The technology behind building a blog or a podcast or a newsletter is easier to operate than ever before. You can get started for very low money and it doesn’t require a boat load of technical skill either. But the two questions you should ask yourself are these: do I have something helpful to share and will anyone bother to read/consume what I create.
I don’t know that there ever were any “gee whiz” days in blogging and content creation. I feel like more people used to do it because they were told to create something, but really so few people actually liked writing and making media. They saw it as a chore. People did it until they felt they didn’t have to any longer. “No one’s reading blogs anymore anyway.”
That was never true. No one read your boring blog.
Podcasts: The New Rage
Everyone and their cousin are finally launching podcasts. It didn’t take off in 2005, like I thought. Nor 2006, 2007, 2009. All the years I figured “Wow, now THIS will be the age of podcasting” ended up being wrong. Because people tend to start doing something only when it’s saturated. So now everyone also wants to start a podcast and/or get on Instagram and do what everyone else is doing.
You can do a podcast. It’s okay. People are consuming more audio than ever before. (And people are reading less and less.)
You can and should do video, too. Start a YouTube channel and put something up at least weekly.
Will you? Not as likely. Podcasting is another thing people became willing to do because it seems easy enough. Video still seems hard and scary.
None of it matters. Unless.
Blogging, podcasting, video, and whatever other tools you don’t seem to want to use to reach people don’t matter all that much unless you have something interesting and useful to say. People make the mistake all the time of thinking that what they’re writing or speaking about is interesting because it’s what they sell. Not many people sell inherently interesting things. And even if something has a little pizazz, that wears off quickly if it’s not something anyone wants to buy.
No, you shouldn’t bother. Don’t make media. Of any kind, really. Just knock on doors and ring phones. It’s worked well for decades and decades.
Even though people don’t read as many mainstream news sources any longer. Even though people stopped listening to terrestrial radios and podcasting is having its heyday. Even though YouTube serves over a billion hours of video every day displacing a lot of eyes that used to just watch whatever was on TV. Don’t think much about that.
Or
You can take a stab at creating something interesting and compelling and worth someone’s time. You can write helpful articles and posts. You can record podcast episodes that entertain and inform someone (I just spent the better part of a day in my car and ran out of GOOD podcasts to listen to – because I’m not all that into true crime shows).
You could try to reach the millions and millions of people who are looking for something entertaining and informative. And do it regularly, and across multiple types of platforms. Because that might be worth something to someone.
Or you can wait a while longer. Until no one’s doing any of these things either.