Top 10 Most Insane Reasons Why Blogging for Social Media Sucks
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OK, I admit it! I’m part of the problem here. It all started with link baiting a few years ago. Then blogging for a social media audience has become common place.
Sometimes it seems there is not a single sane blog post out there anymore.
I’m guilty of popularizing blogging for social media as well.
Yeah, I’ve written lists for years and I used “top 10” and “10 reasons why” lists all over the place.
Over the recent years I have been rethinking my strategy and on the look out for alternatives.
First let me explain though the top 10 most insane reasons why blogging for social media sucks:
1. “Ultimate, Awesome, Creative, Funny, Insane Headlines”! These and other adjectives are so widely overused, especially by Asian content thieves with basic English skills that I already bounce once I discern one of these terms in a headline.
I don’t need insane software, funny architecture or even creative design.
I don’t like them especially if they are the most insane, funniest and amazing or creative. Software must be useful, architecture sustainable and design usable.
I don’t even need the ultimate guide to tie my shoelaces. Just provide quickly digestible solutions.
2. Top 10 this, Top 10 that. There are already blogs that offer only top 10 lists. While numbers in posts work, 7 is my favorite.
Thinking in lists makes your posts shallow and just an overview without deep insight.
Sometimes it’s better to focus on one issue in depth instead. Your subscribers will honor that.
3. Tips, Tools, Resources Lists. I use Diigo for bookmarking almost daily and do you know what? In most cases I never return to the lists I bookmarked.
I always think: “Well, great list; I’ll save it for later and look it up once I need it.” I rarely do.
In most cases I don’t have the time to check the posts I saved for later.
All the tips, tools and resources just get thrown away and stink in data nirvana without ever get read.
Considering the long time during which Delicious traffic is barely existent I’m not the only one.
4. Social Media Focus. Blogs that are geared towards social media like Buffer or Social Media Examiner still work well.
Sometimes it seems they already have listed everything at least twice and they attempt to venture into new fields of expertise.
The broader the less targeted though. I end up seeing the same ultimate, awesome, creative here and there again and again.
The content thieves make it extra redundant so that everything gets recycled at least half a dozen times.
5. The Next BIG Thing. Foursquare, Quora, Google+ – they’re all great not so new services anymore.
The hype around them didn’t make them the next YouTube or Facebook though. The attention economy can’t be fooled.
People have only a limited time to spend online and they get used to old services no matter how basic or bad they are.
The next big thing can’t be a thing that takes away more of my life time while adding workload.
In case it’s better then the last one I need at least a way to export my data and in the best case my network (aka “friends”) to the new one.
Just because I buy a new car I don’t throw away my clothes and family either and search for a new one.
6. Make Money Online with Whatever. It worked for a few people with hard work and the unique selling proposition of being the first but hundreds of thousands of bloggers can’t get rich by blogging and most of them don’t.
Get real. The whole MMO niche is a parody of itself by now. I earn my money blogging by now but mostly due the fact that it’s connected to my SEO business.
It was somehow a transition from SEO to business blogging for clients. They make money by ecommerce, that is selling stuff online or helping other sell stuff online.
7. Best Hosting, Ebook, Premium WordPress Theme. Come on guys, I won’t buy that
- Bluehost is the best hosting on the planet
- your ebook makes me rich quick
- the Genesis WordPress theme will blow my mind.
Even the most trustworthy bloggers tend to become low level gray hat marketers when they try to sell you something via their blogs.
I don’t believe you because I know myself what the best hosting is for me and other people.
I can’t even find the time to read all the free ebooks I downloaded. A new WordPress theme doesn’t have to be pushed and shoveled down my throat. I know there are commissions for them.
8. Friends, Fans and Followers. Who are all these people who want to be friends, are my fans or followers?
On some services like Twitter or Google+ I almost stopped checking who is befriending me. It might sound antisocial nowadays but I like to know my friends. Yes, I’m quite conservative,
I must have at least some eye contact with you before befriending you.
People whose avatar I have never seen before (or after) want to or are my friends, fans and followers. Give me a break.
Don’t ask me to be a friend, behave like one, at least a virtual one. Do something with or for me, contact me, vote for me.
9. Selling Your Friends. Social media like Facebook or Google+ tend to become quite antisocial once they become big enough to wield power.
You are social capital for them. They want to sell your relationships with other people and the work you did for free for them for years.
You are not allowed to have a too much financial gain out of those services without paying though.
That’s why Facebook and even Twitter sell back your friends to you by way of advertising while limiting the so called organic reach with new algorithms.
I don’t even mean large brands. Your profiles get fewer views and clicks now even as an individual.
Social media is like slavery: You work for nothing and they can do whatever they want with you. You have no rights.
10. Amorphous Masses. Who are the thousands of visitors that flock to your site to disappear in seconds or minutes if they stay reaaaally long?
These people are similar to the audience in a subway station. You’re the street musician. They enter the trains and you’ll never see them again.
Even if you play again and again in the same place daily, most of them won’t become your true fans.
They will recognize and forget you in the same minute. The subway or the Web is not TV and you’re not Madonna or Micheal Jackson.
Is this a doom and gloom post? Nope.
What’s the alternatives, the solution? I repeat: It’s the 1000 true fans mantra as of now. I’m not sure myself yet. I guess it works. Even the numbers work.
When 1000 people spend 100$ per year for you it’s 100k dollars you earned. That’s enough for a decent living in most countries.
