Write Blog Posts Not Articles
If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck…guess what, it’s a duck.
A blog is a blog is a blog.
Not quite the same analogy, but you get the point.
Jakob Nielsen suggests that people write articles not blog posts. He differentiates them by saying that blog posts are often, “…quickly written, shallow postings”, while articles are, “…thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers.”
Part of his argument is simply semantics, which I find generally pointless. David Armano, who does a great job writing “articles” and “blog posts”, has suggested that we don’t even use the term “blog” at all. It brings baggage with it from the days when blogs were mostly personal diaries.
OK, there’s some baggage, but the term also differentiates from other words that could be used. There will always be people who don’t get it; but if we’re constantly trying to massage or whitewash what we do in blogging for “everyone else” we lose some of the core value blogging brings.
- speed of publishing
- experimentation
- conversation
- relationship building
I’d rather say, “I blog,” and help people understand what that means, versus “I’m a personal publisher” or “I write articles on the Web”.
Articles are meant for magazines, where the ability to respond is extremely limited. How many of us have written “letters to the editor?” Articles denote a certain finality — “I’ve written the definitive piece on X, end of story.”
Blog posts can be anything you want them to be - short, long, researched, opinionated, funny, serious, full of images, linked to everyone else, extensions of other conversations and ideas…
Matt Ambrose makes the point that content quality is key not whether you call it a blog post or article. Of course he’s right.
But Tony Hung is also right when he says that one or two off-quality posts won’t kill a blog, as Nielsen thinks.
Blogging is about experimenting, discovering what works for you and your audience. That might be a slew of one-line insights, or it might be a book-full of 40,000 word essays.
If we have to worry about calling blogs something else, and calling blog posts articles, what happens when we look at even “newer” means of publishing content and building business relationships. I can only imagine the debate on social networks and their role in business. (And trust me, there’s nothing to debate: Facebook, Twitter, etc. are business tools.)
Interesting idea about a standard size for a blog but I guess blogging should be more conversational, rather than formal “essays”. However, just like conversation some of us are great at summing content up in sucinct words and others like to waffle on!
What I do feel strongly about is that blogs should be a less formal style (perhaps a little contreversial?) in order to help build relationships and open up debate.
Nice retort Ben. What is it about the old guard that has them trying to apply stylistic standards to every media form, even as it continues to define itself. People are communicating. They’re inventing not only new communication channels, but whole new vocabularies, new languages. Someone spells out a little set of guidelines that worked for them, and then fiercely insists it can’t adapt to suit new forms. Of course we want to write well , develop meaningful messages and convey them clearly. You can do that in 10 words or 10,000. Why must we constantly remind ourselves that communication is about the audience, not the author?
Excellent point!
I guess I’d rather adjust my own terminology if it helps my message get through to non-bloggers than continue to beat them over the head and try to get them to change to accommodate me.
Generally I find it easier to change myself than to get the rest of the world to conform to me.
Do I like it? No. I’m fond of the word blog. But I’m getting tired of trying to move the same baggage that comes with the word. Over and over again.
Chris - I understand that approach. But the people you’re talking to - are they really getting the message and value proposition when you change the terminology?
Simple example - a corporate website has an Article section. It’s WordPress behind the scenes. Do they get what they can do with that, or are they using it to publish boring press releases? The argument I’ve heard (and even espoused) is, “Well it’s a start. We can move them along after they get their Article section up…” But my experience is that rarely works.
Call it what it is: a blog. Use it the way it was intended.
Otherwise you’re working with and for people that aren’t really doing what you want to be doing which is top quality blog and social media development (which I know you can do!)
If people don’t get it, you might be talking to the wrong people…
I guess I post “blog-ticles”. You can get the idea from the “above-the-more-button” part and the in-depth detail is below it.
There are so few people that have a memory of blogs as the whole personal, 2-line, 1-page, no-formatting thing that it isn’t worth worrying about.
Heck - only about 25% of the people in the Internet blog, so it’s still the early stages.
Dan
Excellent post! I think that now a days, if we talk about a blog, people directly take it as a professional term. I’m surprised seeing mentality of some people.
A few days ago, someone added a blog to StumbleUpon. I stumbled upon the blog and liked the writing style of the author. It had many small posts that were pretty helpful. After 4 or 5hrs, what I saw was just crazy. Someone left a negative review about the blog just because it was a personal blog.
I still wonder what the heck was that. Do such people even know the proper definition of ‘blog’? Just because a blog is of personal nature, someone leaves a negative review?
Activities like this make me sad about the future of blogging. If you look around in the blogosphere, the future seems to be really dark because most of the blogging-newbie types start a blog with the main goal to make money.
I’m already bored seeing hundreds of money-making-and-traffic-boosting-crap blogs popping up every day in the blogosphere.
Ben,
I do think that “blogging” can carries a negative stereotype with certain people. However, it is certainly a recognizable medium. I believe that more and more “regular” website will be built using blogging style publishing systems and the line between blogs and websites will vanish.
-Fred
I use the words “post” and “article” interchangeably, especially when I’m linking to another blogger’s (what should I say here, article or post?
).
I also write with a mix of post styles: many are based on research (which bring me a lot of traffic), and others are based on my experience. Then, some are a combination. With almost every one, I include my own opinion. So, the more I think about it, I think I’ll just call all of it “my writing”.
Thanks Ben, that was thought provoking.
[…] leo en el blog de Ben Yoskovitz leo una especie de réplica al post de Nielsen que me gusta más. Un blog es un blog, sus […]
I recently met with the Editor of the local paper and one comment she made was that they (as reporters) were trying to write more conversationally. They were trying to write articles that read more like blog posts.
Have good content and don’t worry about the rest.
I had never considered this in such an in-depth way before. I often call my content ‘articles’ but interchange between that and ‘posts’ - I am happy having my content referred to using either term.
- Martin Reed
As a reader I care about who is behind the blog post. I cannot say the same thing when it’s a “finished article” like you said Ben. Blogging it’s the marketing of the blogger, it’s his heartbeat, it’s his tool, it’s alive and Alive it’s what technology need from now.
[…] it like it should be - complete with code examples … Instigator Blog: Ben wants you to write blog posts, not articles - not sure I agree 100% - I think articles have useful purposes on blogs - but I see his point […]
Isn’t it a matter of the blog and it’s subject matter? Some blogs that I read, are interesting because of the personal nature of them. However others I go to because they consistently provide quality content.
The personal nature of integrating flickr, twitter, and any other -er web 2.0 app is interesting. However so are quality informative articles.
[…] for me, it means getting out of the way of making your words perfect. When I’m writing a blog post, I’m not writing for a Pulitzer or to recreate the English language with flowing […]
I perfectly agree. Blog posts reflect the personality of the author, people tend to write posts which are directly scrapped from sources. Only if one-tenth of that effort would go in creativity!
Another point I think worth mentioning is the technology associated with blogs, rather than articles.
Blogs enable you to develop relationships with your readers long after they’ve left your website. They have enormous potential as a marketing tool in building trust and confidence in your expertise, although one which many businesses still hesitate to harness without there being an easily quantifiable ROI.
Thanks for linking to The Copywriter’s Crucible.
Matt.
I prefer calling what I write in blog “articles” rather than “posts.” And it has nothing to do with what Jakob Nielsen says, either.
This might be because I’m a writer (for a living) and if I wrote the same thing for a paying market, it would be an article. So I’m writing articles.
In a blog.