Let’s just put it out there right away, blogging and writing on a frequent basis to an audience is hard work. I literally know hundreds of people who have thought, “Yeah, I have something to say, I’m going to blog (or write emails) on a frequent basis to my audience” and they get into it but somewhere around six to ten posts, they lose inspiration.
Many of these people start mailing it in at somewhere around the 75% mark before they ultimately just end up quitting.
But here’s something that I occasionally say that shocks people – I admire the people who quit.
These folks have realized that what they are trying to do is hard and that to produce the quality content that they want to generate take a lot of work. Not only that but coming up with new ideas on a regular basis and then turning that into good quality content is tough.
Any idiot can smash out 500 – 600 words of fluff and filler that superficially touches on a topic, but it takes a bit more nouse to inject some personality into the top, put your own spin on it and make it both entertaining and educational for the person reading it.
The superficial “feelz” writers really bother me. They’re not writing so much as “emoting” at their audience. They take a topic, tell you how they feel about it in a superficial way and then usually sign off with some kind of lame attempt at quasi-inspirational dross.
The most perfect example of this style of writing that I can demonstrate is when someone tells you how they’re a “unicorn” and that you, the humble reader can also be a “unicorn”.
They’re always unique snowflakes just like everyone else.
Here’s the thing – writing online now is hard and if you have nothing meaningful to say, you’re wasting your time.
Facebook Updates to newsfeeds and groups have devastated blogs. Casual blog readership has been utterly decimated by social media. Nobody goes to your blog on a regular basis to read about your feelz.
If you’re going to post 500 words of emotional candyfloss, you’re way better off doing that on Facebook and attacking some lame picture with the word “Special” written in sparkles at least people will read it and engage with you.
That’s why I am sticking to writing daily emails – I have a largely captive audience that wants to read my stuff. I effectively end up using the blog as an archive for my emails that I can reference later on.
But one thing that I make sure that I do every single day is not address an issue superficially. I don’t write fluff and saccharine bullshit – if I’m going to talk about something then I try and get into the topic.
When people take the time to read what you’re writing in a longer form like this, you owe them more for their investment of time than going one inch deep on your idea that you’re trying to share.
So how do you make blogging or writing more long-form content a success?
Attack the topic with a meaty outcome for the reader in mind.
Too many bloggers and content creators now just talk about them and their feelz. As I said, they emote and then dump some weak “feelz” based summary at the end of their drivel like a pathetic little icing sugar flower on a melted bowl of sugary sweet vanilla ice cream.
Not good enough. You need to be thinking about transformation – “How can I share a concept or thought process with the reader that lets them walk away from reading this better than before they started?”
Notice how I alluded to the read “being better” and not “feeling better”.
That’s a key difference – I keep saying it but the people who suck at this want to give the “feelz” of their reader a little kiss and cuddle with their content whereas I want to punch them in the face so that they learn to keep their guard up and don’t get punched in the face again.
And that’s what it ultimately comes down to, say something important.
Seriously, nobody gives a shit about your superficial feel-good message for more than the 30 seconds it takes them to read all 450 words of it. They’ve not learned anything or taken anything away of relevance, so they’ll forget what you’ve written and ultimately, forget you in less than the aforementioned 30 seconds.
But if you can consistently give people pause to stop and think, if you challenge their conventional thinking and make them question what they know, you’ll develop an audience of people who want to hear from you. They may not always agree, but they will respect you and that’s important.
Conversely, if that sounds all too hard, by all means, go back to talking about your glitter and how you’re going show the world that you’re a unicorn – literally, nobody cares.