How Not to Sell-Out
Photo by makelessnoise.
Here’s the most inspiring blog post I’ve read in a really long time: Merlin Mann reflecting on 4 years of 43folders. It really is worth reading all of it, but if you’re too busy now, the general gist is that the productivity niche has largely sold-out, and so have bloggers in many other niches. The general malaise: bloggers writing what they think people want to read in order to get traffic and cash in on it, resulting in a whole lot of unoriginal and shallow content, and even more wasted talent.
When something good happens as the result of an action, we’re inclined to repeat that action. We write a list of ‘50 Firefox Extensions to Help You Do ________’ and get a burst of traffic from StumbleUpon. We assume that kind of content is working for us and that we should bring that formula to our blogs/websites in other ways.
Think about this for a second though: if you use any kind of social media, have you ever voted for content without fully reading it because it seemed like something ‘other people with more time would enjoy’, or ’something that would do well on social media’, or something that you ‘appreciated the idea of’ but didn’t make the time to fully read, watch, or listen to? My next question is: do you think you’re the only one? You’re bringing traffic to the blog and probably revenue, but you’re not bringing it your full attention and understanding. Thousands of other people are doing exactly the same thing.
If bloggers are being boxed in by all the strategies and formulas placed in front of them, blog readers are also being heavily influenced by the culture around social media and blogging. A blog post title looks like something you’d see on the front page of Digg, and thus we assume it belongs there. Other people with similar interests love a particular blogger, so we read them too, even though they don’t truthfully resonate with us. I want to suggest that blog readers are not just reading and interacting with blogs, but constructing an identity as they do so, and behaving in ways they feel are consistent with that identity, even if the behaviors aren’t 100% authentic. Sometimes your blog, and that social media vote they just gave you, is only a means to an end for them. Extrapolating that, your most popular post–traffic-spike wise–may have done the least of all your posts to grow your blog long-term.
Consider again the ‘50 Firefox Extensions to Help You _______’ post. You might need to alter the number and the wording slightly, but the premise is the same. I’ve written this post at least three times in my blogging career. Maybe you’ve written it once or twice too? Yet, we have to truthfully admit that the post does what could be achieved with a few minutes of Googling, either for individual Firefox extensions or for one of many other (already written posts) on the same topic.
Is the reader who just voted for the latest list of Firefox extensions for writers oblivious to this? Certainly not–at least on some level. But the culture around social media and blogging tells us that this kind of content has value. We’ve seen its type before on big-name, popular blogs, and climbing the charts on social media. In truth, though, such a post would have only had real value in the early days of Firefox, when extensions were unfamiliar to most. At that point they went viral because people needed and wanted them. It was at that point the perception of value was created, and the lifespan of that perception tends to outlast the actual value of such content. We see a post like that and to this day assume it’s a great post with a solid chance on social media. We forget to notice that we only read the introduction before hitting ‘Thumbs Up’ and browsing somewhere else.
It probably sounds like I’m talking about list-posts specifically, but I’m not–I’m talking about any type of content that has been done before, and done to death. If I wrote a post about ‘10 Fast Ways to Boost Your RSS Subscribers’ I’m certain it would be a hit on StumbleUpon, yet it would say nothing that couldn’t be found with a quick Google search bringing up twenty brilliant articles on the same topic. I’m also certain that the people who thumbed it up, on some level, know that. But we’re human beings, and our judgments of value are rarely uninfluenced by their context.
One scenario I want to raise is the possibility of writing exactly what we most want to say even if it meant traffic stopped climbing (temporarily), or slowed to a crawl. I want to suggest that this might actually be the route to the highest echelons of reach and influence as a blogger.
For many bloggers, our content is shaped over time by the peaks in our analytics program of choice. “Oh wow, I got 20,000 visitors when I wrote that controversial post on Apple’s launch of MobileMe… I should be more controversial” or “Top 10 posts always give me a spike–I should keep doing those.” We assume that the peaks in traffic mean the snowball is getting bigger, so we start ‘chasing peaks’: a method of blogging whereby we create posts in the hope of simultaneously creating peaks in our stats, rather than to say what we’re most burning to say. We sell-out. There’s also a reason why ’sell-out’ and ‘burn-out’ sound so similar.
