One of the best ways to help your company make its mark on the digital landscape is to provide relevant, timely content that helps people solve problems.
The more helpful you are, the more likely people are to remember your company when they need the services your company provides.
So how do you supply audiences with the kind of content they need to become customers? Blogging is one of the best ways to deliver the kind of rich, relevant content your audiences need and want.
As a general rule, more blogging means more visitors to your website – which means more chances to convert people into customers.
Success likely will not be immediate, simply because blog posts tend to generate more traffic the longer they are published and promoted. Your blogging efforts could take up to a year or more to bear fruit. But if blog posts are providing value to your target audiences, success will come.
General posting guidelines
There’s a lot of confusion around the correct frequency and timing of content for maximum impact. Different industries have different preferences, from how often to blog, to when to publicize on social media. Here are some general guidelines to follow:
Consider what your leads are worth. Blogging requires a significant investment of time and resources. But by blogging more frequently, companies can generate not just more traffic, but higher quality traffic to their websites. If the number of leads your website generates as a result of your blogging efforts does not cover the cost of blogging and then some, perhaps you should scale back your investment.
Blog consistently. Research from Hubspot reveals that companies blogging 16 times per week bring 3.5 times more traffic to their websites than companies blogging only once per week. However, how often you can post will depend on how much time and resources you can devote to this effort. The key is to remain consistent, no matter how frequently – or infrequently – you blog.
Develop long-form content that informs potential customers and demonstrates expertise. Creating long-form content such as e-guides, case studies, and white papers can help generate leads long after they are distributed. This type of content can help customers solve a common problem, demonstrate your company’s industry expertise, offer new industry insights, or a combination of all three. The content can be recycled into numerous pieces of content, from multiple blog posts to social media posts. Depending on your resources, try to create at least one long-form piece of content per year, up to one per quarter.
Post to Facebook once or twice per day. According to this infographic, this is the general rule of thumb for most companies to maximize visibility without over saturating news feeds.
Post to Twitter around four to 15 times per day. Twitter requires more frequent engagement to make an impact. That certainly seems like a lot of tweets!
Posting considerations
These general guidelines have proved to be successful in most cases. However, it’s important to remember that each audience and industry will have its own needs and preferences. Remember: These are guidelines, not rules. To better customize what you offer to audiences, consider the following:
Blog post quality. Focus on blog post quality, and post frequency may not matter as much. As long as you consistently deliver high-quality posts to your audiences, they will return to read them – and they’ll likely bring more new readers with them.
Newsworthy content. Depending on your industry, you may be better served by keeping up with the latest news and trends relevant to you, so you can give your readers your own analysis. This will boost post quality as well as blogging frequency – both of which will help you bring in more visitors.
Competition. Keep an eye on what your competitors are blogging about, and how often. You don’t want to be a copycat – but you do want to keep tabs on what they’re doing so you can get a leg up.
Industry-specific solutions
As we said, each industry is going to have its own needs and preferences. Here are some industry-specific guidelines that work:
Technology
This industry has one of the lowest averages for Facebook posts published per week. It is recommended technology companies post no more than 10 times per week on Facebook, following the general Facebook posting guidelines of one to two times per day. Because this industry needs to keep up with up-to-the-minute news and innovations, Facebook isn’t the best place for maximum visibility due to the limitations of the news feed.
Strive to post to your blog 11 times per month or more – companies that shoot for this frequency will likely get three times the traffic than if they only publish once per month.
Manufacturing
Nearly three-quarters of manufacturing companies are publishing less than one post per week – but they’re choosing Facebook as their social network of choice, likely because the limitations of the news feed play best with this post frequency. About 60 percent are posting with images, and about half are publishing at least once each week.
Given that manufacturing is one of the last industries to adopt content marketing best practices, by increasing your blogging frequency, there is a greater opportunity and ROI.
Healthcare
This industry is posting one to three times per week, with up to 66 percent of health care companies posting to Facebook. They’re not posting very often, and that’s likely due to how highly regulated this industry is – so the best place to go for information is the website.
Real estate
Nearly half of companies posting once per week are using images. This is a key stat: Without high-quality images, a potential customer isn’t going to call up with a request to see a home.
Education
This industry is among the most active, posting consistently to Facebook even as post frequency increases. The need to stay constantly engaged is paramount to help educational institutions differentiate themselves among potential students.
Are you looking for help creating and posting content?
Keeping up with the content needs of your industry can be difficult. It can be a struggle to find the budget and/or manpower required to produce the content you need for maximum results.
If you need guidance on the amount of content you need for a successful ROI, Tempesta Media can help. Our industry experts can help you create a content marketing plan that serves your desired audiences and delights current customers. Contact us to learn more.
