It’s a common dilemma in social media – so much to create, so little time.
I’ve written before about how compulsive social media can be; how, even when you’re rushed off your feet, it can feel like you should be doing more to feed the beast that is your blog, or Twitter, or Facebook, or whatever other sites you maintain. It can be tempting, at times when you find yourself too busy to write, record or otherwise create content as you usually would, to just phone it in – to post content that’s not up to your usual standard.
Don’t.
As with any form of communications, corporate or otherwise, it’s all about your audience – the recipient of (or participant in) what you’re saying. As you build your audience, you also create expectations. Expectations of frequency, yes, but also expectations around other things, for example:
- Approach - the way you go about crafting your posts an analyzing your topics
- Quality - your level of thoughtfulness and attention to detail
- Theme - your topic scope
While shifting from your publishing schedule can be disruptive, it can be more disruptive to stray from the type of content you publish. If you’re running into this problem, it may be worth assessing your owned content channels to see if you can adapt them to incorporate an approach that better fits your context.
A personal example
In recent months I’ve been finding it hard to create new content at the same rate I could in the past. I just haven’t been able to find enough hours in the day to craft the kind of thought-out, in-depth posts that I like to write.
So, I’ve shaken things up a little (just a little). This blog and Twitter have been my primary places for creating content for the last few years, and will continue to be. The way I use those places isn’t changing. However, I’m adding a third place to the list (and no, by “third place,” I don’t mean Starbucks):
- My blog will continue to be the place I post long-form content focused on the intersection of communications, PR and social media.
- Twitter will continue to be the place I have conversations with people in my network, share links and occasionally goof around.
- I’m adding a Tumblr blog for the interesting things I find which either don’t warrant an entire post here, or have been well-captured by someone else. It will sit between the blog and Twitter in terms of brevity and subject matter – shorter and more diverse than my blog posts; longer but more focused than Twitter.
Why Tumblr and not just shorter posts here?
- Audience: The people who come to this site come for the kind posts I’ve been writing for the last few years. I don’t want to alienate people by mixing the content styles.
- Community: There’s a vibrant community of Tumblr users. I haven’t explored it much in the past, and am looking forward to exploring it.
- Functionality: Tumblr makes it easy to capture quick thoughts regardless of their medium. Text, photos, video – they all just take a couple of seconds.
For me, this just makes sense. I frequently find myself with 20 tabs open in my browser, full of interesting content that I really should write about, but which I usually end up losing because I don’t find time to do so. Now, rather than losing that opportunity, I’ll throw that content (or links to it) into a Tumblr post. Whether it’s a new tool that’ll make you more productive, a neatpresentation that can get you thinking or an eye-catching ad, it’ll all be there. Sometimes that will evolve into a longer post later. Other times it’ll remain within that site. Either way, it’ll help me to share more content with you.
Make sense?
You can find the new site at tumblr.davefleet.com, or via the “Tumblr” link at the top of this site. Again, my main blog will remain my primary place to post; I’m just layering more content in.
Here are the top ten posts on this site over the last year, according to 
