Applying the 80/20 Rule to Your Content Creation and Promotion Strategies (1)
When you create content, how long do you spend (on average) creating it, and how much time do you spend promoting it? 60% creation and 40% promotion? 40% creation and 60% promotion? An even 50/50 split?
How about 20% creation, and 80% promotion? Sound farfetched?
Well, this is the rule that Derek Halpern of Social Triggers lives by.
According to Derek:
“The secret to building a blog with a raving fan base that's ready to buy what you sell has nothing to do with how much content you create. It, instead, has to do with how good you are getting you are at getting your content into the hands of more people.” The logic behind Derek's rule is that it can be really difficult for bloggers and businesses, particularly those that are new to the game, to find an audience for their content. This means that they need to work extra hard; not necessarily at creating that content, but at getting people to consume and share it.
Sounds about right to me. Some people seem to believe that if they create content, the readers will come flocking to their site, share their content, probably buy something, and hey, presto – that content's been a success. Unfortunately, you probably already know that that just doesn't work in the real world. Content without the marketing is notcontent marketing – it's just content. And unless you already have a very large, dedicated, and active audience, creating content without marketing is very, very unlikely to get you the results you want.
In 2013, Laura Roeder of LKR Social Media wrote:
“I had been operating under the assumption that consistently updating my business's content (webinars, cheatsheets, blog posts, you name it) was the key to driving lots and lots of good traffic to my site. But think about it: how am I going to boost my numbers if no one actually knows there's new and interesting content to be consumed? So my team and I decided to follow Derek's advice and shift the focus to promoting our content more than actually producing it. Still skeptical? The traffic to my blog has actually increased, even though we've got fewer new posts that go live every week!” In short: this works. However, not everyone is quite so on board with Derek's ideology as me (and Laura)… Getting Controversial Two years ago Mark Schaefer of Business Grow wrote “Pimping your posts and the myth of the 80/20 rule”.
Of the 80/20 rule Mark says, “this is a tweetable little sound bite that's easy to remember and pass along. But it is so whacked-out that I just have to say something about it in case anybody out there is beginning to believe it.”
Uh-oh. Has Derek been misleading us all along?
Not exactly.
Mark's argument essentially boils down to the perceived practical implications of the 80/20 rule. In the blog post referenced above, he goes on to say:
“It may take me three hours or more to create a great blog post. On average, I try to create two of these posts every week. That's six hours spent on content, not counting editing guest posts, responding to comments, and attending to other details of the blog like finding images, etc. If we only count the six hours I put into writing two decent posts, the 80-20 rule would suggest I spend 24 hours a week pimping my content.” While Mark's math is correct, I think the issue lies in howliterally he is applying Derek's rule. Derek says, “create content 20% of the time time. Spend the other 80% of the time promoting what you created.”
However, Derek isn't saying that we should stick with our existing content plan, but up the amount of time we spend promoting that content. He's saying that we should amend how we use that time. Put simply, if you currently spend 20 hours a week on content creation and promotion, you should re-organise that time so you spend 4 hours creating content, and 16 hours promoting it.
You should not, as Mark might have us believe, spend 6 hours a week creating it and 24 hours (a week) promoting it. Unless, of course, you want to…
Personally, I try to write a couple of times a week for this blog. I also write regularly for Content Marketer, Forbes, andEntrepreneur – amongst others. If I were to apply the 80/20 rule in the manner that Mark's implying, I would barely have time for anything else. I'd probably struggle to find time for eating and sleeping. What's more, it's pretty easy for Mark to condemn the 80/20 rule. He's been blogging since 2009 (when the blogosphere was somewhat less competitive), has a large and loyal following, and in excess of 100k Twitter followers. He's also penned three print books, and is a regular speaker at conferences and events. It's safe to say then, that Mark needs to do very little (if anything) to promote his content, purely because he has an active following that are ready and willing to do the hard work for him. This simply isn't an issue for Mark – but that doesn't mean it's not an issue for many, many other bloggers and businesses. Now, I'm not saying that Mark doesn't have any valid points. In that same post he says, “the only people who will create long-term business value for you is your core audience – your return readers.”
And I don't disagree with him there. Growing a loyal audience (like Mark himself has) will have a huge impact on how successful your content is, and how well that translates to conversions, sales, and revenue.
This isn't an audience you can buy. It's an audience you have to create through sheer hard work and determination. But it's also important to remember that every brand and their audience is different. For some, the 80/20 rule applied across their content strategy will get them the results they need.
