Christopher S. Penn – Marketing AI Keynote Speaker

The obligation of the content creator

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Christopher S Penn
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PodCamp Boston 5

How long does it take to scan a tweet? To read a blog post? To listen to a podcast? To watch a video?

Perhaps seconds. Perhaps minutes. Depending on what your content is and how much of it you create, you could be asking your friends, followers, and fans to give up incredible amounts of their lives to you. Think about it:

  • This is blog post #2,085. If it takes you 5 minutes to read a blog post, you may have given me as much as 174 hours of your life, or a full week and change.
  • I’m at tweet #23,461. At 5 seconds a tweet, that’s still 32 hours or more than a full day of your life that you’ve given me.
  • If you listen to my podcast, Marketing over Coffee, you’ve invested 69 hours or almost 3 days of your life.

That’s a lot of time you may have given me. I have an obligation as a content creator to provide something that is worth that time, because that 275 hours is time you could have spent doing something else, listening to someone else, paying attention to something more worthwhile. Instead, you’ve willingly invested that in me (thank you!), and as a result, I have an obligation to honor that commitment to you by providing you with stuff that’s useful, helpful, enjoyable, and hopefully powerful.

Guess what? If you are a content creator in social media, you have that same obligation. Your fans, followers, and friends that invest time in you are giving up, even if just for a little while, pieces of their lives. Your obligation to them is to give them what they came for and then some, provide them the value they want, whether it’s humor, business, marketing, porn, absurdity, religion… whatever it is that they value and have come to you for, your responsibility is to provide it and then some.

One of the biggest lies in social media is that it’s free. While bandwidth costs are negligible and devices amortize out over time to pennies a day, the one thing that grows more valuable every day is time. Social media is not free. Social media costs you as a content creator the time it takes you to create, and it costs everyone who listens to you the time it takes them to enjoy what you’ve created.

Our shared imperative, yours and mine, then, is to not waste people’s time with mediocre stuff. Every time we hit the publish button, we owe it to those folks willing to give up massive parts of their lives (a little bit at a time) to make it worth their while. Before you push out the next piece of content, ask yourself if it’s really worthwhile, and if it’s not, sharpen your pencil and hack at it until it is. That’s the only way to repay the debt we have incurred from our fans who are lending us their incredibly valuable time.

Is your content worth the lives it’s consuming?

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Comments

17 responses to “The obligation of the content creator”

  1. Andrew Careaga Avatar
    Andrew Careaga

    You’ve given me quite a bit to think about here. Thank you.

    Reply
  2. phil busk » Blog Archive » Don’t Waste People’s Time with Mediocre Stuff

    […] Christopher Penn’s post on the obligation of the content creator is great. How many minutes do you spend a day reading blog posts, forums, etc. Is it worth your valuable time to read my posts? We as content creators have an obligation to write good stuff. It’s time to step up the game and give the people something of value. […]

    Reply
  3. C.C. Chapman Avatar
    C.C. Chapman

    SO true and something more people need to keep in mind. This is why I only put out episode of Managing the Gray when I have something to say. I don’t want to just feed the engine and put out a show for the sake of putting out a show.

    Creating content is a core part of my life and I love doing it, but it has to add value or I don’t want to do it. Thanks for the reminder for the world.

    Reply
  4. Avatar
    Anonymous

    And of course this viewpoint is diametrically opposed to those that believe you should blog/publish, whatever you want to call it, everyday. I still say Sturgeon’s Law is in full force, no matter what you endeavor to do, and it’s personally my goal to always be in the 10%. Which takes time to create as well.

    Reply
    1. Daniel Snyder Avatar
      Daniel Snyder

      I agree. When I first started blogging I was encouraged to publish daily, if possible multiple times a day. It didn’t take me long to realize there was no reason for it – and the quality of my content was suffering. Now I take time to write a quality post, and am okay with publishing only a couple times a week if that’s all I can do.

      Reply
  5. Ann Handley Avatar
    Ann Handley

    BRAVO! Great post, CS Penn. This is precisely the drum I’ve been beating lately: Create great stuff, not crap. It’s not just about creating content – but creating the right kind of content: Make it worth reading (or watching, or hearing, or whatever).

    p.s. Funny how this resonated with both me and C.C… , eh?

