Steady posts, stronger bonds? Examining posting consistency and follower engagement for content creators

Abstract

Content creators need to maintain an ongoing presence on digital platforms to grow and engage their followers. Posting consistency, the practice of sharing a steady volume of content at regular intervals over time, is widely advocated by practitioners as an effective content strategy to stimulate follower engagement. However, the relationship between creators’ posting consistency and follower engagement has not been adequately examined in the academic literature. To help fill this gap, this relationship and its boundary conditions are investigated in this study. Drawing on interpersonal communication theory and research on content creators and the attention economy, the study proposes a research model linking creators’ posting consistency to follower engagement. Further, it identified three boundary conditions: competition, the number of followers creators have, and the number of other accounts creators follow. To test the proposed hypotheses, a pooled regression model on a panel dataset of content creators from Instagram (N = 460) was estimated. The findings demonstrate a positive relationship between creators’ posting consistency and follower engagement and show how the boundary conditions moderate this relationship. The study contributes to the literature by emphasizing the relational value of posting consistency and delineating its relationship with follower engagement and its boundary conditions.