The opposite form, and what I want you to think about, is what I’ll call ‘Creative blogging’. We write what we’re most burning to say and what we truly believe will help people the most, or what will have the most positive impact on them, whether by making them laugh, learn or think. A lot of the time there will be no way to give these posts any kind of all-powerful title, or irresistible hook to pull people in. Some of them will be incompatible with bullet-points and take away quotes. Most of them will not lead to any kind of spike in your statistics.
Yet, what’s invisible in your statistics app (unless you take a long-term view) is the slow snowball that is building behind the scenes. Because you’re saying something new and unprecedented, something with substance and maybe a little dynamism, you’re beginning to stand out from the other blogs in your niche. People will begin to tweet about you, send a post in an email to a friend, or link to you from their blog and expand upon your thoughts.
You don’t have a chance on Digg, and perhaps not on StumbleUpon either, but grassroots, person to person word of mouth is all-together more powerful than those. The key thing that makes it so often overlooked is that it builds slowly but surely. Because you’re not following a formula people have already been conditioned to respond to, it’s going to take time for the value of what you’re doing to spread. But it will do so inexorably. And when it does, your slow rising star will overtake those of other bloggers who have been chasing peaks without building something never seen before.
If you think about the bloggers and thought-leaders currently making waves at the moment–the people everyone is currently talking about–you’ll notice that they are unashamedly individual and unashamedly confident. You have to be. Believing that people will listen to and find value in what you really want to say requires that. As Merlin Mann says in his fantastic rant, all the best posts on his 121k subscriber blog started out as a letter to himself.
Lately I’ve developed a tendency to try to tackle huge issues in altogether too few words, so if any of this doesn’t make sense or is unclear, please call me up on it in the comments and I’ll see if I can answer your question more clearly. I’m not quite sure if my comments about the way blog readers construct an identity through their interactions with content make sense to anyone but myself, for example!
***
Glen Allsop asked me to link to his post called ‘4,439 Words on Driving Traffic to Your Blog‘. Since he is a bona fide social media expert I’m happy to oblige!
This is fantastic advice, but I don’t think it is “bad” to write linkbait kind of content once in awhile. It has helped me start out more than one site. But you’re right — keeping a steady approach and offering real value you can’t get anywhere else (and never “selling out”) is the best way to go. I have tried to do that well at my newest blog.
Skellie,
This post restores much of my faith in the world of blogs. After downloading and reading a few different “information products” today, I was struck by how many of these provide absolutely nothing new. As you point out — nothing you couldn’t get by doing a cursory Google search and reading a few of the links. It’s disheartening to see so much content out there that is just plain BLAH. And this BLAH content is being pushed by countless readers! This post really follows that unfortunate phenomenon well.
I would love to see more readers and subscribers for my blog, but I can’t bring myself to write Stumble-worthy or Digg-able posts. It feels fake, and wholly unsatisfying. My community is (slowly) growing, but it feels solid and intriguing.
Thanks for writing something we all need to hear :).
@ Adam Singer: You’re exactly right. In fact I think social media optimized content has a lot of value if you’re posting it 10% - 20% of the time and being 80% ground-breaking. Then it’s like a booster shot to direct new people to your core content, where they can hopefully become hooked readers.
I think it’s also possible to be ground-breaking with social media optimized content–though it’s tricky, that’s for sure!
@ Zoe: Thank you Zoe, I’m really glad the post has given you a little more hope. As bloggers we need to have the confidence to keep adding something new to the community, even if it’s slow-going. As blog readers, we need to start championing those who’re brave enough to explore uncharted territory, too! :)
First of all I want to say what an Excellent post, I’ve read all of this and here’s what I think..
We are now at a point where everyone wants their news:
Quickly
Easily (Feed readers / digg)
In Digestible bites
That’s the exact reason list posts do well. However, I’m afraid this is stopping all the brilliant content out there that is being written on a daily basis simply isn’t getting any attention. Steve Pavlina was on Digg a few times, almost 2 years ago. Now, none of his titles are socially optimised, he has an audience and they know he writes good content.
