Among the many nuances of content strategy, getting the timing and frequency right is one of the most important things you can do. There’s an art to this and it makes a huge difference to how your content is received.
Timing is all about when your audience wants to hear from you. The right information, delivered at the right time, is powerful. The opposite is true, too. In social channels, there are certain times that your audience is more likely to see a post than others. You need to know this, or you risk “shouting into the void.”
Frequency is all about how often your audience wants to hear from you. Get this right, and it’s welcome. Post too much, and you risk actually diminishing your authority. People start scrolling right past your Facebook posts and deleting your e-mails without reading more than just the subject line.
You’ll have to find the rate and frequency that works for you. How do you do that?
The secret is that it’s not up to you. If you’re a regular listener, it won’t surprise you to hear me say that it’s about your audience. Hand the decision over to them, ultimately. The trick is that they won’t tell you directly. It’s up to you to find out.
You’ll have treat it like an experiment. Start with a hypothesis and then test it. Introduce a stimulus in a controlled fashion, observe the response, and record the results. Based on what you learn, make adjustments and iterate.
When you find the right timing and frequency, you can tune it perfectly so your posts are not just welcome—but even anticipated. How cool would it be to have someone anxiously waiting for your next post? This episode helps you work towards that.
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