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Oh the quantity vs quality debate… the never ending questions: How much content should we post? When should we post? Well, here goes!

The truth is you can never please everyone, so you should never try. Content marketers are often caught in the middle, fighting both sides of this debate. On the one side, you’ve got the traditionalists who want lots of eye-catching, flash-in-the-pan content that grabs attention, gets links, and then fades away. On the other side, you’ve got the marketers who want to create long-term relationships with clients and prospects by producing high-quality content.

The truth is you can post up to 10 times per day on social media sites without running out of content. But you don’t want to do it too much. You want to find that sweet spot where you can get traffic, but still retain enough quality.

As customers, we understand that it’s great to be shown relevant content that appeals to us as individuals, whether it is an article, picture, video, advertisement, contest or announcement. When we are shown irrelevant content, however, we are likely to, at best, ignore it, or at worst, unlike, unfollow, unsubscribe, delete or cease doing business with a brand.

Lack of relevancy is one of the biggest causes of failure to engage customers through a brand’s social media presence. Many large scale social selling and engagement programs have failed and the primary reason is a lack of relevant content.

The content that is posted on a brand’s social media page should be highly relevant to its customers, and it must not be posted so often it becomes a nuisance, imposition, or obstacle.

Customers want to see relevant posts from businesses on social media regularly, but that does not mean 10 times a day unless there is something unique happening that calls for such a posting schedule, such as a contest or important crisis update.

Before a content strategy is decided upon, businesses need to understand the type of content their customers would prefer to see.

Most people don't like reading and they sure as hell don't like listening to someone talk about something they don't understand. So if you want to create great content, you need to understand the people who will consume it first. If you don't know who your target audience is, you can't create the right content. You can't get them to read your message if you don't have the right message.

Brands need to analyze their customer before marketing a product or service on social media. When creating a content calendar, companies need to consider what their social media followers likely expect from them. Is it selling to them? Offers? Only “beautiful” content? A new product launch? News? Showcasing culture?

There is no magic number of posts you should post on social media. And there is no perfect timing for your posts either. It depends on your niche, your target audience, and the type of content you post. You must experiment with your posts until you find the optimal combination or topics vs. amount for you. While there is no hard-and-fast rule for how often to publish content, most experts agree that posting once a day is acceptable, twice a day, is okay.

But remember, why are you on social media? Is the one or two or three content pieces you want to publish all relevant and of high interest to your followers now? It will take time until you have the correct answer to this question, until then, your secret sauce is trial and error and try again until you nail the optimal formula.

You have to start crunching numbers. You spend hours upon hours creating content, doing research, reading, writing, and designing. And then you spend hours editing, formatting, publishing, and promoting. But you are not getting any results.

What is wrong?

The answer: You are guessing.

If you don't know what is working you can't make it work. You need to track what works and what doesn't. Otherwise you're just guessing. But you can't just guess! You need to find out what works by analyzing your data. You need to make sure that you're producing quality content that gets noticed.

You have to do more than just create good content, you have to create quality content. Quality content means it is well written, has an objective and a call to action. Be consistent. Don't change the formula up when you are getting good results with it. It is better to stick to a formula that works than to change something because you think you can get away with it. Don't rely on algorithms or automation to do your work for you. Analyze the numbers. Measure everything and anything, and use the numbers to drive your decisions. Know your audience. your audience. Know them. Understand their life. Know how they think, how they act, and what they believe. You must know your audience to create content that is useful to them.