Sadly, I still think people need to tweak themselves to an audience before they can start writing exactly what they want to say and feel, without the fancy titles. However, that’s like saying a big magazine doesn’t need to have a catchy cover now that it has a strong readerbase, it still does…
I guess I’m still not decided on this one ;)
Stumbled!
Cheers for the link
Glen
Blogopolis blares with echoes. I couldn’t agree more. On my site, in the five months I’ve had it, I have only written for my creativity. Never for SEO, Digg, Stumble, or anything else. However, after almost half a year, I’ve also not made a dime. I love my site and the purity behind it. It won’t change. I also can’t stand the thought of being just another copy. There is a law of diminishing returns and I don’t think these copies can keep going forever. I think that as blogs mainstream, the cream will rise to the top.
[...] Skellie has an amazing post entitled How Not to Sell-Out which touches on very similar sentiment. I highly recommend you give her post a [...]
Words cannot express how hard I am pumping my fist in the air for this post.
I wrote a post myself on the We Build Pages blog yesterday about how I felt social media had lowered the bar for what is good content and tainted the reasons why people produce and their motivations. Today we write to get attention and to catch eyes. It’s not to inform or educate anymore the way it once was. And that’s sad. We’re seeing a dumbing down of the Internet, IMO.
I could not agree with more with this post. Simply awesome.
Thanks for this much-need stern talking to. It can be so hard to see the mediocre, derivative content around you getting stumbled and dugg while authentic, personal content languishes (or appears to).
The peaks are so gratifying, but I agree they can be meaningless.
This is indeed a great post. It reassures me in myself as a blogger, as I do sometimes fall in the trap of stat-watching and writing only to keep that subscriber count and traffic growing.
I hate feeling guilty after 4/5 days when I’ve not got round to writing a post, when I see fellow bloggers pumping them out every day. But I’ve got to remember, I try to spend a lot of time crafting half-decent (and occasionally much-appreciated) articles and don’t get paid for it, I have no advertising on Redswish - I write to express my opinions and to help inform others and in turn - learn from others through replies and comments.
So, I like to feel I haven’t sold out yet. But I must say I’m certainly not looking forward to that hosting bill coming round in the new year!
ps. I purposefully avoid writing list posts for exactly the reasons you’ve stated above. I love sites like Smashing Magazine, Noupe and Vandelay for the lists they put together, but there’s rarely stuff there I couldn’t find with a quick google. It’s all about the articles, like this one, that provoke an emotional response.. which of course then leads to an enormous comment response!
Ok, I’ll shut up now.
Thanks Skellie :)
Unfortunately the “market” is so saturated now, that the blogs with the best post titles and that fit into the niches that DIGG and stumble users like are the ones to get noticed first. This is why I don’t think it’s just the “good” blogs that rise to the top, there are other factors at work there.
That’s just the way it is…
but I write for myself first, then for my readers. So far, that’s worked for me very well but I’ve been doing this for 4 years; with all the increased “blog noise” out there there’s a lot more competition for readers. fortunately, most of the new blogs in my niche are just dumps for affiliate links and poorly designed, so I don’t think they have much longevity and I don’t particularly feel threatened by most of them….they’ve heard that you can make money blogging, so they’ve jumped on the bandwagon, but ultimately, they are the sell-out’s and will not last. I hope. I guess I still have a little faith in blog readers out there to reward good content.
I couldn’t agree more. Many bloggers in niches have sold out and that is the same way in any industry. Just look at the music industry, people continue to sell out just so their music would be played on VH1 or MTV. And now bloggers do it so they can get as much traffic as possible. But if you are in it to make money than I’m guessing you’ll do whatever it takes to get that traffic. Whether it means writing stuff you do not care about or jumping on the bandwagon.
Thanks, Skellie, for another post that came along when I needed to hear the message. How do you know?
My topic is very nichey, yet I believe the readers are out there. It’s like hunting for needles in an endless field of haystacks. I write to post (wave a magnet over the haystack), catch a reader or two and then move on to the next haystack.
Thanks again.
My blog is about 25% thoughtful self development and 75 % humor and good feel writing.
I don’t think I’ve ever written a list post for a self development article. For me, personally (my style), this takes some of the originality and art out of the presentation. I want it to be more than just a document - but something with a little soul too.
