It’s been a while since I last published a blog post. While I’ve been consistent with the podcast, it’s been almost two months since I last published a blog post.
There are a few reasons that happened. I’m in the middle of writing a book, growing my podcast, attracting clients, building relationships, and doing other things.
But I noticed something, and an interview with Kevan Lee helped me put it together.
As mentioned before, I hadn’t blogged for about two months. The last blog post I wrote before this one was published on April 23rd. It doesn’t take too long to put that into perspective.
So you’d think my blog traffic would crater with that level of inactivity. Actually, my blog traffic remained the same, hence this blog post about how consistently creating new content is overrated.
In fact, my blog traffic is set to go up this month. That’s because I’ll go back to using Twitter as I was before Meet Edgar came out with its article about Twitter’s new rules.
I thought this would change the way people used Twitter, and people tweeting in evergreen cycles would stop. It turns out not too much changed.
Twitter mainly rolled out those changes because of the drama with the U.S. Election, but perhaps marketers can continue tweeting in evergreen cycles and be fine.
I’m not ready to use an automated evergreen cycle in case Twitter takes a strong stance on marketers doing this in the future, but I am ready to return to HootSuite’s Bulk Scheduler and get hundreds of additional visitors to my site every day.
And I can do all of that even if I never published another blog post here again.
What a scary thought…this being the last post I ever write on this blog.
No, this won’t be the last blog post I publish on this blog. I love creating content and providing you with value. I won’t suddenly give up on my mission, but fewer blog posts means I can provide value in different and perhaps more impactful ways.
In the event I stopped blogging completely, there’s over 1,500 blog posts on this blog. That doesn’t include guest posts, YouTube videos, podcast interviews, books, virtual summits, courses, and my other content.
You can get a solid education on digital marketing and productivity just by consuming my existing content.
So why create content consistently? Why create content at all once you have a deep enough library?
Some content creators thrive without deep libraries of content. Brian Dean doesn’t create as much content as most people, but he spends most of his time marketing. Tim Ferriss pretty much publishes content whenever he feels like it while Gary Vaynerchuk publishes content every day.
Once you have a deep enough library of content (50-100 pieces of content) it’s no longer necessary to consistently create new content. Try not publishing a blog post on your blog for one month. Chances are your traffic will barely be affected.
What does matter is stretching your existing content and ideas. Updating the old blog post to link to more of your blog posts. Republishing your older content on places like Medium to drive additional exposure. Writing guest posts on other blogs and appearing as a guest on podcasts.
Spreading yourself beyond your existing platform. That’s what matters now.
Will I go back to weekly blog posts? Maybe. The one thing that comes with publishing more content is more opportunities to promote new content on social media. However, you can do just the same with an updated blog post most of your readers forgot about or didn’t get a chance to read the first time.
Why Do We Consistently Create Content?
I’ll go back to Gary Vaynerchuk because he’s the best example of consistent content creation. It definitely works for him because he would have stopped creating content each day if it didn’t work.
Daily content allows him to consistently remain in the minds of his readers. If you go to YouTube or Medium, there’s a chance you see one of his blog posts or videos because of how often he posts new content.
However, even Gary’s most diehard fans aren’t consuming everything he puts out. I enjoy reading Gary’s content, but at the same time, it’s been over a month since I last consumed his content. I’m not the only one, but if I go back to his blog, I know I may binge for a while.
We create new content consistently because we believe that will get us noticed. Some of us create new content consistently just for the sake of honing our craft, but in the content marketing landscape, it’s viewed as getting more exposure.
Updating old blog posts does the trick. Stretch your existing content. You can just as easily promote existing content as you can create a new blog post on a very similar topic as one that’s already in your content library.
Let’s get deeper and ask why we want to get traffic in the first place. The answer is to boost revenue and spread our message. So what if we could get those same results without spending hours each week creating additional content?
Ask yourself that questions and answers will gradually bubble up your mind. You can use LinkedIn to get clients. You can use paid advertising to drive traffic to your landing page. You can leverage your existing content to get more SEO traffic and point that to your landing page. You can get involved in partnerships.
This is stuff you can’t do if you’re creating new content all of the time. At first, my blogging drought was a result of final exams and getting comfortable. Now I know I stumbled into something good.
In Conclusion
Some of you may wonder when you’ll read the next blog post from me. For now, my strategy is to update some of the older evergreen content and occasionally write new content. Performance Reports will continue coming out each month and Breakthrough Success will keep rolling with five episodes each week.
You’ll probably see more of me on guest blogs than you see me on my own blog. That’s not a problem. That’s marketing while still providing value.
But still, I enjoy writing content. This blog post was such a joy for me to write, and I have no plans on giving it up…ever.
Who knows. I might decide to follow the Netflix Model Kevan recommends on his blog. Release a bunch of blog posts all at once to create the binge factor.
What are your thoughts on this change? Do you have any questions for me? Sound off in the comments section below.
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