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A Note From Robert Rose
Here’s the New Answer to the Quality Vs. Quantity Debate
“How much content should we create?”
Some say you should produce as much content as you possibly can. Others say quality overcomes quantity. The debate has raged on for years.
Many years ago, I used to (mistakenly) answer the question this way: “Produce as much as you possibly can while still maintaining a standard of remarkability.” In other words, as long as you’re maintaining quality, you should produce as much as you can.
I eventually revised my answer. For the last few years, I’ve offered this advice: “Produce as little content as you can to meet your goals.” In a world in which no one says “I have too much time on my hands,” it seems prudent to focus on producing high-quality content in balance with the rest of your tasks.
But I think that advice is a bit flawed now. I’ll explain in just a moment, but first I’ll confess that, ironically, this realization came as I was researching how I might develop a more regular writing habit.
I’m reading the James Clear book Atomic Habits, which teaches how to develop new habits, even if you have a busy lifestyle.
In the book, Clear tells the story of a professor at the University of Florida who ran an experiment on his film photography class. First, he divided the students into two groups. One group would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced. More than 100 photos earned an A, 90 photos a B, and so on.
The second group would be graded on the excellence of their work. The students in this group only needed to turn in one photo during the entire semester. But, to earn an A, that photo had to be perfect.
Can you guess where this is going? Team “quantity” produced the highest quality photos.
Why? These students tried all kinds of composition and lighting experiments and darkroom techniques – and learned from the practice. Team “quality” students, on the other hand, had little to show for their efforts other than theories of what makes a “perfect” photo – and only a single photo from each student to demonstrate the results of that theorizing (with mostly mediocre results).
As content practitioners, one of our greatest strengths should be the ability to produce a lot of content. But that doesn’t mean we have to publish everything we create.
I see many businesses where everything that’s created gets published. You might hate the blog post the freelancer turned in. But you paid for it, so into the CMS and onto the website it goes. You might dislike that whitepaper. But the VP wrote it, so out it goes.
When music icon Prince died, reports said he had enough unreleased music to put out a new album every year for the next century.
No content marketer is likely to be that prolific. But, as many have said, the best way to get better at creating content is to create content. That goes for individuals, teams, and businesses.
If you only create when you need to be remarkable, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Here’s my new amended answer to the question of how much is enough: Produce as much as you can. Use it to test out your ideas, sharpen your content skills, and exercise your creative muscles. But publish only as much as you must to create the impact you need to achieve.
It’s your story. Tell it well.
Robert Rose
Chief Strategy Advisor
Content Marketing Institute
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