That is how I believe I set myself apart.
Good insights, I enjoyed this article.
Hi Skellie!
I for one appreciate your perspective, and because I know that’s where you’re coming from, I always read your post first whenever I see something from you in my feed reader. Of course, in addition to the commitment to not selling out, it also takes a ton of work to get to the top, but i think you’re right that if you sell out, no matter how hard you work, you’ll never be able to rise past a certain level.
Thanks for not selling out, and for the inspiration to the rest of us!
Well, this article certainly resonates for me. My blogging is mostly posting my photography with occasional commentary from retired life. Hopefully what I write won’t too often mimic what others have written.
While I generally agree with your article, I do need to point out a little problem:
“As Merlin Mann says in his fantastic rant, each blog post he writes on his 121k subscriber blog is just a letter to himself.”
Not quite, actually. What he actually said was:
“But, to this day, almost everything I’m proud to have written on 43 Folders started as a letter to myself.” Which mostly supports your thesis, but not entirely. Note that he says “started”… eventually those letters became blog posts for public consumption. There’s also no guarantee that everything he’s proud of was written that way. I don’t get the impression that he was unashamedly confident, especially in the earliest days of his blogging, but I could be wrong.
But does this invalidate your article? Not really. Just thought I’d point this out though.
This article is a great read for me right now. The road to true success is not built on chasing the dollar, or traffic or anything else. It’s about building something. It takes time but leads you eventually to higher ground. I submit an ever-so-slightly different graph which I believe provides a more accurate picture. http://myonehundredthings.com/chasingvscreative.jpg. Let me know what you think :)
Well said. A post like this could inspire a guy quit his Stumble group. In fact I sometimes wonder why I haven’t already. Is it really support or would the blogging field be more level without all these shenanigans?
I also was inspired by Merlin’s post but at the same time I wondered how confident he might be if he hadn’t already built to over 100k subscribers.
I my post 10 reasons why ‘Top List’ posts are great to read and write I’ve tried to explain why these kind of posts actually can be great.
And of good quality.
It’s already very hard to be heard/found as a beginner. It’ll be even more difficult to to achieve the graph illustrated above when you’re only being ‘creative’.
It might be more rewarding, though.
Thanks, Skellie, I’m finding your recent posts very inspirational. I’ve always despised the, to me, pointless and superficial “top 10″ posts, but I did a few early on because all the experts were telling me I had to.
It’s much pleasanter and more congruent to just post things that interest me. I’m not getting big numbers, but I think they’re slowly growing (I’ve also stopped obsessively checking the numbers). And I have reason to believe that the subscribers I have are the ones I want - thinking people who are also interested in what I’m interested in.
Fabulous.
I sometimes chase peaks, but not often. I’ve seen subscriber count dip while I wait to have something to say, or say something unpopular or difficult to swallow or unravel - but I do try to say what needs to be said (at least by me.)
But this post has really squashed any peak-chasing urges. I completely hear you when you talk about the “snowball behind the scenes” and a voice that needs to develop. I know I haven’t found my voice yet, so sometimes I’m grateful I’m not on top of any bloggy mountain - I have far to go, but I think the main thing is to enjoy the journey.
Very good points, Skellie. I’ve noticed you speaking out a little bit more recently on the state of blogging. In fact, even in the comments of most blogs, you see a stack of people like nodding dogs, agreeing with everything, but most likely trying to get a comment in and drop a link back to their own site.
It’s like everybody read the same handbook and now does the same thing.
It’s a real quandry though - perhaps breaking away from this malaise means breaking away from RSS and social media a bit more, finding original voices out there and getting involved with them - not for the backlinks or to ‘build your audience’, but to engage in meaningful conversations again. The way it used to be.
There are no posts on our blog written with the spike traffic in mind. None. We also don’t submit to Digg, don’t stumble our own posts, and only Tweet them when we feel the message is important to spread.
We’ve grown to over 3,000 readers because we write what we want to, when we want to, and we write it with our perspective and feeling. Are we happy if people come? Sure. But we’re not chasing spikes and not tapping out any market.
