When Content Isn’t King

We’ve all heard content is KING. It’s a maxim chanted through the blogosphere from our first post to our most recent tweet. Is it true? I’ve been writing every day, in multiple places, and I’d have to argue that no, content isn’t king. At least not without a few conditions.

There seems to be a formula to social media popularity. If it doesn’t fit, the chances of content taking off are barely half empty. 

Writer Dad has generated almost 5000 comments off 150 posts.

Cool? Yes. Am I proud? Absolutely.

But let’s dig deeper.

Writer Dad, in six months of high quality daily posts, has never:

• Had a single post take flight from the runway of StumbleUpon. The highest number of hits ever from StumbleUpon traffic was around a hundred hits, for Sliding Doors, one of the best pieces of writing I’ve crafted. 
• Never once had a post go anywhere near viral. I’ve had posts that have blown up within they’re own community. Posts that have generated amazing discussion before drifting over to different doormats, but nothing that could hope to throw open the doors to dig.

The few times I’ve gained traction with any sort of social media was when I asked directly for it. This made me uncomfortable. In my mind, if content is really king, shouldn’t it be telling people what to do? In addition, traffic from StumbleUpon is barely a blink; there long enough to register, but rarely to read. 

This is not a complaint, it’s a study. A half year is long enough to draw a few conclusions

There are formulas to what goes viral, or at least variations on a blueprint. Perhaps the term content is a tad limited? Let’s ask ourselves, what is good content?

When’s the last time you saw a truly amazing piece of short fiction blow up? How about a song that sounded like it was born straight from someone’s soul? A short film that took ripped the breath from your throat? There are examples to the contrary. The Randy Pausch Last Lecture is one of my favorites, but the former are a mountain over the a meadow of the latter. 

The Number + Subject + Adjective post is classic, but examples bloom far past those. Looking deeper, the stuff that scatters to the wind and goes viral is, by and large, disposable information, single use only. It makes sense. We are so busy consuming we rarely stop to think. I’m no different and probably guiltier than most, but really, is this what we want? Perhaps we should temper the variety just a bit. Cheeseburgers and candy are cool, but sometimes we need a piece of fruit.

What is GREAT content? To each his own, of course, but budding bloggers should ask themselves how they wish to proceed and how they want to help build the next generation. Disposable content is fine, but produced far too fast for much of it to stick, and we should start making room for something else. Stories, theories, ideas that still ruminate a full day’s distance from the thin gauze of the publishing window. 

I believe things will change.  This particular world is new and the majority have yet to embrace it. When they do, we should be ready. I am. I do believe that content is King, but we should decide what we want that content to be. Everything has it’s place and I like pretty much every flavor, but I expect my children to sift through the archives of the WD at some point, check out their Daddy’s once upon a time. I don’t expect them to do the same for my potty training site.

New Bloggers have a massive amount of power. As we climb our rungs, we should choose which ones we’re grabbing.

Sean, dad and ghostwriter. 

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