We always preach to clients about the importance of fresh content, but recent results from a web service provider back up our suspicions!
A recent survey by an online web tool SiteKreator has found that the small number of websites involved in their research that updated their site more than 5 times a month received over 300% more traffic than sites not updated as often.
Those who integrated social media into their online strategy saw 400% more unique visitors than those who didn't! The survey found Facebook to be a larger traffic driver than Twitter but this is understandable as Facebook's larger user base means it's relevant to more industries than Twitter.
A slight flaw with the research is that it only involved 5,000 websites that all use the same platform for their websites (hence SiteKreator being able to get the results, no doubt) but it's still an interesting trend.
I guess it's important to remember though that this could go further than just how often you update your site, or how often you tweet. Whilst fresh content is great for Google, someone who updates their site more often is just generally taking their online marketing more seriously than someone who builds a website, puts a tick through it on their list, and moves on. If they're bothering to update their site and build a Fan Page on Google and a following on Twitter then maybe they're also carrying out an adwords campaign, running competitions, have an online PR campaign - plus promoting their site off-line too.