We write because we love to write and love to share. And that is creative blogging.
@ Everyone: Thanks for the thoughtful comments! It’s always nice to receive lots of short comments saying ‘great post!’ but when most comments are a few paragraphs long I feel like I’ve got people thinking, which is really nice for me (even if they disagree, hehe).
@ Mark Dykeman: Good catch — I’ll fix up the wording a little bit. It’s truer to what good blogging is, that your posts start off as letters to yourself and then are transformed for public consumption, as you wisely pointed out.
I call this the ‘mtv problem.’ Thing is reality shows and other things had more ratings than MTV did showing blocks of rock. So as the late 80’s became the 90’s, they figured that more shows were better. We got Singled Out, The Real World, TRL etc. And MTV never recovered because it was no more about music, and it became fringe.
Traffic follows, ideas lead.
[...] How Not to Sell-Out - Skellie’s article will give you plenty of food for thought. [...]
Call me an extremist, but this is one of the reasons I don’t try to game social media. I don’t think I could write for very long if I only wrote so the crowd would give me a thumbs up. That sounds horribly shallow and empty.
Oddly enough, I’ve found that my most heart-felt and passionate posts get the most social traffic. People are dying to read something from someone who doesn’t sound like a product of brutal, cookie-cutter marketing-based culture.
Oh, like you said, they might give you a good ranking… but I doubt that their loyalty is really there if they secretly think the content wasted their time. True loyalty comes from true value…when you give everything you have inside you to your readers (or, perhaps more importantly, to yourself) when you write.
I view writing as an incredibly personal journey, where I embark to understand my own thoughts better in a useful manner for others. Gaming social media never comes into play when I’m formulating an article… my writing is too personal for that. But like I said, maybe I’m an extremist.
Thanks for the post Skellie. This is why I’ll be subscribed to Skelliewag for a good time. :)
I think that largely depends on the niche. Seriously, tell me how can you apply your creative blogging idea in the tech niche?
Good post. I don’t mind list posts, or even how “Diggish” the title is. As long as the content is original, not just a list of copy ‘n paste jobs. There are too many of them in blogsphere these days. The type of blog I like to read is when the author has something interesting or original to say. I can sense the mind behind the writing. Reading a typical “top XXX” list blog makes me feel like reading a sheet of Ads in a magazine. no soul.
I wrote about my feeling on list blogs recently, I tried to be objective. In case you’re interested:
http://www.8164.org/innerlogue-list-posts/
Thanks.
Great Read.
I just had this discussion a couple of days again and it is refreshing to see others pushing for more actual interaction, and producing quality content, though i have been helped by some of the “10 tips to this” or “25 ways to that”.
I think that when we actually read someone’s post, and then post a relevant comment we are helping them and encouraging community.
~ Aaron I
This was seriously what I needed to read right now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you!
I loved this post and I’m going to have to admit I’ve been doing all my blogs wrong for a very long time. The truth is I didn’t know what to post about and so more often than not my posts were an introduction to someone elses article that I have found and liked…and also thought any readers would like althought they could find those same articles around the web in other places.hmmmmmmmmm
And now I find myself with a great blog growing VERY VERY slowly on my social network to which I am ultimately trying to encourage memebrs to post. But alas.. once again I’m not good at posting so how on earth could I expect them to be?
I think what my blog on the social network needs, is a better understanding from myself in the first instance and a jolly good other person who can keep up the momentum and lead by example with some great blog posts..
Oh well if I keep peeping at this blog to try and make sense of the info then maybe I will get the real meaning of it all…..I can but try eh? Thanks for the post.
K
Ps Is anybody willing to help?
Oh, I look at Analytics and think things like that. Sometimes I think about the likely ads a certain post will attract and what the payouts would be.. but I’m going to write what I’m going to write regardless.
Yesterday somebody asked me a question in email about defragging. I answered him so fully that I turned it into a post. In that case, I did have something different to say than most of what you’ll find by searching Google and I do realize that this post could attract ads for some expensive products but I wrote it BECAUSE I WROTE IT.
I’ve been posting regularly since 1991 - that will be 18 years soon.. I have over 13,000 posts and just about every single one was written for no other reason than that’s what I had to say on that day.
