4 Reasons Quality Beats Quantity
#1 — Because it’s not 2012 anymore
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I have taken upon myself the difficult task of convincing you of a wild idea — that writing well about what matters is more important and meaningful than writing lots about what is popular.
It’s a hard job.
Current common sense says the person who does the most wins. 3 Instagram posts. 10 stories. 12 Tweets. 6 LinkedIn Updates. 2 new blog posts. 1 YouTube video. According to certain gurus, though, this pace of content is supposed to occur daily. It’s supposed to be the “only way.”
I’ll admit that in 2012, you might have been able to get away with a flood of average work. The rules are changing now.
First, online content is no longer novel.
The first video was uploaded to Instagram only less than a decade ago. We were all so thrilled that Greg from Iowa could upload directly from his iPhone that we didn’t care the feed was fuzzy, the camera was shaky, or that Greg’s toilet was visible behind him. Now, we consistently see videos of a much higher quality. The novelty is gone. Naturally, we raised our standards as a result.
Although the history of blog posts is longer than Instagram’s, written word has gone through a similar cycle. It’s not that your idea isn’t good. It’s that… well… we’ve probably seen it before at this point.
Second, the sheer volume of noise (caused by everyone following the quantity rule) has our decision-making faculties fatigued.
If you open any social platform and spend 24 straight hours swiping your finger from bottom to top, you would never run out of content. We produce quintillions of bytes of data per day.
What makes you stop and actually consume a piece of work? Is it when you see the same person’s face 33 times in a day?
Probably not.
More likely, it’s remarkable work. A video with a good opening sequence. An photo with a stunning subject. A first line you can’t look away from. In a deluge of items that look identical, you pick the one that stands out.
Third, the platforms themselves are evolving.
