Poorly written content reminds me of bad sex and sloppy kissers.
It should be filled with exhilaration, excitement and anticipation of a deeply moving and spiritual moment yet when push comes to shove you wind up disappointed and deflated.
Words Should Make You Feel Something
A good post should make you think and or feel something. A good post shouldn’t be a like a bad date where you wonder what you were thinking when you agreed to go out with he/she.
You shouldn’t finish reading it and wonder if there is anyway to get back the five minutes you just lost. You shouldn’t be able to relate it to the night you spent with Rusty or Susie, the human car wash whose idea of making out was to kiss your lips once and then lick your face like a dog who just discovered peanut butter.
But this content war we are in now is doing just the opposite of what it should do.
It is creating a culture of consumption that isn’t focused upon creating content that provides real and significant value because there isn’t time to do that.
It Is a Mistake
It is a mistake that you don’t want to give into. Think about it for a moment, none of us want to be known or remembered for being the bad kisser. You don’t want to be the punch line of the story about the worst moment of intimacy.
Nor do you want to be known as the blogger whose content is consistently inferior.
Figure out a better way of doing it. Look for an angle.
It Doesn’t Have To Be About Sex
You don’t have to be as graphic as I am, although I can tell you that when I compare a poorly written post to being caught by a tooth it is something that people remember.
There are lots of other alternatives such as comparing poor content to empty calories, but that is your choice.
The point here is that if you want to break free of the clutter and be noticed you need to do more than just come up with catchy or outrageous headlines. You need to be able to provide content that has some substance.
You need to figure out how to make people think and or feel something. Use your words effectively and good things will come from it.
Or keep pumping out that crap and be known as the person who was so bad their partner fell asleep right in the middle of things.
The choice is yours.
Ha! You hit the nail on the head with just your article title. That’s an attention-getter. As most people do their research, scholarly or just personal, on the web, we’ve had to to wade through the muck of bad content, mid-leading content, puff-pieces and all out spam to get to that one place called internet nirvana, where one can read an enlightening, organized, engaging, and most of all informative article. If you wouldn’t want to read it, don’t send it out into the world. We’ve got enough trash. 🙂
Hi Julia,
Yeah, it is ridiculously cluttered out there and it has made a real mess of things.
I think I found the crux in your post, Jack – “find an angle.” All the successful bloggers I know have found their angle. I can describe their blog in a couple of sentences because they’ve made it simple for me.
By ‘successful blogger,’ I mean someone who writes well — sometimes beautifully — and clearly focuses on something they like to talk about. So, for example, Christopher Knowles has this ultra-weird blog about astrognosticism, rock music and Jack Kirby, writes humongous posts, but the way he leads you down the rabbit hole is just so damn entertaining. Even frightening at times.
Two others off the top of my mind: Craig McBreen and Hajra Khatoon. Craig’s got tons of life/business experience to share and he’s fluent, articulate, sincere, a joy to read. Hajra’s tone is gentle, conversational and she comes to you with all these questions — you just can’t stop reading. Even if they didn’t get a huge response from their communities I’d still consider them successful bloggers.
Hi John,
We are in agreement on all points. I don’t know Knowles, but he sounds interesting. I am going to look him up.
I really enjoy Hajra and Craig’s blogs for many of the same reasons. There is good energy coming from them and a genuine sincerity that I really enjoy.
I don’t know why there aren’t more posts that have cows with hip hair cuts. I bet I could write a pretty good story about your wooly friend. I think his name might be Harold.
Hi Brian,
Harold the Hip Heifer might be a good subject. A rif off of “A Boy Named Sue” maybe.
One caveat: I’ll still take bad sex over nothing. Even bad sex is sex. I definitely don’t want bad content. No, sir.
Hi Geoff,
Bad sex over nothing–I suppose I have to agree.
In concept the bad sex is left to memory whereas bad content might live online forever so…
Don’t know what “bad sex” is, LOL! That made me laugh.
I was rereading one of my post and said to myself, “Did I really just end it? Like THAT?!! HA! It felt like a cliff-hanger….
I think I get it.
Hi Betsy,
That is a wonderful thing–bad sex is like a bad meal–disappointing and unfulfilling.
Sometimes a good cliff hanger can go a long way.
With all the emphasis on content marketing, I have to wonder why content is getting worse. By worse, I mean that content is trending to increasing inaccuracy, uninformed opinion, faux pas, gramatical error, poor style, prejudice, and disempathy – this is just the tip of the iceberg. And I count myself among the guilty…
Hi Stan,
It is the rush to publish and try to secure “cyber land” that is killing a lot of content. I think so many people are so worried about production they aren’t taking time to consider the ramifications of producing work that isn’t even close to good.
Bad content is something that “happens” to all of us, but the question is whether it is the rule or the anomaly.
1-Every-time you use the word sex in your title, I arrive like a giddy high school virgin..
2-Was that typo at the top of the page done on purpose ” It should be be filled”<– notice the "be be" typed twice
3- No one wants to write bad content, yet going back to some of my first posts makes me cringe. Like sex, good writing takes lots and lots of practice and you just need to struggle through the awkward times I think….:)
Hi Annie,
Giddy high school virgins- that is pretty funny. I am glad someone notices typos.
I am guilty of having written some pretty bad posts too. We are not going to hit a home run every time, but some people never improve and that is an issue.