Good for you Skellie - tell it like it is!
That’s a very interesting post, loved it and totally agree with it. I guess there are still genuin people writing for the same of writing and other in it for the fame. I’m an in between…it’s also an experiment for me but at the same time I enjoy it.
http://mylifeiscrap.com
This was a great post. I like especially how you respond directly to your comments. A huge part of blogging - in my opinion - is interacting with your audience and really creating an experience for the user. That being said, it’s really the unique content of the author that sets the blog apart from the rest of the world. Great job.
Very useful post. Thanks. I will think about it.
[...] How Not to Sell-Out [...]
Great overall advice. However, there is nothing wrong with writing for your readers. If you really just launch a blog and don’t ever care about your audience, then more power to you. But most bloggers, especially those who are able to glean a living from their blogs, blog for their visitors… I don’t see anything wrong in that. And my posts are affected by my statistics. Most often, I usually look at key phrases and try to provide content which fits those phrases. But I do consider peaks as well…
@Ruchir. Yes, it totally depends on niche.
Thanks a lot Skellie.
I think it’s been SO long since I read a blog post thoroughly and your post is the first one after this long period :-)
I realized that I didn’t SCAN your article, but I really read it through, with a feeling that I just couldn’t miss a line.
Wow, I think THIS is what a great blog post should look like and you just teach me how to write it for my blogs.
It’s true that a good blog post must be either entertaining, enlightening, nor educating. And what I learn from this article is that you must write what you want and feel like writing about!
Most of the times we just forget these basics.
This article is exactly what I needed right now. Thank you so much!
I’m totally reassessing my business and my life right now and in many ways, I do feel like I’ve sold out. I feel like I’ve been saying what has already been said in the past and giving people what they want.
But my goal for 2009 (and in the future) is to write about subjects that others are either too afraid to write about or simply unaware of.
I realize now that I am never going to be able to reach my goal of inspiring a new generation of bicycle travelers by reiterating what others have said in the past. I’ll never be a leader by doing what has already been done. But by being myself, speaking from the heart, and sharing some real ideas on the future of my sport (bicycle touring), then I stand a huge chance of becoming the best in the world at what I do.
Thank you for reminding me of this. I really do appreciate it.
Most of the content on my blog is totally original. I used to try and chase what’s popular, but it’s never brought a long term increase in traffic.
I am quite new to blogging. I bought a domain name few months ago with the intention to start a great blog about what “I” have to say and see if people could identify with that. But then i took a look at the blogging world and was really disappointed. All the “winners” were posting things that i would never bother to waste time writing. Who will read my things? I don’t want to compete with them, but still need some readers interested in what i have to say. What is the point in creating something that nobody needs?
And if this is what people need and appreciate, i better find something else to do with my time.
So far my blog awaits its first post, but after reading this article i made up my mind: i’ll go on with my own thing, even if is going to be one person show.
Thanks for the inspiration!
yes that is the case.. when people talk about same niche.. all the post is basically the same thing.. like this post.. i do read it before people complaining the same thing.. but we just cant run from it, can we?
it just like a “love song”.. there is some many love song in this world.. but we never get bored if there is new song.. because the basic and story is same but the music is different so as blogging..
we just have a little knowledge of this world to be exactly uniques..
but you post is really different from others.. i really enjoy it..
http://whizblog.net
[...] just got slapped awake today by a reading of an excellent article on skelliewag.org, which offers a lethal but necessary dose of truth about blogging: be original and don’t sell [...]
I’m not yet a blogger - more an avid reader - and I really enjoyed this post. i love authentic writing more than anything else… and I tend to chase link after link til I find someone who has something interesting to tell me… I appreciate your fresh take so much.
Excellent post Skellie. I would have to agree with Adam’s comment that a mix of both strategies can’t hurt. Ruchir’s point is also valid. There are just some niche where creative blogging is rather difficult.
I believe the ulitmate goal in blogging is to expand one’s circle of influence.
A Korean proverb reminds us that “Power lasts ten years; Influence, not more than a hundred.”
Happy holidays!
