Is less really more when it comes to blogging? There seems to be a pattern with many independent design blogs that have a substantial numerical following, be it on Twitter or Feedburner subscriber stats: the more popular they are, the less they blog. Is there a principle at work here?
A lot of popular blogs went through an early phase were posts were frequent, varied in content, and long by comparison to recent material. Older posts tend toward lists and tutorials, while newer posts tend towards fragmented, highly-segmented interest posts. For example, in the archives of some popular blogs, you might find a time-consuming study of the branding in a certain industry with lots of text, images, and references. Newer posts might have content focused on, say, one designer or one logo they came across with a few words, one central images, and then a link directly the resource.
Let me say that I don’t think this is laziness or bait-and-switch or anything negative at all. I’m wondering about it strictly in terms of my own strategy, and prefer using a wheel instead of reinventing it.
Hypothesis about the success of graphic design blogs
Here are some possible principles that we could deduce from the blogging activity of some of the more popular independent graphic design bloggers. Each suggested principle, however, is fraught with difficulties because of underlying assumptions about cause and effect:
- Readers prefer shorter articles in these days of big posts everywhere, due to “big article burnout”.
- Bloggers know that big articles don’t yield any better results than small articles, and have limited time, and therefore simply are being smart rather than altruistic about what “quality content” is.
- Bloggers know that short or long, because of their momentum from past hard work, they don’t need to work as hard (which is the principle I’m secretly hoping is true), and thus write shorter articles because they yield exactly the same results.
- Bloggers know that reader preferences have shifted towards small, more personal and arbitrary opinion type posts, because of burn out with big, personality-less list posts propagated all over the design blog community
- Bloggers learned that list posts work, if done correctly
- Readers always click on headlines with certain tried and true formulas, and always will
- Bloggers simply learned to write better! Less is more, and a lot less is a lot more!
Any and all of these possible principles could be true. You could juxtapose any of them as mutually exclusive, or you could see them all as simultaneously true.
My hypothesis is that many popular design bloggers originally wrote longer and more varied material, but learned how to write better and shorter, more focused articles over time. While they learned, they gained a following for being consistent and informative, and have the benefit of their initial momentum still working for them. Now that they 1) write better and 2) have a cemented readership with readers and 3) have great inbound links, they can “rest” in a sense. The “rest” means that they don’t have to worry about building a foundation week in and out in their niche. The foundation is built, and now they can take time to build at their discretion.
Can this translate into a strategy going foward?
Test the strategy for success
So here is a working strategy:
- Write a lot (still)
- Write shorter and better now rather than later
- Discover the niche I’m best at writing for
- Wash, rinse, repeat as necessary
- By the end of 24 months of blogging like this, the foundation will be built
I think the key from this strategy is: write shorter and better now.
So, I’m experimenting this year with writing more frequently and including more opinions with shorter, less researched and time-intensive oriented materials, with the aim to getting readers who are interested in short & sweet, entertaining, and informative graphic design articles, with a dash of opinion.
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