For others (myself included) it might not be practical to significantly cut back on the amount of time they spend on content creation. As I mentioned above, I create content for multiple publications, largely because I'm simultaneously trying to achieve a number of goals besides simply growing an audience. What then, should you do if, like me, you want to apply Derek's rule, but can't afford to significantly reduce the amount of content you create? Applying the 80/20 Rule Strategically
I want to begin this section by making something clear: not every piece of content is produced with the same purpose or goal in mind.
Some content is designed to target particular topics or keywords, rank in the search results, and drive organic traffic to a site. In other words: primarily for SEO benefits. Some content is created to drive conversions. Some content is designed with the goal of driving visits (usually referral visits), shares, and links. Some content is designed to achieve a combination of the above. If, like me and many others, you have a diverse and multi-pronged approach to your content strategy, you probably won't want to cut back on your content creation as dramatically as you would need to, were you to follow Derek's rule to the tee. If this sounds like you, here's the trick: apply the 80/20 rule onlyto those potentially viral-worthy pieces of content – the content you create with the goal of motivating an untapped audience to share it, comment on it, feature it, and link to it. Promote the rest of your content, by all means, but don't go to the extent of spending five times longer promoting each piece of your content than you did creating it, if that approach doesn't fit with your current strategy and your long term goals. Crap Content Won't Cut It As we saw above, some people are taking Derek's rule a little too literally and, consequently, aren't fully “getting” what it's really about. Another way I can see people misinterpreting Derek's rule is to assume that any piece of content can prove successful if we plough enough time and effort into promoting it. Hopefully, I don't need to tell you that this simply isn't true. To make promoting your content worth your while, the content itself has to be good. Great, even. Simply banging out any old blog post and investing 80% of your time into promoting it won't suddenly turn it into something that people will want to share. This method only works if you have the resources needed to create content that's actually worth promoting. The 80/20 rule can also be misconstrued as implying that we only need to spend a miniscule amount of time creating content. That it's okay to spend just a couple of hours on content creation, because you'll make up for what the content lacks in depth and quality with the eight hours you'll spend promoting it. Of course, that's not true either. This isn't a straight swap. You should be reducing the volume of content you create – not its quality.
This leads me back to the point above: the 80/20 rule doesn't have to be applied as a blanket rule. It's certainly open to interpretation. If you're struggling for time (and who isn't? ), you have two choices:
Follow the rule exactly, and cut back on the amount of content you create. Stick to your current content calendar, and save the 80/20 rule for you very best work. Me… I'd choose option two. I'm trying to build my personal brand, as well as promote a number of different ventures that I'm involved in. I've got too many balls in the air to simply cut down on the amount of content I create. But that's not to say that this is the right answer for everyone. In Derek's initial post about the 80/20 rule, he states that between March 2011 and April 2012, he averaged 2.54 blog posts a month. By most accounts, that isn't very many. But in the same time, he gained 27,000 subscribers. How? In his own words, “because I focused on creating great content… and then focused on getting that content into the hands of more people.”
So what is the right answer? Finding the strategy that works for you.
Free Content Marketing Course: Not all content converts. In fact, most of it doesn't. But that doesn't have to be you. Join my free ecourse now. Promote Your Existing Content As you (hopefully) now understand, a key element of the 80/20 rule is that you don't need to keep churning out content for the sake of churning out more content. This means that if you've crafted content that's done well before, there may well be scope for you to promote it again. Derek himself said, “it's smarter to find another 10,000 people to consume what you've already created as opposed to creating more.” Old blog content is crazy valuable. Hubspot performed an analysis of their blog content and found that a massive three quarters (76%) of their blog's monthly page views came from old content. I don't doubt that the stats would be pretty similar for most of us. It makes sense that they would – over time, content (tends to) gain more shares, links, and comments, which (tends to) translate to said content ranking better in the search results. Needless to say, higher rankings means more page views.
Why then, are we generally so focused on creating new content, when so many of us are, essentially, sitting on a goldmine of existing content?
Well for one thing, that old content might be outdated.
Does that mean you should leave that content to sit and rot? Of course not! Revisit it and update it. Giving old content a new lease of life can save you a huge amount of time compared to the time you'd spend creating content from scratch. Even if the content's core message hasn't aged, ask yourself whether your existing content is performing as well as it could be.
