(Pt. 1) Quality vs. Quantity: Which Content Strategy Leaves Your Audience Begging for More?

What if you were posting content too often or maybe not enough and didn't even realize it? What would it mean for your brand's visibility and reach? In this episode, Sonja guides you through the twisty maze of content creation strategies, focusing on the controversial debate of content quality versus quantity. We take a look at the pros and cons of one technique versus the other.

Later in the episode, Sonja shares insights on maintaining consistency, understanding social media algorithms, and effectively producing content. Tune in and discover how to turn your content into a powerful tool for brand growth.

Transcript

Sonja Crystal Williams: 0:13

Hi everyone. I'm Sonja Crystal Williams, your host of 10 Minute Marketing. Thanks for listening today. So I've got a topic. This is going to be part of a three-part series around content creation, and I look at this as something that's really timely right now because we are coming up on the end of the year. This is a time when a lot of businesses are doing their planning, they're thinking about what lies ahead and, when it comes to digital marketing, your presence on your website and your social media, the content that you create, is going to have a big impact, and planning ahead for that content and looking ahead to next year also rolls into that.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 0:59

So I'm doing a three-part series on an age-old argument when it comes to digital marketing, which is content quality versus content quantity. Should I be producing content based on the quality of the content or should I be creating lots and lots and lots of content quantity higher quantities to get my name out there, to get known, to be visible? What should I be doing? Is there a balance? Does that exist? What makes the most sense for my business? So today I'm kicking off with part one of our series and really thinking about really which one makes sense and can we strike the perfect balance. So, before we go deeper into this, remember to hit the subscribe button. Give us a review on your favorite listening tool for podcasts Spotify, Apple Music, whatever it might be. That way, we can get your feedback and keep these episodes coming All right.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 2:01

So let's jump into the debate. First of all, let me make this first statement Quality and quantity when it comes to content creation, are both vital components of any strategy that you're putting together, and I want to talk particularly around the blog content that you're creating, that's going on your website, as well as the social media content that you are producing, and, honestly, it's not as simple as choosing one over the other. So I want to kick off today just kind of an exploration mode of really making the case for both, and then you kind of starting to get on that path of figuring out what's right for you when it comes to your business. So first I want to talk a little bit about content quality, and I did a little bit of research. There's a lot of information out there on the argument behind why someone should even consider focusing more on content quality as they're creating content or as you're planning your content for next year. Should I focus more on the quality.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 3:13

So let's take a step back. First of all, do an assessment of where you've been with your content up to this point. Find out, look through old blog posts, if you're doing it for your website, if you're doing it for social media. Go through each social media network and rank where you feel like you fit on the content quality scale. Give yourself a scale from one to 10. And really ask yourself if I'm going through old posts that have been up on Instagram, pinterest, linkedin, youtube, any of those channels okay, give yourself a score for each social media network, write it down on a paper, type it out, put it in a spreadsheet and just answer the simple question on a scale from one to 10.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 3:57

What was the quality of our content? One being low quality, 10 being high quality okay, so that's gonna be step one in this process. You need to look through what you have today that currently exists, to give yourself a benchmark so that you know where you're gonna go as you move forward and what defines things that are considered high quality content. Okay, one might be content that kind of adds more value and cuts back on the fluff. I know that's not the nicest thing to say, but there's a lot of content floating around out there where people focus more on kind of generalizations and they just want to get content in front of people and it's just not as high quality. And you know when you're reading something that's not high quality content, because you know how it feels. And again, pros and cons, maybe their strategy was focused on quantity, they just want to be in front of you, they want to flood your feed. Okay, so there's no right or wrong answer there. You're just assessing it for your organization, your team, your business, your social media accounts, your blog post on your website. You need to assess it from that point of view.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 5:11

Okay, so I need to address what is or what do I consider high quality content. So for me, I look at it as, again, content that adds value to my audience. I Would also consider, when I'm looking back through it and kind of giving myself that ranking, how much did my audience engage with that content? Because that might also be a marker for defining something as high quality. If I'm looking at blog posts, I might go into Google Analytics or whatever Tool you're using to measure your website traffic and, as you look back at that tool, how many visits did you get to that blog page and you can even, in Google Analytics, it'll even tell you how long they were on the page, so that'll give you an idea if they were really scrolling through and reading that content or not. And then you might even be judging based on when it's high quality. It's not just the written content itself.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 6:04

Okay, when we think about high quality content, if I'm thinking about the form of an article or a blog post, it might also include did you include visuals in there as part of your content? Videos, things like that. If it's a social media post, do you have a graphic? In some cases Maybe not all, but in some cases Do you have a graphic that supports your post? Is it a well crafted Infographic or graphic that was designed using a design tool or working with your graphic designer to communicate a powerful message that people can understand? Right? So those are some examples.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 6:49

Okay, but get that spreadsheet together, give yourself a ranking. You're not looking at all content. Maybe it's your top 20 pieces of content from this year that you pull in and you build that spreadsheet out and you do it again per social media network as well as per your website. Okay, so we need to look across multiple channels to assess if that content was high quality. Okay. And then here's other things.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 7:21