    Reply
    1. Christopher S. Penn Avatar
      Christopher S. Penn

      indeed… if only there were a book about content, you know? 😉

      Reply
  6. Andrew Careaga Avatar
    Andrew Careaga

    You’ve given me a lot to think about with this post. I’m glad I invested the time in reading it. Thanks!

    Reply
  7. Andrew Hanelly Avatar
    Andrew Hanelly

    I always think about this when I go see a live band play and they try out some experimental stuff (I’m the first to appreciate a great improv jam, but I’m talking about the half-baked stuff with no direction and no respect for the audience’s time). We came for a reason and as the content creator, they need to respect that. I’m not saying everything they play needs to be perfect and what I expected, but I shouldn’t feel like I wasted my time. Great post!

    Reply
  8. ajleon Avatar
    ajleon

    Wow, thanks for the kick in the ass, Chris. Fabulous post, I loved this “One of the biggest lies in social media is that it’s free”. You are absolutely right. There is an opportunity cost to every interaction with us or our content. Really appreciate your insight 🙂

    Reply
  9. Brandon Croke Avatar
    Brandon Croke

    Thank you for posting this Chris. I wish everyone only limited their sharing for when they had something truly remarkable to say, and not when they feel like they need to write another post about (insert social buzzword topic here) for no other reason than to increase their “reputation”.

    It’s also so important to take the time to thank your audience, so thank you.

    Reply
    1. Christopher S. Penn Avatar
      Christopher S. Penn

      Thank you for thanking me for thanking you 😉

      Reply
  10. Nathan Hangen Avatar
    Nathan Hangen

    Well, I hate to sound like a pessimist, but it seems to me that many people will read anything put in front of them, whether it’s quality or not.

    I’m often wonder if people value even good blog content, and if not, is it a problem with the medium or with the people that use it?

    Just seems to me that our micro consumption appetites are leading us to consume as a way of life, not necessarily to taste the food.

    I agree with you that you should only publish your best work, and essentially, that’s why I quit blogging all together, but sometimes I wonder if people really care in the first place.

    Reply
  11. Marjorie Clayman Avatar
    Marjorie Clayman

    I love everything about this post. It truly is an honor and a responsibility to have a blog or a Twitter account. I am always cognizant of the fact that when I tweet out a link to a new post, I am essentially saying, “Um, hi. Can you take some time out of your very busy schedule to read this thing I wrote? It might help you, it might just be interesting.”

    We seldom ask people to do such things in “real life,” and oddly, in “real life” people seldom oblige. “I’ll get to that later,” they say.

    It takes time to create content. Honor the people who take time to read it. Amen.

    Reply
  12. Daniel Snyder Avatar
    Daniel Snyder

    Brilliantly written. I appreciate how your article takes in the big picture, and is outside of the box. Too often we are stuck in a narrow self absorbed way of thinking. We are looking for people to spend their time on our ‘valuable content’ but ignorant of how valuable that time is.

    Reply
  13. rmsorg Avatar
    rmsorg

    Christopher, what a great post… I couldn’t agree with you more… There’s always been so much pressure to create content, as much as possible, as quickly as possible.. I’ve always struggled with this because I always want to provide value to my readers.. They are taking valuable time to come and visit my blog and read what I’ve posted.. This just reiterates the way I feel..

    Thank you so much for such a great post

    RM – InBoundMarketingPR

    Reply
  14. danieljohnsonjr Avatar
    danieljohnsonjr

    Where do you strike the balance between producing superb quality content and just getting it out there to be done with it. I don’t think any of us want to produce bad content, but I am aware that, by holding onto it without shipping because I’m concerned of the preciousness of it is not good either.

    Seth talks about shipping. In “Linchpin” he references the “Cult of Done Manifesto” on Bre Pettis’ blog. One tenet there is “Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.” Another is “There is no editing stage.”

    Whether creating content as a hobby or professionally, there must be a balance. I’d love to get your thoughts on this.

    Reply

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