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What is the right length for a blog post? Should it be as long as the stories published in Vanity Fair" that go on for pages with densely written text deeply exploring a topic? Should it be closer to a newspaper article that provides a solid overview of a topic, but not going into depth? Should it be closer to a Facebook update that pretty much is status update? Should I even be comparing it to written things and look to other expressive outlets like tv, movies, podcasts and vodcasts?
A good friend of mine from high school and I are thinking of starting a blog. It will be for artistic growth and sharing knowledge and will also be for promoting our collaborations with commercial goals. I've never done a partnership blog and am very excited about this opportunity. One aspect we need to address is what is the best way to lure in readers, viewers, and potential customers with content that is rich, valuable, and appreciated without either giving away too much or going too deep without being too shallow and vapid?
We are at the very beginning stages of all this. One thing we need to work on is defining our audience. This will help us determine what we write and share. We want smart, sexy, people that appreciate art, erotica, and are not afraid of exploring edgy issues and will want more. What are the right hooks to attract them?
We need to think about how much do we give out and how much do we sell. If we create a book, we would be stupid to show all the images online and give it away. If we have erotic stories or essays about the topic that will be compiled into something more, we can't give it all away either.
This morning, I watched a trailer for the new Bond movie, Skyfall. It is a very good trailer. It showed just enough to get the idea of what the movie promises without giving away the story by showing all the key developments. I hate seeing movie trailers that pretty much synopsizes the whole movie by showing all the good bits. While this trailer is great for a singular offering of one movie, an online equivalent for a blog requires a bit more than a tease. Blogs are periodicals, movies are events. We will need to find that balancing point of giving richness to our readers and yet leaving them wanting to go beyond the blog and explore what we created and buy it. Where is that fine line between just stringing someone along vs. giving away the whole cow?
