The Power of Meaningful Content in a Superficial World

Let's just put it out there right away, writing on a frequent basis to an audience is hard work. I know hundreds of people who have thought, "Yeah, I have something to say, I'm going to create some written content on a frequent basis to build an audience" and they get into it but somewhere around six to ten days, they lose inspiration.

Many of these people start mailing it in at somewhere around the 75% mark before they ultimately just end up quitting.

But here's something that I occasionally say that shocks people - I admire the people who quit.

These folks have realized that what they are trying to do is hard and that producing the high-quality content that they want to generate takes a lot of work. Not only that but coming up with new ideas on a regular basis and then turning that into worthwhile content is challenging.

Any idiot can smash out 500 - 600 words of fluff and filler that superficially touches on a topic, but it takes a bit more nouse to inject some personality into the top, put your own spin on it and make it both entertaining and educational for the person consuming it.

Junk Food Content Rots Your Teeth

The superficial "feelz" creators are the ones that really bother me. They're not creating so much as they are "emoting" at their audience. They take a topic, tell you how they feel about it in a superficial way, and then usually sign off with some kind of lame attempt at quasi-inspirational dross.

I call this “fortune cookie content” - it’s sugary sweet on the outside and the message inside sounds nice, but both the cookie and the message have very little value.

The perfect example of this style of writing that I can demonstrate is when someone tells you how they're a "unicorn" and that you, the humble reader, can also be a "unicorn".

They're always unique snowflakes just like everyone else.

Don’t Waste Your Time

Here's the thing - writing online now is hard and if you have nothing meaningful to say, you're wasting your time.

Casual blog readership has been utterly decimated by social media. Nobody goes to your site on a regular basis to read about your feelz.

If you're going to post emotional candyfloss, you're way better off doing that on Instagram and attaching some lame picture with the word "Special" written in sparkles because at least people might see it and engage with you.

That's why I’m getting back into long-form writing and content creation so that I can build an audience that wants to read my stuff.

Create Something Worth Consuming

But one thing that I’m going to make sure that I do every single day is address topics in a meaningful way and not just write out superficial nonsense. I don't write fluff and saccharine rubbish - if I'm going to talk about something then I try and get into the topic.

When people take the time to read what you're writing in a longer form like this, you owe them more for their investment of time than going one inch deep on the idea that you're trying to share.

So how do you make writing more long-form content a success?

Attack the topic with a meaty outcome for the reader in mind.

Too many writers and content creators just talk about themselves and their feelz. As I said, they emote and then dump some weak "feelz" based summary at the end of their drivel like a pathetic little icing sugar flower on a melted bowl of sugary sweet vanilla ice cream.

It’s easy and it sounds good.

But it’s not good enough.

You need to be thinking about transformation - "How can I share a concept or thought process with the reader that lets them walk away from reading this better than before they started?"

Notice how I alluded to the read "being better" and not "feeling better".

Serve Your Reader a Full Meal - They Deserve It!

That's a key difference - I keep saying it but the people who suck at this want to give the "feelz" of their reader a little kiss and cuddle with their content whereas I want to punch them in the face so that they learn to keep their guard up and don't get punched in the face again.

And that's what it ultimately comes down to, say something important.

Seriously, nobody gives a crap about your superficial feel-good message for more than the 10 seconds it takes them to read all 240 characters of it. They've not learned anything or taken anything away of relevance, so they'll forget what you've written and ultimately, forget you in less than the aforementioned 30 seconds.

But if you can consistently give people pause to stop and think, if you challenge their conventional thinking and make them question what they know, you'll develop an audience of people who want to hear from you. They may not always agree, but they will respect you and that's important.

Conversely, if that sounds all too hard, by all means, go back to talking about your glitter and how you're going show the world that you're a unicorn - literally, nobody cares.