Bloggers that write ‘Top Ten Ways to…’ or ‘101 Links to…’ posts are catering to a different type of reader than bloggers that write deeper and more meaningful content. The list posts and other link bait posts are designed to be read by people that are either new to that topic, or new to blogs in general. As readers get more into blogs and the content that they provide, I think that there is a natural shift away from the shallow, link bait type posts and towards deeper, more thought provoking content.
However, we never forget our roots, so I think the reason you see so many blind diggs and stumbles of content that seems interesting to ’someone else’ is that we’re passing that post along and down to these early readers. The more experienced blog readers are acting like a filter, and automatically passing along content that might not be relevant to their needs any more, but might be the perfect post for a beginning in a certain subject area.
As such, I think there is enough room for both styles of writing, though I think it’s important for bloggers to realize that you can make your snowball bigger, but if it’s just filled with new readers and an inexperienced audience, you don’t have the real influence that you’re trying to achieve.
This same trend is happening right now on Twitter, as users start to realize that numbers don’t matter if you’re followers are just thousands of people that are retweeting the same content that you’re retweeting to try and build their own numbers. Instead, the focus is shifting back towards providing valuable, original content and commentary and letting that content speak for itself, rather than some arbitrary followers number.
Add one more subscriber - a great post. I’m forever questioning what I should be blogging about. Settled on just trying to be useful.
I liked what you had to say as I have often looked at my own posts and wondered why that one attracted so much attention but this one didn’t. I would offer one objection, that your ‘Chasing peaks’ graph also reflects the spikes of those of us who haven’t quite figured out the whole blogging thing.
Those sell-out posts are the drug of choice for many bloggers.
Mine was called “20 Firefox Shortcuts to Save You Time and Money” and it brought me over 27,000 visitors in about twelve hours. It also brought me a lot of pain and suffering trying to recreate the flood of traffic. Oh, and helped me totally do a spin out and loose focus. It wasn’t even directly applicable to my niche!
But I’m in recovery now. I’ve actually just started over from scratch with a more defined niche and a real purpose for blogging.
I’m actually embarrassed to write a comment here because if you were to go to my blog you’d see the same old unremarkable posts found everywhere else about “how-to blog,” etc. But since you bring it up, Skellie, I might as well come out from behind my mask and offer you a standing ovation for delivering the truth.
Everything you said here is why I started blogging in the first place — to finally redeem the years I spent avoiding writing because it didn’t pay out enough or quickly enough. For ten years I pretended to be a programmer, then designer, then marketer, only to end up before you now in my original skin: writer.
So imagine the sense of guilt and relief I feel upon reading this post. I go back and flip through my little notebook of ideas and see the exact same observations and convictions you have about selling-out, creativity and appropriated content. The only difference is that my blog is hypocritical and yours isn’t. Big difference.
Now that you and Merlin Mann have helped release some demons, I’m going to take back my blog to where it belongs: with me, not with them. Sure, I could make the excuse that maybe I was duped by the legions of sell-outs due to my late entry into blogging, but I won’t.
Luckily I’m only two months into this blogging gig and nobody knows anything about me. Time to quietly rearrange the furniture.
Mahalo nui loa, Skellie
(That’s Hawaiian for thank you very much)
[...] From How Not To Sell-Out “If you think about the bloggers and thought-leaders currently making waves at the [...]
[...] How Not to Sell-Out A creatively written article on why creative blogging is more effective long term then chasing [...]
[...] From How Not To Sell-Out “If you think about the bloggers and thought-leaders currently making waves at the moment–the [...]
Hi Skellie,
I wanted to echo the enthusiastic response you’ve received to this post, but also mention that there are several reasons people write blogs. First is to express their ideas without form, structure or pre-conceived content; these are purely personal blogs. I actually write one that is not indexed in Google and consider it a long letter to friends and family. The second is to add to the general knowledge of a topic area; these are professional blogs that serve the purpose of creating a broader knowledge base and enhancing the writer’s professional credibility — it is their professional body of work online (I also write one of these, in full disclosure.) The last that I can think of is the creative blog: showing your creativity in an area for the pure pleasure of it — sewing, clothing styling, knitting patterns, etc. Can you think of more? BTW, I always enjoy looking at your beautiful painting images on your site. How original!
