by: AskPat 755 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey what's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 755 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.
All right here's today's question from Gordon.
Gordon: Hi Pat, Gordon here. Thanks for all that you're doing and all the content you're pumping out. I just love it, it's really changed my life and really given me a new focus in really kind of starting a new part-time career. One of the questions I had was just about blogging and content and volume. I know that the quality of content is very important and that you're giving good stuff and that you're blogging about good stuff and that you're … And that there's value. But I was wondering if there is a sweet spot for the volume that a person should be putting out with a blog. Or even like with video blogs through YouTube or some other platform, but I was wondering if you had some comments about that or some ideas about that on just really knowing how to know what is the volume that you want to try to reach to really kind of make things take off.
And by the way, I'm loving your book Will It Fly? I'm about halfway through it and look forward to the rest of it. So, thanks and hopefully I'll be able to hear from you. Bye bye.
Pat Flynn: Hey Gordon, thank you so much for the question today, I really appreciate it. And as well your comments about Will It Fly?, thank you for taking the time to read it. Now, related to your question in terms of volume, so how much blog content should you have. How much podcast content should you come out with. How many videos should you have. How long should they be is another component of this. There is varying answers to this and it all depends on a number of different things including you know what's already out there, how's your competition or other influencers out there serving your audience already. There's very specific examples I can give you where it makes sense to do more.
And that one would be, for example, John Lee Dumas, who is a podcaster and blogger a very entrepreneur on EOFire.com. He specifically created a show that came out seven days a week, because there were no other shows like it and it was serving the need of those who were looking for something like that. So for him going high volume once a week was the answer.
But for most people who are starting a podcast for example, just once or twice a week is sort of the sweet spot because that gives you the the ability to keep in constant contact with your audience, your subscribers are getting something new every week, they can expect it, but it's not overwhelming them. Sometimes with those seven day a week shows and there has been a number of them coming out in different niches recently. Subscribers often get overwhelmed, because if they miss one episode, they're going to fall behind and then they miss three and then they miss five or whatever. So I feel like once a week, if not twice a week is a good rhythm for a podcast. For blogging, I started out with three blog posts a month. . .Or three blog posts a week and this was before I came out with a podcast or done any videos. So all I was doing was pumping out blog content and I was doing it three times a week and it worked really well for me.
But then, once I introduced the podcast I started to slow down on the blog and I realized that. . .actually in slowing down I was giving more people time to consume the latest blog post, to share the latest blog post. Because with blogs especially, when you create more content it's great because you have more content for Google to find, you have more content for people to share, but people won't see your archive content very much. So the more and the faster that you create the faster the content you write it's actually going to be hidden after a while. So you need to do a good job of actually promoting the content that you come out with. Not just come out with content to come out with it, but to come out with it so it gets in the right hands so people can see it and share it and that it's actually doing some legwork for you for all the hard work that you're putting into the research and the creation, the publication of that particular piece of content.
Now, sweet spot also relates to your voice and your rhythm and what makes sense for you. So you want to be very conscious with as you're creating content you know. . .Is three per week too much? Maybe it's only once per week for blog content. So there is no right answer here and I think over time you're gonna find that the sweet spot will eventually land on its own and you will be able to kind of hone in on what that is over time. You never know what it's going to be when you first start, but I think you want to get into a rhythm where you are able to keep up with the content editorial calendar that you've set out for yourself. So if you think that you can do seven days a week, great. But if you can't, be honest with yourself and don't even try to do that if that's not anything that can fit into your calendar. So, you know your production schedule is going to be another component that which is very important to listen to as well.
But the biggest thing is that your voice and the rhythm. You can always change it as you start to feel things out and you start to hear from your audience and the more that you put out, it's not always necessarily better. I know a lot of bloggers for example who just publish just two or three blog posts a month. But their blogs have taken off because those are really in depth articles that touch on topics that people are really looking for some in depth information about, and it really answers the questions that needed to be answered. So they get shared. They get put out there. They get repurposed in different ways. Bits and pieces get chopped up and put into social media to enhance the exposure for that episode or blog post as well. Yeah, like I said take something that works for you, stick with it for a little bit, then feel it out, see how it works. Ramp it up if you need to. Slow it down if you need to and then just go from there.
The nice thing, like I said, you can always change things out. There is no rule that says, “Once you start with one episode or one blog post a week that you have to stick to that forever.” As long as you give it time and you sort of set those expectations for your audience when you're making those changes then you'll be fine. So, Gordon, thank you so much for the question, I appreciate it and I want to wish you all the best. Like I said, there's no right answers, there's just the one that works for you. So it could be seven. . .One per day. . .Some websites they do multiple publications per day on the same website and some people just do one or two pieces of content a month. Again it's going to be up to you and your voice and what you feel is right for you and your audience.
So I want to send you an AskPat t-Shirt for having your question featured here on the show, I want to thank you so much for that and anybody else out there who has a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.
Cool, thank you so much, I appreciate you and here is a quote to finish off the day by Bruce Levin. He said, “Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.”
Take care guys, thanks and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.