When you think about high quality content, okay, why should we focus on and I'm getting, I'm making the case for high quality first doesn't mean I'm not going to focus on quantity. I'm going to focus on that next, okay. So, for high quality content, okay, what are some other things or reasons why we might position ourselves to go in that direction? So you make your assessment, you figure out where you are and then you need to decide. Okay, am I going to focus next year, as I'm building out my content strategy, more on the high content, quality or quantity? If you're focused on quality, okay, what are some reasons why we might do that? Well, one it often leads to higher engagement and it builds trust with your audience. Okay, and there are studies that support this. Okay, there was a study based on my research done in 2019. It was done by Rival IQ and they showed that posts with well-crafted visuals, informative captions and some type of compelling story attached to it consistently outperformed lower quality content when it came to likes, shares and comments.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 8:27

Okay, but quality isn't just about engagement, it's also about brand reputation. So here's another study, study done by Edelman's Trust Barometer in 2021 revealed that 61% of consumers trust credible, authoritative, high quality content shared by businesses. And this is really important too, because if you're marketing yourself as a business, not like a personal brand, there's already, honestly, a level of distrust there that people have when it comes to a business represented versus a person. People can relate more to a person. They see the human there, they can see your eyes, they can see your face. They get you. It's harder as a business to have that relationship. Okay, so, as a business, when you build high quality content, it can really, really really create trust. That pays off a lot in the long run.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 9:25

Okay, all right, so here's one more. One more point is particularly as it relates to your website, but this could also relate to certain social media networks like YouTube or even TikTok, where your content, the way you write it, matters. So point two when it comes to the high quality argument is the long term SEO benefits. Okay, so let's talk about the impact of quality content on SEO search engine optimization. So here's one more study I'm going to tell you about for today. Okay, so here's a study. Backlinko's extensive study, done in 2021, analyzed 12 million Google search results and they found that high quality, informative content tends to perform better in search rankings. So it's not just about, like, the immediacy of putting your content in front of people. There's a long gang that's involved here. Okay, so those are a few arguments on the side of content quality.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 10:28

Let's talk about content quantity. Okay, so same thing, pull out that spreadsheet, rank yourself when it comes to content quantity. Because, on the flip side to the quality argument, okay, posting high quality quantity, how much, how often, how frequently you're putting your post in front of people also plays a major role. You can't post every other week, even if it is high quality, quite frankly, and hope and pray that you're going to get miraculous results across all your social media networks, across your website, right, for most brands, that rhythm doesn't work unless you have a ton of other things going on, like paid ads and other things like that, that are supplementing that lack of content and you're finding other ways to get yourself in front of people. But if we were just resting on organic social media outreach alone and the ability that you have to post blogs on your website, you need to think about quantity too, okay, now again, I'm not saying which one is right or wrong. Let me give you some facts on the quantity side, okay.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 11:35

Number one if I'm thinking about content, quality, content quantity then there's a good option when it comes to visibility and consistency, all right. So posting frequently, it's just going to increase your visibility on social media, right? This is why people tell you, when you're trying to grow your TikTok page or your Instagram account, post a reel every day for 60 days. Right? There's actually something to that, right? I've watched creators and listened to podcast interviews where there are creators out there. When they were first growing their account, they went live on Instagram every day for 90 days. They stayed consistent and sure enough, over time, that got them to five and six-figure followers, right? So this strategy can be applicable in some cases. In fact, hubspot Study 2020 showed that businesses posting multiple times a week saw a significant increase in website traffic compared to those who just post less frequently. So posting consistently can keep you top of mind. But it's not just about visibility, okay, it's also about audience growth, because posting more than once a day on some social media platforms will help your brand get faster growth compared to brands that post less frequently.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 13:00

Okay, so content quantity matters. Now here's one more argument for the side of quantity, okay, which is a lot of social media algorithms over there will reward you for regular posting, and the truth of the matter is, even if you're putting a blog up on your website, you get rewarded for that too by those search engines. They're constantly coming back to your site. When you're constantly posting fresh and new content on a website, it gives those search engines spiders a reason to keep crawling back to your site. There's fresh content here, there's new stuff here. We need to index it, we need to rank it right. That's a good thing, okay. So algorithms, these social media algorithms, or search engines in some cases reward regular posts and content updates. Take, for example, Instagram in 2022, they released the algorithm guide and they emphasize that posting consistently can increase the chances of your content being seen by your followers. So there it is, straight from the horse's mouth. You can look that up, you can document it, you can remember why that is so important.

Sonja Crystal Williams: 14:10

So I'm going to pause here for today and leave you with that homework. Do your ranking and start thinking about where do you want to position yourself for next year. Is it on the quality side? Is it on the quantity side, I want to know what your thoughts are. Do you lean more towards posting content focused on high quality or do you focus more on content that is more frequent and you're really focused on the quantity that you need to get out in front of people? I think this is a great and really fun debate. I would love to hear your thoughts about it and make sure you listen to part two and three, where I'm going to go deeper into quality versus quantity and break each down so you can figure out what path you need to get on. Until then, thanks for listening. Have a great day.