Imagine going to the local grocery store to buy milk. When you get there, you discover they don’t have any. Then the next time you visit they’re out of your favorite flavor coffee and creamer. The next time you visit they’re out of your particular brand of bread and milk again (who eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches without milk?). Chances are irritation is going to set in and soon you’re going to find yourself at another grocery store.

You start a Twitter account and fire away updates (links to useful resources, you’re engaging) and you grow your following. Then, suddenly you stop Tweeting. Your last Tweet was 90+ days ago. Your Facebook Page hasn’t been updated for 3 months. Your last blog post was 3 weeks ago. How do you think your community feels? Engaged? Or annoyed because the grocery store was out of milk?

Consistency Matters:

When you start connecting with people through a particular medium (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs) and you share relevant content that they find useful, it becomes expected that you’ll continue to do so with them consistently and over time. It’s easy for someone to stop “following you” because you haven’t Tweeted in 90+ days. It’s even easier for people to forget about your Facebook Page because you haven’t posted in 3 months. And you’d better believe that they’re going to find another blog to replace yours on their Feed Reader; after all, you haven’t written anything in 3 weeks.

If you’re not consistent, you become irrelevant, because today we have an abundance of choice. Why read your blog when we can read Chris Brogan’s (he posts every day – almost)? Why read your blog when we can read Agent Genius (they have multiple authors who post daily)? Why would I subscribe to your blog if your last post is dated October 2009 (that’s 8 months ago now) – how are you relevant?

People are looking for information that’s relevant to them today. You don’t need to write a blog post every single day. But you need to be consistent. Weekly should be a minimum though twice a week is a good (better) number. At the end of the day, the success of your blog is dependent on your ability to develop fresh new content consistently.

How often do you write for you blog? Do you write one, two times per week? Once a month? Do you use an editorial calendar to stay on track or do you just sorta write when inspiration strikes?