blogging
A requiem for word counts. Who’s with me?
Can you write me a 2,000 word blog post? There’s a growing online trend for championing longer form content. An anti 140-character, blog post brevity brigade. With print media, asking for a specific word count made sense. But online, it misses the point. Say what you need to say and move on. If the quality is good, I don’t care if it’s 20 words or 2,000. If word counts are dictating what you write online, challenge the dictator.
6 Comments
Ronan Shields
Can’t agree more Mr Whatmough! Word counts are a legacy of the print era when editorial had to write enough for commercial to sell a ‘contextually relevant’ ad on the other side of the page
Ronan Shields
Can’t agree more Mr Whatmough! Word counts are a legacy of the print era when editorial had to write enough for commercial to sell a ‘contextually relevant’ ad on the other side of the page
Alex Perryman
On the other hand, if a post makes its point, but is too short, I feel a little short-changed having clicked through to it.
David J M Clare
Lol, did you feel short changed from this post then? I’m a fan of no word count – and to be honest I do not read blog posts that are long, mainly for the fact that it hurts my eyes and most people cannot write well enough to keep my attention. In fact, I’m betting by now I’ve already lost yours 😉Â
stevefarnworth
Yes, yes, yes – a thousand times, yes! When I used to review consumer tech products, most of my reviews regularly came in under 700 words (news posts usually under 300) and almost everyone questioned why they were so short, I asked them whether I had left anything out or whether the copy was poor/dry and their response was always “no” – just a strange fixation that anything worth reading has to be long.
“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do” – Thomas Jefferson
Danny Whatmough
Great quote, thanks Steve.