[Steemit]Short Post Or LONG FORM Content? Which Is BETTER?
A question that all new bloggers on Steemit seem to have is whether to make a short post or create a long article to publish. If you do a Google search looking for what is considered best you will find all results pointing to one answer. Long form content is where it is in 2018 for blogs, preferred by search engines and people alike.
But you are no ordinary blogger. You are also a member of the Steemit community where the rules are somewhat different.
How is it different? Let's find out.
Tenure
The very first factor to consider is where you are in your journey on Steemit. If you have just started or have been blogging only for a few weeks, don't take the trouble of creating long form content. Honestly, it will go waste and this is a bitter truth that most may not like to hear. It's the drawback of the platform that no one takes you seriously if you are a new blogger with a reputation below the late 50s and very little Steem Power.
All Bloggers, Few Readers
The second important point is the typical Steemit users online behavior. Almost everyone on Steemit is a blogger - I have yet to come across a Steemit user who signed up only to read posts. Those who land on your blog and go through your post are going through your content for the sake of engagement. The reason for visiting your blog is because they either want a comment on their blog in reciprocation, or an upvote on their comment - and sometimes both.
Visibility Inside The Steemit Community
Unlike search engine results your blog post most likely got spotted by the visitor in one of the Steemit feeds or in a group on Discord or Steemit Chat(does it still exist lol). So your post better be brief or else you may get less engagement since most people will go off to the next blog to put their upvote and comment.
I am not trying to be condescending, only being candid and very realistic. Most of us are also part of smaller communities on Steemit and if we would like to engage with as many community members as possible, reading very long posts will take up too much time. That will surely be at the cost of some one else who has also created some great content.
The Difference
There is another side to it and here's where the big difference comes into play. Let's imagine (or don't imagine if you're one!) that you have a high 5 or a 6 figure Steem Power and a reputation above 70. Naturally the Law of Steemit Attraction says that thousands of users will flock to your blog especially when you publish a new post. Even if you publish a book in the form of a blog post people will read it fully and most will also make a comment that will be very different from the concise comments on a short post.
An important point to note is - a whale who writes long form content can afford to dispense a 20 or 30 SBD upvote in the blink of an eye if he or she likes a comment. But if you have some time left before you become a whale you are better off writing short posts.
Short Post , Long Form Content - Huh?
So what is a short post and long form content you might ask. According to me, a short post should be between 400 and 600 words and long-form content especially that which is recommended for standalone blogs on the internet, is 1500 words or more. On Steemit, long form content can also be 1000 words that say nothing and a hundred images - believe me, I have seen such posts on the now infamous trending page!
I almost always write between 500 to 700 words in my posts, with no fluff and to the point. I know that it is easily readable and commentable by my friends and followers, and I don't take up too much of their time. So do leave a comment below as to what you think. :-)
Thanks for reading!
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Interesting... The eternal question of how short is too short and how long before it gets boring! Frankly, I would admit, I'm not a blogger. Just someone who likes to take photographs and am hoping to get a decent size audience so that steemit would make it all a little profitable for me! 😃
Having said that I do ramble on... sometimes! Which seems to be a good thing as majority of people here are of the opinion short posts with little content are not as deserving of a high upvote. Even photography posts, for example! I don't like that opinion much... Are we expected to do more song and dance to deserve a higher upvote? Seems so! Isn't a picture supposed to be worth a thousand words? Isn't it enough an artist worked hard to create a piece of art? Or a photographer, a photograph to soothe one's soul? Must they also be wordsmiths at the same time to be deserving? What if the world was turned around, and we asked bloggers to also produce an artpiece or a photograph worthy of our attention? Is that fair?
I hear you when you say that expectations on Steemit are a bit skewed towards text content although all types of content ought to be given equal importance.
As for me I can't take a photograph that my smartphone can not manage - and that too on auto mode!
Sadly, most text content whether long or short, is just plain boring on this platform. At least the images that you post are not only among the best and original (unlike 95% stolen pics), but they have great meaning to it - as I have seen regularly on your posts.
Thanks for your comment!
Awww... You are too kind! 😊 Cheers... And have a good day!
As a fellow photographer i couldn't agree more with you how often do we have to sit for hours just to get the right picture , a specially in nature photography. personally i haven't found more then 10 articles on steemit worth reading that i couldn't find on any other social media . Then again i stopped reading books +/- 10 years ago . i only read something if i need the info , and then it will be something i googled and not because i follow someone :)
True! I definitely don't read any of the docu-facts style posts! Stuff that I could find on the 'correct' sites online elsewhere. I think I would only read a 'text-centric' post if it was more that person's views or input on a certain subject - their personal take that I wanted to know about! That should be the value or worthiness placed on posts.
Have to disagree a tad bit for myself here.
I am a journalism major, wrote for newspapers, freelanced and am an ferocious reader by nature. I also do curation for myself making four posts per week, do the daily qurator newsletter, curate for muxxybot and am attempting to become a curie curator; so yeah, I read hundreds and hundreds of posts every day/week.
My initial reason for coming to steemit was to write, as I miss it and it's my passion and life, but I have found myself reading and commenting more than writing my own posts.
There are always exceptions to a rule. Besides you are an amazing curator and it is obvious that you like to go through good content. You are also a good writer as can be seen from your posts, especially your homesteading articles - which are incidentally better than the homesteading posts that manage to get on the infamous trending page on Steemit.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you so much! I've been wondering that for a while since I've always preferred more in depth long post (I tend to be a bit long winded as well and always had trouble cutting content out).
So my question is this. For a newbie like me if I find myself in a long post would it be recommended to split it into two post that are separated by a few days or so? I've seen a few post like that but they are also done by bigger more popular Steemians.
Again thank you for the amazing information!
If you're new and under a rep score of 60, long posts are a waste of time and effort. It does sound blunt advice, but I tell as it is.
Good post. I wondered how long a good post should be. Now I know. Answer a nice usefully collection of posts to answer some other questions. Well done and thanks for the effort to inform us newbies.
Glad that you liked it.
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commenting for reference