Thoughts on a Return to Blogging
This is the advice I’m giving. And need to take presently. Remind me if I get off track, will you?
Once upon a time, social media was just a tool, like email. We’d hop on our 1-2 socials to promote longer-form content, posting a teaser to a new or evergreen long-form post. Social media was a mad dash to drive traffic back to said post; that was the name of the game.
So how did we get away from more long-form content? Why or when did so many of us give up on blogs?
Blogs are the home for our larger writing pieces. They are the hub of our content wheels. They are where the message party gets started. Platforms like Facebook used to be mere spokes on a wheel, but blogs were where the action was. And remember pillar pages? How that one blog post could cluster out to so many others? It was all so beautifully sticky. And simple.
Gleaming platforms like Instagram emerged. They made no effort to hide their desire to keep us in the grid. Fast-forward to platform-specific creators and monetizing our attention in new ways. Influencer evolved from high school it-girl persona to paid gig potential. And this is where some of us lost sight of the value of long-form. And blogging in particular.
If it makes you more comfortable to stay in denial, I’ll speak only for myself. This is when I lost sight of long-form. And the value of blogging.
In the era I’m rushing through above, I relegated blogs to SEO fodder. I kept my social media accounts happy. I used every type of trendy short form. This included infographics, video bandwagons, cheesy hashtags, and more infographics. You all loved infographics.
I’m happy to report I’ve come full circle. Long-form content comes in many beautiful forms, like white papers and tutorials. It does more than rank in Google.
It builds audience.
Long-form content builds audience. Not an audience. Audience.
This brings me to the next topic I’d like to cover while carving out a little time to write today.
So often the phrase audience is used in place of followers, which is such a miss. Audience is more like a fan base. It deserves to be kept in CRM. (Yes, this is similar to an email list. No, it is not just an email list.)
Audience is your community, paying or not. Audience deserves that you make note of their special quirks and preferences. Audience can be folded in and out of subscribers or paid customers. Audience can be surveyed. Audience can, for the most part, even be trusted.
Audience is a group of stakeholders. They show up for you with their eyes, engagement, and spending across channels.
With that in mind, I ask: what long-form would be most valuable to your audience right now? In building audience?
That right there needs to be your next long-form project. Just as it will be mine.
While we’re working that out, let’s talk about how to avoid many painful algorithm deaths on social.
That’s right, that’s right. We’re supposed to post on our social feeds consistently. But consistency at all costs? Is that necessary?
This is where I’m at:
Consistency, to me, means often enough.
Often enough to show up authentically.
Often enough to support your work in my feeds.
Often enough to not succumb to pumping out overly pre-scripted or impersonal content.
If we’re going for quality, often enough probably won’t mean daily. (Silver lining: you’ll always know it’s me —not ChatGPT vomit.)
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