Also 100$ means less then a 10$ subscription per month for instance. Would you spend 10$ for your favorite singer in a month? You probably already do by going to one concert per year.
The information should become deeper not broader, easier digestible without being shallow. Useful and unique instead of “lowest common denominator and extremist”.
You could argue that I don’t need social media anymore because I have lots of subscribers – I already have an audience but exaggerating doesn’t work that well anyway and it will less and less.
The audience is already well saturated and tired of the same headlines and postings over and over.
Are you my true fan? Come on! You need to become one then!
Last updated: March 27th, 2017. I finally removed the question about my penis size.
* (CC BY 2.0) Creative Commons image by Will Brown
Great stuff man, and sooooo damn true. Especially loved the penis enlargement and Thesis! ROTFL.
I don’t know, or much care about your penis size but must say I enjoyed this post-Social Network-ing post. BTW, Michael is spelled Michael, not Micheal.
[…] Tadeusz Szewczyk aka onreact wrote in Top 10 Most Awesomely Amazing Creative & Funny Reasons Why Blogging for Social Media Sucks: Top 10 this, Top 10 that. There are already blogs top offer only top 10 lists. While numbers in […]
Thanks and well said. It is about good relevant deep content. It takes time to build good relationships and trust between clients and suppliers.
You make some good points, but at the end of the day I think it’s a big part of the psychology that makes things work.
When I see a title with a number I know I can get the value from the post very quickly (looking at the bold parts). With so much information, not many people want to read lots and lots.
Cheers,
Glen
Talk about hitting the the nail on the head!
Sometimes you have to wonder, why even bother to put yourself out there with Social Networks? I don’t know any of these people, and most of them are just using me to pad their online stats…
Also I wonder if I’ll ever make any money blogging at all? Seems like it’s already been done…
Good Lord. I thought the day would never come! Tad has finally turned against the list posts. Welcome to the club :)
[…] SEO 2.0 | Top 10 Most Awesomely Amazing Creative & Funny Reasons Why Blogging for Social Media S… Social media blogging sucks? […]
Your number 10 is not so well founded… There are subway/street musicians who achieve quite a notoriaty, like the ‘Naked Cowboy’ or the ‘Saw Lady’ in NYC. Actually, ‘Saw Lady’s blog became popular, too: http://www.sawlady.com/blog Playing in the same spots in the subway actually got her a lot of attention (TV, radio, newspapers, not to mention that everybody seems to know about her). And the ‘Naked Cowby’ got to be Internationally famous, not to mention that he got 6 million dollars sueing when his street performance was misused by the M&Ms corporation.
Your other points are very interesting, though and well said.
I agree that social networking (and the ‘next big thing’ feel to it) is highly overrated. People coming to your site from these sites are not high clickers – the highest ratio of ad clickers come from the search engines – always have, always will. Great article, in my line of business we could use more reality thoughts like these.
I think there have always been different worlds and it’s just become expressed on the net. Essentially people who sell and those who buy, hoping to be amongst those who will sell one day too. It seems like an unbreachable divide sometimes – you’re absolutely right in what you said here.
Its something that i have noticed you write about before, the importance of having a dedicated “fan base”. I notice that you try to engage with the replies on this forum by actually answering posts, something that a lot of writers fail to do. I can imagine that this does indeed help in retaining those fans, and builds up relationships with fellow bloggers, that can pay dividends in the future.
I still love posts with big lists of things, and as a blogger I use them all the time, they drive big traffic to my blogs.
Discovered a link to your post on Twitter — really enjoyed the article, especially the part about “1000 true fans”. I work for an environmental nonprofit called “1000 Friends of Maryland” and I think your theory of 1000 people is a good one.
I’ve also noticed a huge proliferation of social media “experts” who only seem to talk with…other “experts” and so on and so forth — it’s like being in a big Amway convention. Aren’t we supposed to be bringing social media to others? What good does it do to preach to the choir?
Nice Social Networking post. You are right relevant, original and informative content will generate traffic. The blog has to be regularly viewed and answered to create a fan base. It takes times to build a relationship with fellow bloggers.
Thanks for sharing and keep posting more new info.
It seems you were pretty angry while writing this post. So much negative energy is breaking out of it. However, I like it. It is very sharp with light dose of humor.
Nice sarcastic title, But i tend to go for post titles that clients / people searching for industry specific answers may type in. nice post.
I did go for post that other people searching for bakery specific answers may type in. good
Great post and so damn true, nothing to add, everything said! Weiter So!
I think the social media bruhaha is overrated and basically just the latest trendy thing that will be discarded soon. It’s good for impression stats, but counts for little to know ad clicks or sales on promotional sites.
And I couldn’t agree more with your comments about how ridiculous it is that these bookmark sites expect you to feed them links all day and yet they get upset if you add a link to your own sight. If it was actual that would be one thing, but when the offending issue is the simple fact that you created it, then it’s nonsense.
Having said all that, I found this article via Digg and my most read article, by far, is a top ten list. I guess this trend has a bit of life left in it.
A lot of great points in there, to many blogger’s think they are michael jackson, though. Loved the article.
amazing pic man
Agree with you, I’m tired of Top 10 things, Top 100… and I’m sure no one read all the items in that list. Most of people just bookmark or vote it because of the kick-ass title. And all the comments are always “Great list”, “Thanks for sharing” or “Awesome”.