Content Consistency: How to Adapt to Consumer Expectations

As we all know, content is the buzzword for 2019. For those producing the very best content in terms of blog posts, videos, infographics, and social media posts, they’re the ones getting attention. To be successful with content, the word ‘consistency’ has been used. But what exactly does this mean?

Today, we want to explore the idea of content consistency. Does it just mean posting content once a week? Will this be enough for success? If the content is lacking in quality, this won’t generate the interest and engagement you desire. Therefore, we’re going to explain content consistency, content scoring, and we’ll even offer some advice so you can get started!

What’s Content Consistency and Why Is It Important?

It’s true that you need to be consistent with blog posts and video uploads, but this isn’t the only type of ‘consistency’ we’re talking about in this guide. Instead, we’re focusing on the whole package. This includes consistency with;

• Tone
• Voice
• Style

Once you’ve introduced this, you’ll have regular blog posts with a uniform appearance. In terms of branding, customers come to feel familiar with your content and they can identify the brand instantly based on tone and voice alone.

With so many areas to focus on in 2019, you might be wondering why you should pay attention to content consistency at all. In truth, if you aren’t going to adhere to the principles of content consistency, you shouldn’t be producing content at all. When your schedule isn’t consistent, readers will soon get frustrated and they’ll find another source of information that offers reliability instead. When your tone and voice is constantly changing, it gets confusing to read and it’s hard for you to build a brand that readers can love and trust.

Whether it’s articles for your blog or even social media posts, content consistency is important. Sure, you might get some success from random posts. Yet, you won’t be fulfilling your potential or getting real engagement until you learn to be consistent.

Nurture the Relationship

Let’s face it, the customer is the most important part of this jigsaw puzzle; they’re the ones spending money on your products/services. Therefore, it’s important that we make the distinction between being consistent and being rigid. You need to keep your voice and personality consistent, but you should also evolve and adapt depending on the customer’s needs.

Fortunately, we all have access to the perfect tool for nurturing our relationship with customers, and it’s FREE — social media. With every day that comes, pay attention to what customers are commenting on and liking. With your own account, if you’re posting consistently, you’ll soon see which posts get the most engagement and which get little attention. From here, you can shape your content strategy around the consumer experience.

Of course, there’s no reason why you can’t also do this with your blog. Within seconds, you’ll see which posts get the most comments and shares. By using tools like Google Analytics, you can dig even deeper with the bounce rate and the number of pages the average visitor views.

Over time, we recommend playing around with Google Analytics and learning the most important metrics to determine the consumer experience. As you focus on posts that resonate with the customers, you can drop the ones that don’t and really create a platform that everybody enjoys.

The Value of Content Scoring

While on the topic of analytics and assessing your social media and blog posts, it’s the perfect time to introduce ‘content scoring’. This is a phrase you may have come across during your research, and it essentially describes the process of finding the true value and potential of content. By assessing how posts perform and generate leads, it’s possible to see how the customer values different types of content.

The Scoring Process — How do you quantify content? How can you tell whether one post is better than the other for engagement and lead generation? Thankfully, there are some fantastic tools on the market that make the process easier.

For example, many choose HubSpot and it all starts by developing a scoring criterion. If reshares are more important than page views, you can ensure this has a greater influence on scoring. Once you’ve set the standards for what you consider to be successful, you’ll see all your posts that have surpassed this criterion. For example, it might be 500 shares on social media or 2,000 page views. The more posts on your platform, the bigger the sample size and you’ll really learn what the customer enjoys.

Three Reasons to Introduce Content Scoring — Why should you consider content scoring?

• Resonate with Your Audience — This guide is all about adapting to consumer experience, so it makes sense to put some effort into finding the content that offers the most value to these very same consumers. Although it will be a gradual process, you’re essentially shaping your content to the needs of the people who desire your product/service.
• Improve Audience Retention — Now you’re producing content that resonates, readers are not only more likely to finish the article but also seek more. With consistent uploads and brand voice, they won’t believe the goldmine they’ve uncovered.
• Social Media Success — Over the years, we’ve spoken to plenty of businesses that have had a significant following, yet little success with posts. Normally, this is because they haven’t taken the time to learn the audience and what they really want. You’re going to change this!

Tips for Content Consistency

In this final section, we’re going to take you through some tips on how to ensure consistency in both scheduling and voice.

Set Up a Culture — When a single individual is in control of all content for a brand, keeping to a schedule and maintaining one personality can be easy. But what happens when you grow or when ten different people are writing posts for your blog? It can be difficult, so we recommend ensuring that every team member buys into the culture of the company. With everybody working towards the same goals and sticking to the same plan, it becomes easier.

Plan, Plan, Plan — “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” — If you want consistency with your blogs or social media posts, one of the absolute best ways of achieving this is.

• Create a content calendar
• Break down each blog post into a basic structure and bullet points (it will be much easier to write from here)
• Spend whatever free time you have getting prepared and staying on top of your schedule
• Write articles in bulk so you get into the swing of writing and don’t have to find time every day

Perform Keyword Research — Whenever the phrase ‘keyword research’ is mentioned, it automatically draws a sigh of frustration. We don’t believe this needs to be the case, and you can do everything in under ten minutes. Type in one of your main keywords and enter it into Google; if you scroll down, you’ll see ‘searches related to section’. From here, you’ll see various related keywords that might be worth exploring.

As long as you aren’t trying to squeeze ten different keywords into one blog post, you can boost your SEO and continually adjust to what the consumer wants and needs. If you need a little assistance with SEO, utilize plugins like ‘SEO by Yoast’.

Remember Voice-to-Text — Did you know that there are tools that will type for you after speaking into the microphone of your device? What a time-saver, right? Whether you use a PC, Mac, iPhone, or another device, you’re likely to have a platform for this. For example, Google Docs allows you to select ‘Voice typing’ under the ‘Tools’ bar. In an instant, typing up a blog post will take less time and remaining consistent isn’t a chore.

Give Content Importance — To finish, one of the best things you can do is grant importance to your content. You wouldn’t miss an important meeting with a client, you wouldn’t forget to pay suppliers, so why forget your upcoming content deadlines? If you give content consistency the same level of importance as other tasks, you’ll find a way to fit it into your schedule.