When it Comes to Content Marketing, Consistency is KEY🔑
Tomorrow I am flying to Amsterdam to speak at two conferences, The Self Made Summit and Forward Festival. Though I’ll be there sharing the building blocks required to build an authentic community, powered by Squarespace an all-in-one platform for creatives and entrepreneurs to showcase their talents online— I hope to also share some key insights from my 10+ experience with content marketing…like this one, Consistency is KEY 🔑.
Case in Point
I have a friend who wants to move away from having a brick-and-mortar vintage shop to selling clothes online or by appointment only. He’s got quite a following on Instagram but no real strategy when it comes to posting. He typically posts random pictures from his life, happy customers wearing their “new” clothes, and occasionally he'll post “new” items he’s got for sale. But he never posts them on his wall - only in his stories.
He also doesn’t post consistently. Some days he’ll post ten pictures and sometimes he’ll go days without posting anything.
Seeing how he was struggling to get his online sales ramped up, I offered a few tips:
Post on your wall once per day. The first image should be a close-up image of the “new” item. The second and third pictures can be lifestyle shots or pictures of the clothes on a real live human. The caption should show how much it costs, the size, and any other relevant information.
You should then share that post to your story with a note that the item is new.
The reason I told him to post on his wall was because it wasn’t clear that he was selling clothes. For those who follow him or already know him, it’s apparent, but if he wants to attract new clientele, he’s got to be more obvious about his offerings.
For the first two days, he posted on time with my advice but on the third day, I noticed he had removed both posts from his wall.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I archived the pictures. I only got a couple of likes and no one asked about the items.”
This is SO common with people when it comes to content marketing. You finally get the courage and motivation to post and expect to have instant gratification/validation. But content marketing doesn’t work that way. It’s usually a long, slow process that requires showing up consistently even when it feels like you are shouting into a void.
Here are some of the things showing up consistently on my blog and newsletter have gotten me:
A work/trade deal where I work 3 months for a plot of land in Portugal
Organic clients aligned with my values
Paid speaking gigs like the upcoming ones in Amsterdam, you can also add paid flights and hotels to that list.
Partnerships
But they didn’t come overnight. They only came after I spent hours creating content for myself consistently. The reason is that Google rewards consistency. When it comes to SEO, if you are posting regularly, you are seen as an expert by Google. It also builds credibility and trust amongst potential clients. Wow, this person has had a blog for ten years? They MUST know what they are talking about!
I explained this to my friend and the next day I noticed he’d unarchived his posts and has been posting regularly since. Let’s hope he keeps it up.