Time to stop over-producing
Writing for writing sake is bad. First up, the irony of the title and content in this article isn’t not lost on me. I’m an advocate for meaningful content, just not content-for-content sake. This post is deliberately short and sweet.
“With consumers increasingly conscious of the time they are wasting online, we’ll see more people leaving social networks, more tools for digital detox, and more focus on ‘meaningful’ content.” Media and Tech Trends & Predictions 2019 — Newman Predictions
I’ve read countless articles, listened to endless podcasts and watched various TedTalks and motivational speakers telling me — and I’m likely not to be the only one — that you should “not be afraid of saying something” and “write every day…” and “top tips to keep posting”. Most of our feeds are awash with it.
However, after reading this, take a couple of minutes to look at your feeds. Look at who and what you follow, group some common themes of content in your head and tell me honestly that each piece you see offers originality or something you haven’t heard or seen before. I’m fairly confident you’d be stretched to find anything. Our content bubble is messy, polarising or very one-sided, and spammy. We are simply over-producing for the sake of creating.
It stretches across all channels, although some offer caveats where this may be acceptable — such as those pics and “stories” produced by your family and friends. I’m talking specifically about the “professional” mediums and extends to blogs, articles and social media. Knowing the sheer volume of content we produce and the very need for algorithms and occasional human editors to filter out the crap or push an editorial agenda tells us that we’re over-producing.
“As social media companies experiment with better ways to curb the spread of fake and misleading information, we will see glitches and potentially even more fake news stories being spread for the foreseeable future.” FTI Trends 2019
This year and into next, we have to make sure what we create is truly meaningful. Very quickly, here are three rules of thumb to follow:
1. If you’re drawing a writer’s blank, don’t regurgitate someone else’s position — offer originality. Whether that’s a new take on an existing problem or a take on a new problem. If you can’t find anything, don’t write, keep researching.
2. When you do find that unique angle or have surfaced a new problem, fact-check the hell out of it. Depending on your format, opinions can spread like wildfire, and while that would fantastic for the author, it’s incredibly important to be responsible. Backed up views with verifiable, and ideally, widely-accepted statistics will stand you on solid ground.
“Platforms step up their battle against misinformation and disinformation” RIJ 2019 Trends
3. When thinking about promotion and pushing your content, really consider the audience and the format of each specific channel. Gary Vaynerchuk, who I am in general agreement with, promotes the content pipeline strategy. Essentially you create a long-form piece of content (video, article, podcast) and then take snippets and quotes to distribute over time via channels that fit (such as Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.). It’s a simplified way of making your content stretch, and by-in-large has worked for Gary.
However, if you haven’t honestly considered the first two points, this is the big but. I have been following Gary for the past three months, and his content is now bordering on spam. The snippets and quotes taken from his long-form pieces have gone through so many rinses it’s starting to jar my feeds. It was meaningful, but now it’s just tiresome. Follow the strategy, but when it starts to bore you, it will likely bore your audience.
That may be controversial to some (there are lots of Gary V fans out there), and I’m one of them nevertheless, it’s vital to remain conscious of what you post and push, and how often you do it.
“Could less journalism be better for society and create more impact?” Reuters Institute
So, don’t create content for the hell of it and don’t be a feed-filler. Do create and research new and unique angles, and do share original thinking.
