It’s late, but it’s still day five so I’ve got a little time. And yes, for those that didn’t know, Friday is my day off. As my Grandaddy likes to say, “The only professions that get Friday’s off are dentists and ministers.” However, we’ve had myriad homeowner problems the last few weeks, so this wasn’t the typical off day. All is well though, so let’s carry on.
A fair warning for you: this is the first day of my 1,000 Word Spring challenge in which I’m not exactly sure about what I’m going to write. Everything I’ve published this week had been brewing for awhile, but I’m fresh out of a ready made 1,000 words. Remember when I said in Kicking The Tires on 1000 Word Summer that I might do more personal style blogging? Well, that might be what you get today. Let’s just kick around a couple ideas.
A Substack Convert
Throughout my career as a Substack writer, I’ve been pretty hesitant to share links to my articles on Facebook. The two biggest fears for any new writer are hitting publish for the first time and then sharing on social media for the first time. It only takes a few times to get over, but my hesitation with Facebook has nothing to do with that.
It’s twofold. I never post anything on Facebook… Don’t even have the app on my phone. So, I don’t wanna seem spammy. But like I said earlier this week, half the time you share a link to Facebook or Twitter, it goes nowhere, because neither platform wants users leaving the app to go give their attention to another platform.
It’s not completely pointless though, because today I had someone reach out to me to say that they loved the 1,000 word spring idea, for which I can’t take credit, and to ask if Substack was good for a writers portfolio. Only because I shared a link on Facebook the other day. Five months in and I’m giving writing advice, apparently! I write all this just to say that it’s kinda cool to see others at least thinking about launching their own Substack after reading any of my work.
Ready for the Value?
Maybe you’re wondering about the title I’ve chosen. What do I mean by Content Land? I believe the term originates with Thomas Bevan, a fellow Substacker. In short, Content Land represents the over abundance of content we all have at our fingertips, ready to be consumed online. Of course, we all agree we have all the information we could ever want or need. But I think Bevan is coming at this specifically from a writers point of view. Writers don’t only consume in Content Land, they have to create in Content Land.
This means writers can be tempted to be someone they’re not when they write in order to find traction with their work, which some would argue is disingenuous to the creative process. In other words, you might be able to figure out how to hack the algorithms and make your content go viral, but that doesn’t mean you’re a great writer. It doesn’t mean you’ve offered anything of real substance.
Let me see if I can give you a little example. I’ve had a love hate relationship with Twitter for several years. I was on Twitter long before I ever should have been but also long before it became what it is today. I’m old enough to remember when you could be in the middle of a fun conversation with your Twitter friends at 9:00pm and you’d be hit with the Twitter whale, meaning the site was over capacity. Wow, we’ve come a long way…
I’ve probably never had a healthy relationship with Twitter because of its addictive nature. It provides you with the illusion of being informed and relevant, especially when it’s political Twitter. Always remember, Twitter is not reality. At the same time, though, it still holds some kind of magical allure. There are interesting things happening there, and the communication aspect of it is still just cool. Like I mentioned in Platform Existentialism, it’s a much better social media platform for writers specifically because it’s still primarily text driven. For all of these reasons, even though I don’t necessarily want it to be the case, I see it as relevant to online ministry. But you have to learn how to do it properly if you want to grow. The days in which you can fire off a quick Tweet with an insight from your Bible study and then say you’re active on Twitter are kinda long gone. Sharing outgoing links is a waste, too. You gotta learn how to write natively for Twitter. There IS a way, and now I’ve finally arrived at my point about Value Creation.
I’ve created a Twitter list that I call “Digital Writing.” The list is my way of keeping track of the various accounts that Tweet about digital writing, content creation, etc. I figured if I wanted to learn how to do this, I should learn from the best of the best. But… something about it kinda bothers me. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good at what they do. They’ve created (or stolen) some nifty frameworks to help them publish content that consistently resonates with their followers, and allegedly all of these frameworks can be applied to virtually any topics you want to write about, including online ministry. They’re providing Value. However, the more I read it the more I think most of it is really just writing about writing. The Value they’re all creating is dependent on an audience that also wants to learn how to write online. I’ve yet to see many creators take these proven frameworks and use them to do anything other than duplicate what the other Value Creators are doing. It would probably be easy for me to use the frameworks to carve out a niche writing about online ministry, but that’s different than doing online ministry, at least in my opinion.
Maybe I’m seeing it incorrectly. Maybe they’re out there and the problem is I’m just not following them. Who knows… Content Land is just an interesting place. Be careful out there, whether you’re creating or consuming.
1,062 words before editing. Happy weekend!