Blog Posts vs. Social Posts

From Emil Kowalski’s newsletter (my Feedbin cache for your convenience):

I started writing more blog posts recently. I like it because it's different than X. You get a spike of views when you share something on X, but that dies off quickly. If you provide great value with your posts, people will read it, share it, and talk about it. It's a compounding effect. They also feel more rewarding to me, you have something to look back on and (hopefully) feel proud of.

Yay for blog posts!

Generally speaking, the attention you get with a good post on social media is like a firework: it can light up fast and burn bright, but just as fast it disappears.

On the other hand, the attention you get from a good blog posts can be like a forest fire: it starts small but when it catches fire it rages for some time, burning longer and more intense than any firework.

Maybe that’s a bad metaphor. Here’s another one.

The power of a good blog post is like the power of compound interest: the impact seems minor and insignificant to start, but as time passes the effects compound and become quite substantial.

Here’s a chart depicting what I’m trying to say:

A graph with Attetion on the Y axis and Time on the X axis. Graphed are two lines: 1) a social media post which starts by garnering a lot of attention but quickly drops over time, and 2) a blog post which starts by garneing little attention by grows over time.

Whereas the inertia for a social post quickly losses steam as the algorithm prioritizes novelty, blog posts slowly build steam as backlinks are planted all over the internet driving a long tail of attention.

I rarely, if ever, have a social post from a few months ago that continuously garners attention (likes, responses, etc.) Whereas I frequently have blog posts from years ago that garner bursts of traffic because someone, somewhere (re)discovered it, shared it, linked to it, and drove attention to it.

Blog posts are like these little robot evangelists you release out into the world on your behalf. They work tirelessly, 24/7, spreading your thoughts and garnering attention as time marches forward.

Social posts die with the passage of time, whereas blog posts gain life from it!

Invest in something whose dividends compound with time. As Emil says, it’ll give you something to look back on and feel proud of.