"Publish consistently" is one of the most repeated pieces of advice in the creator space. There's wisdom to it, but there's also a lot of nuance that gets lost and leads people astray.
I recently interviewed Zack Honarvar, the co-founder of Creator Now and former manager of both Airrack and Yes Theory. He's worked with more than 10,000 YouTubers, and he had this to say about consistency:
"We actually ran an analysis to see what are some of the best indicators towards the top 10 percentile of growth – in subscribers and viewership. And we were surprised because consistency in posting was not correlated to that top 10 percentile."
So how important is consistency, really?
Let's start by separating one of the most common misinterpretations of this advice: the confusion between consistency and frequency.
Defining consistency
"Consistent" means "acting or done in the same way over time." So, if you aim to be consistent, the question is, "Be consistent with what?"
You can be consistently great. You can be consistently average. You can be consistently terrible!
To the consumer, we care that you're consistent with our expectations. The good news is YOU set those expectations. You set them with the promises you explicitly make (e.g., "I will publish once per week") and the promises you implicitly make (e.g., how much we typically enjoy your content).
Being consistent is about following through on expectations.
Consistency develops trust.
If you can't publish on a consistent schedule, don't promise one. Instead, focus on consistently delivering a great experience when you do publish.
Defining frequency
"Frequency" is how often you publish. Publishing frequently (daily, weekly) is not required to be consistent. You can publish infrequently and still be consistent (publishing monthly or randomly but with consistently high-quality content). You can also publish frequently and be inconsistent (changing subjects, having a wide range of quality, etc.).
There is value in publishing frequently. If you can frequently publish great work, that's a winning strategy. But if you frequently publish average or below-average work, things get a little more complicated.
The more frequently you publish, the tighter your feedback loop. You get more insight from your audience (if you have an audience), and you also get more practice going from idea to publish.
Frequency compresses the time it takes to develop your skills if – and this is a big if – you are focused on getting better with everything you make.
Frequency on a discovery platform also gives you more shots on goal. Everything you publish has an opportunity to get exposed to a new audience.
So the question is, should you publish low-quality work – frequently – in the pursuit of improvement and discovery?
Choosing the right frequency
As attractive as the social media slot machine is, low-quality content likely won't succeed (even if it does reach a few new viewers).
So you should publish as frequently as you can while simultaneously getting better.
If, for example, you want to publish on LinkedIn every day, ask yourself:
- Can I create enough to publish each day?
- Will I get better each day (or at least each week)?
- Can I sustain that pace for years?
If the answer to any of those questions is no, then you shouldn't publish that frequently.
The same questions can be asked of any frequency. Can you keep that pace in the immediate term? Will you be able to get better while maintaining that pace? Can you sustain that pace over the long term?
If you try to publish at a high frequency and then realize you can't keep up, you fail to be consistent with what you've promised.
On the other hand, increasing your frequency is still following through on your promise and then some!
Hard questions to ask yourself
Self-awareness, humility, and intellectual honesty are important skills to develop as a creator. If you've already built an audience, you can skip these questions and follow your gut. But if you're still trying to find traction and build an audience, these questions may help you take the next step.
Q: Is my content getting better?
If not, focus on improvement. If you can't get better while maintaining your publishing schedule, then you're publishing too frequently. You may have been too ambitious too quickly, or maybe you've really found your stride, and you realize you can do better work (but you need more time).
Q: Am I hiding behind perfectionism?
If you're publishing long-form less than once per month, you're probably hiding behind perfectionism. If you're publishing short-form less than once per week, you're probably hiding behind perfectionism. You want to get better with each upload, but sometimes better also means faster (while maintaining the same standard of quality).
