An important ratio when putting together publications is how much content there is versus how many there are.  It may seem like this would be so you don’t annoy your readers too much, but, at least for print publications, it’s to avoid being called a catalog by the US Post Office who will then charge higher postage rates.  Online, this ratio really is important to readers who can easily go somewhere else.  But this ratio also applies to social networking…

Think about the people you are most likely to follow on Facebook or Twitter or on their blogs.  They probably provide you with useful information.  They may occasionally promote their own products, but it’s a low percentage in the sum of the content.  You’re less likely (or not likely at all) to follow someone who does nothing but tell you about their products (and what they ate for breakfest).  This self-promotion is the same as ads on a website or in a magazine.  It’s ok to do it, but it has to be a small percentage of your overall content for it to be acceptable (and for it to have a better impact).

Keeping a good content-to-ad ratio is important because people are more likely to actually pay attention to your ads when most of what you provide is useful information.  Having a good ratio also helps build your reputation as someone who is looking out for their audience.

For print magazines, I think the ratio is somewhere around 75% (so 25% ads, maybe as high as 33%).  Online, we try to keep it closer to 80% but there’s actually better click-through-rates and ad impact if there’s only one ad per page.  For social networking, I think the ratio should be even higher, maybe 90-95%, since most of the time should be spent either providing useful information or building relationships (you know, that networking part).

By keeping a high content-to-ad ratio in all the content you produce, you’ll have an easier time of actually promoting things than if you just spam everyone with your marketing messages.  After all, no one likes either a spammer or a self-promoter.

What’s your content-to-ad ratio?

This is a guest post by Sarah Worsham, CEO & Web Strategist at Sazbean Consulting and blogging at Sazbean.com. Sarah is passionate about creating Internet strategies to help companies reach their business goals. Sarah provides guidance through Internet Marketing, Strategy & Business consulting. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or the Sazbean Facebook Page.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 1:52 pm and is filed under Only @ InSights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.