When does quality vs quantity weigh more in content creation

Due to my work in the creator economy space, I see a lot of people starting content creation journey and sharing their advice on both sides of quantity vs quality in their content posting approach.

This is not a new topic, but an ongoing debate and sometimes misguidance on social media.

The answer is it depends. I know it sounds like a cliché, so let’s dive into the details.

The 1st thing we need to get on the same page is motivation. What’s your goal in posting content online. Some do it because they want to be an influencer one day. Some do it to practice their content creation skills and help them to crystallise their thoughts (hello I am here). Some do it to share the knowledge with the community as a way to pay it forward, and some do it to create an online presence and personal branding.

One misconception is about the role of the influencer. We know there is a natural feedback loop where the content you post that performs better, will encourage you to post more. However, if you are strongly influenced by your viewers to create content. The influencer/influencee position is flipped.

I’ve seen some stories where viewers pay the creators to overeat at the cost of their health. And that kind of toxic enabler is dangerous. A lot of content creators think: “I am influencing people to pay for what I do”, but they often forget viewers also pay to dictate their content, which bleeds into their personal lives.

If your most-performing content exhausts your creativity, makes you feel detached from the real you. Then you are not the influencer, you are the influencee.

Back to the quantity vs quality question. I really think this depends on your influencing position. The social media platform algorithm works for both people who post quantity over quality and vice versa. Because the measure is not the number of followers or comments you have. It’s whether you get benefit out of it.

The 2nd thing is how you want to achieve your end goal

In the typical product growth strategy, you could either choose to optimize your acquisition to achieve your revenue goal. Or optimize the conversion of high intent audience. This is particularly used in A/B testing where a high reach will help you get a higher revenue number even if the conversion is low.

But when we narrow down the quality target audience, even if the sample size is smaller, the conversation could be better.

However, in real life this is not a simple A/B approach, you’ll also have to consider your motivation, and your actual behaviour to choose the best approach for yourself.

If you have a lot to share and you have time to post a lot, you are in the position to influence people on their thoughts and behaviours, so posting more often, even similar content multiple times is going to work. Some existing followers may see the same content multiple times and they might lose interest in you, but if you are playing the numbers game to grow your followers. Posting multiple times even reshuffling your old post will help you reach new audiences more efficiently. So in summary, if you are an influencer, the number of followers is important

But if you are a content consumer and occasional creator with the goal to increase your online presence. Eg if your goal is to build a personal brand to help you with your job hunting, then I would argue quality is more important than quantity. As a content consumer, the quality of the connection is going to be more important than the number of connections if you don’t post often. Because you are letting the algorithm push content to you via your connection. So don’t play the numbers game for the wrong reason and fill your feed with irrelevant content. In this case, if you are a consumer, the quality of connection you have is more important than the quantity.

Understanding where you are today, and not letting the ego get the better of you, is how you can get more benefit out of the social media game.

Last note here: you have to be yourself to get the most benefit out of your social media interaction. If you don’t post content with topics you are passionate about or interested in, you’ll exhaust yourself. If you don’t consume the content that helps you grow and think, then you are wasting your time on social media