for “more”, and I’m not one to argue with the numbers.
I just don’t think that’s the only way to win.
For some businesses, I think the brightest future might be in publishing less.
I think it might be learning how to shut up.
Very few companies (and I’m talking the in-the-trenches, “I’m an accountant” type businesses, not your Upworthy and Buzzfeed folks) seem to have found ways to maintain the quality of their work while scaling up. “More” should mean added budget, improved processes and more time invested – but in my experience, it rarely actually does.
It just means “more”. Which would be great, if your customers were like this:
But how easily we forget that the more content you produce, the more you have to promote that content. Before you know it, you’re rattling your customers’ cages every hour on the hour.
“In case you missed it!”
“Here’s our ultimate guide to ________! Sequel guide coming tomorrow!”
We’re already inundated with advertising – we’re pros at tuning it out. We learn to do it quickly. Reaching people only gets harder when more people are making noise.
Push pause. Let’s talk about a guy named Ross Hudgens for a second.
Never heard of ’em? He runs a company called Siege Media, smart folks in the SEO/content marketing space. The reason I want to talk about Ross is because he has absolutely mastered the gentle art of shutting up.
While everyone else in the SEO industry is relentlessly promoting their content, sharing the monumental “Inbox Zero” achievement and posting updates every time they go to a favourite bar, Ross just shuts up.
http://youtu.be/fT-eXw7Xsjo
He doesn’t publish all that often either.
Crazy, I know.
But the beauty with Ross is that whenever he opens his mouth (or smacks his keyboard for a bit), you’re going to get something worth paying attention to – virtually every time. That’s how much he values his audience – he won’t ever waste their time telling them he went and got a haircut.
This isn’t a love letter to Ross – and I’m no heart-thumpin’ fanboy, either. The point I’m trying to make is that every time Ross breaks his self-imposed vow of silence, people sit up and pay attention. He’s created a legacy of quality over quantity, and those who know him expect it.
Let’s bring this back to your business.
We were talking about social media there, but the same applies to content marketing.
There is nothing magical about “more”. It’s the same reason you can shut your eyes, point a shotgun at a target and hit at least one ring – correlation. The more you create, the more chances you’ve created to somehow create something that works… and the more chances you’ll create things that don’t. That’s great for refining over time, but you can’t assume your audience will endure your tidal wave of mediocre crap without paddling away.
http://youtu.be/sC7zHQ_shJI
What if, instead of inundating your audience, you built a legacy of shutting up until you had something AWESOME to say?
What if, instead of bashing people over the head with your content, they actually watched and waited for it?
The way I see it, there’s two ways to win this content game: get up on stage and make even more noise, or jam out a fierce guitar solo, smash your axe and walk off the stage to wait for your encore.
As for me, my goal is to get better at option B.
Thank you, Joel. Sometimes I think I “shut up” too much and occasionally need to show a little personality, too – I’m not sure what the right balance is, but I’m with you 100% that the right number is at LEAST 95% signal to noise, if not better than that. I’ve just gotten so used to not sharing the noise that it’s programmed in my head not to do it at all.
I’m glad to see Ross chimed in here because at least when it comes to social media promotion there’s the important expectation that you need to be social. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the concept that sometimes you say more with silence than speaking for the sake of speaking. But at the same time, humanizing your online persona with comments everyday people can relate to does carry value regardless of whether your a business or individual. That human element can be powerful if used correctly but should always be used consciously understanding how that reflects on you, both as a person but also a subject-matter expert.
Cheers!
Brett – you’re right, you have to be social on some level. It’s striking that balance between signal and noise I think is challenging!
[…] Some guy in the Greek/Roman time (arguably Aristotle or Terence) said “All good things in moderation” – including using content/email/social/ads for marketing. Or so argues Joel Klettke. A worthwhile post on marketing to get attention instead of marketing for marketing’s sake. Check it out here… […]