You correctly echoed what I was thinking when I found myself looking at blogs, entire websites just dedicated to the purpose of advertisements.
Of course, monetization is good, but people don’t realize that by monetizing content that’s stale, anorexic, or simply put, PLAIN STUPID, they’re just increasing their chances that their website goes down the Internet’s mammoth drain.
What matters in any website or blog is QUALITY CONTENT, content that’s straight from a person’s personal experiences.
Truth always sells, slowly it may though.
[...] Skellie, at Skelliewag.org wrote an insightful post a few weeks ago about not selling out. Not really sure how this pertains to me and what I’m writing here, but it was thought provoking enough for me to write a post. As I dig into Sphinn and other social media sites, I’ll admit it all seems to be a bit odd. Content for content’s sake. Everyone writing for some kind of traffic home run, rather than what might be useful for prospective readers or customers. [...]
Excellent content here and a nice writing style too - keep up the great work!
I’m chiming in as a latecomer, but I want to add to the praise.
This is a great way to begin my new blog year. Thanks for reminding us to keep it real.
Skellie,
I found this post really helpful, thank you. It’s affirmed my own journey - verging on shutting down my blog because I was saying what I thought my readers wanted to hear rather than what I wanted to say. Hence opening a posterous account.
I love the graph. What software did you use to draw that?
David
[...] image borrowed and modified from skellie’s blog [...]
[...] community, people chasing peaks, building the content (they think others want to see) and ultimately selling out. If I was to make one recommendation today as a tech blogger, reading that link would be it. It has [...]
Interesting post, I wrote something similar yet different. On why we blog to monetize! Why not leave ur hobby/passion just the way it is… why have we opted to stick Ads everywhere, why are we so intent on making money? Check it out if you have the time: http://m.jpmartin.com/commercializing-your-passion-f
Hi Skellie
I find what you say here very heartening. Having just started my own blog I am still floundering around trying to find the right approach and waiting for my ‘voice’ to emerge. Thanks for the advice. It’s sure to set many bloggers on the right track. Only hope I can live up to it!
[...] How Not To Sell-Out?“If you think about the bloggers and thought-leaders currently making waves at the moment–the [...]
[...] Without our personalites in our writing even the most useful information can go unnoticed. The reason for this comes from a narrow, obsessive and even conditioned focus on producing the kind “valuable” content we think will appease the most amount of people in the shortest amount of time. This is called selling out. [...]
Hey
This is a good post… I think people have to find some kind of balance. Obviously if lists of 10 creates a mad rush, people are looking for that kind of thing. But you can write great posts that are chunked up (maybe with bold headings) without resorting to lists the whole time. You can even write great posts but split as a mini series maybe.
[...] post I select is How Not to Sell-Out by Skellie - and it’s a post that immediately resonates with [...]
Great post, Skellie. I have a blog about my passion, strength training, but I do sometimes feel that in order to grow my blog I need to be writing more ‘hook’ type posts. You’ve reminded me that my blog has grown slowly but surely over the past couple of years and that what attracts people (and I know because they’ve taken the trouble to tell me) is the quality of the writing and the obvious enthusiasm for the topic. Thank you!
[...] it’s not a good idea), so you hold yourself back from doing what you really want to do. You sell yourself out because you’re stuck thinking the loop is an accurate representation of [...]
I think you should’ve thrown in a little ironic twist and wrote about the “Top 10 Ways To NOT Sell Out”.
The whole concept of “viral” marketing is retarded. It’s more like locust marketing when you’re talking about social media sites like Digg and Reddit. The locust (users) start feeding on a hooky headline, feed on it for a while, then abandon it and move on to the next hook. Sure it never hurts to have more traffic to your site, but what’s the point if it’s all temporary?
Sometimes it is very difficult trying to keep your blog real when it is taught that your masters are your visitors and the search engines and you must please the masters. I enjoy your writting so you have pleased this visitor…
[...] Skellie puts this succinctly: “If you think about the bloggers and thought-leaders currently making waves at the moment–the people everyone is currently talking about–you’ll notice that they are unashamedly individual and unashamedly confident. You have to be. Believing that people will listen to and find value in what you really want to say requires that.” [...]