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One of the biggest complaints I receive from my clients when I suggest that they blog more regularly is that they ‘don’t have time to write long blog posts.’
While long posts are worthwhile for many reasons, I think it is better to blog- even in short posts- than to not blog at all. There is little use waiting to find time to write a long blog post because (hint) that time will probably never come.
If blogging is one of your chosen marketing strategies, it makes sense to keep your blog updated regularly.
So here are some tips on how to create more impact with short blog posts. (And yes, I tried to keep this short, too!)
* Research and outline – To write shorter blog posts that impact your audience, be sure to do all your research ahead of time. Part of the fun of writing a short blog post is that you can do it in three minutes before you run an errand.
* Set a word count – If you set a specific word count for your short blog posts, you’ll be more likely to trim the blog post of unneeded words. It really is an art form to be able to explain something clearly in fewer words.
* Repurpose old posts – Take a look at some of your old blog posts that have “5 steps to ____,” or “7 ways to ____” and extract one of the points. Focus only on that point in 250 words or less to make a laser-focused blog post that your audience will love.
* Utilize Q & A posts – You may have neglected to answer some questions in a post because you thought the topic was too short, making it perfect for one of these intentionally shorter blog posts.
A short blog post perhaps only needs to make one point. Seth Godin does this very effectively. You can borrow this- write that point as powerfully as you can, and then move on to do other things.
These few tips can have you writing short blog posts with big impact.
I much rather reading short posts but typically the posts that get the biggest heat are the ones that are longer in style and brings to focus many tips and key factors about a specific subject. But as you mentioned in the podcast it’s harder to write this long content especially for small business and personal bloggers.
Brian,
Yes! Long posts do tend to get more notice; I think this is because they have more content and give people more to think about. However, you can make impact with short blog posts, as long as they are not the only kind of post you ever write. A good mix is to sometimes offer longer content, sometimes shorter, but always make it good. Thanks for sharing your ideas!