If You’re Trying To Build An Audience Online…
If you're trying to build an audience online, I know you've heard how important it is to post consistently. And it's true! There are at least two reasons being consistent can help you attract followers:
Showing up regularly — and as the same person — helps your followers learn to trust you, which makes them more engaged. (Which, in turn, helps your posts to rank better.)
Creating content consistently helps YOU improve your skills, develop your message, and create higher quality content.
However, there's also a myth floating around about consistency — one that we're going to dispel right now.
“The algorithm rewards consistency.”
Sorry to be the nay-sayer, but the algorithm doesn't actually “care” whether or not we post consistently. In fact, on basically all social media platforms, the algorithm only gives preference to posts/videos/etc that it judges users want to see.
i.e. If people like your posts/videos (and demonstrate their appreciation by clicking/liking/watching) then the algorithm shows that content to more people.
This is both good news and bad news:
Good news: because it means that as long as you create great content that people love, you can still reach plenty of people — even if you aren't perfectly consistent.
Bad news: because it means that no matter how consistent you are your audience won't grow if you don't make awesome content.
(But that's actually kind of good news, because… if we aren't making content that people really like, then we probably don't want it to be shared all over the place. So our lack of reach can actually be helpful because it's a symptom of a problem we need to fix.)
Want to see some examples of success with great content yet inconsistent posting?
Australian comedian Natalie Tran of communitychannel created videos on a very inconsistent schedule (which she constantly made fun of herself about) and still managed to amass over 500 million views and attract an adoring fan base.
Animation channel Lucas the Spider has attracted over 3 million subscribers after posting less than 20 videos over the past 18 months.
Marketer Brian Dean consistently sees 100,000+ views on each of his videos — even though he only posts new ones a few times each year.
Are these channels “exceptions to the rule”? Yes, definitely. But mostly because their content is exceptionally good.
So let me ask you this question “When it comes to social media, what do you think is most important: consistency or quality?”