Blog writing vs. engineering: don't be a frog

Mark Schaefer wrote a good post this morning that discusses a key point in blogging today: about how so many bloggers (or, as I may call them, "blogbots") engineer their blog posts based on keywords.

In my humble writerly opinion, content engineering is a slippery slope that may turn the relationship building aspects of social media into... meaninglessness. It used to be that only those who really had something to say went off and blogged. People who followed them were interested in hearing it. Now many are doing it not because they have something to say, but instead are focused on the delightful end result of
page views --> brand building --> sales.

Ideally, these keywords bubble up organically through what you would normally want to talk about on your blog. If you're forcing it, then you're going to sound funny. Robotic. And unless you're JPL, that's probably not the voice you're looking for.

While such a focus may yield short term benefits, you may well end up sacrificing the relationship part. And it makes the consumer kiss more frogs before finding their prince.

The moral of the story is, don't be a frog.