Del.icio.us Link Posts
May 23rd, 2008 | Categories: blogs, content, marketing, networks, off topic, strategy, trends, web issuesIn order to create consistency and ensure a steady flow of blog posts for their readers, some bloggers choose to auto-post their newest del.icio.us links. I am definitely not a big fan of this technique. In fact, I think it’s lazy and reduces the overall perception of the blog.
In my case, I would rather not post at all than post a set of del.icio.us links. I truly believe that posting bad content (which I consider these links) is worse than posting no content at all. Quality needs to be at the forefront. If fresh content cannot be contrived, then a sentence or two should accompany each link to give it some level of editorial value.
Obviously, many will disagree with my view as auto-posting is quite widespread within the blogosphere. In any case, whenever I come across a link post in my RSS reader, 99% of the time I’ll just skip over it. Blog posts are meant to spur discussions and create conversations. A list of links isn’t very interesting or engaging. Instead of a blog post, a quick Tweet may be a better way to share links and generate reader engagement.
If you have no idea what this post was about, visit this Maple Leaf 2.0 post by my friend Tris Hussey. We have an ongoing, amicable ‘feud’ with respect to the topic. I’d love to hear Tris’ rebuttal via a trackback post.
Tags: blogs, content, conversations, delicious, discussions, links, maple leaf two, posts, tris hussey, value
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:31 am
Agree, but some people like to get the links so I offer a special feed with del.ocio.us links called “Todays Links”. It works.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:51 am
Talk about link bait … yeah I’m up for it.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
To illustrate: I only read your post just now, the second time I saw it in my RSS reader. I had seen it before, but the title had me thinking it would be a list of del.ici.ous links, so… I skipped it!
(I’d say, be careful with your titles :-))
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
@Tris - You don’t have to post a reply if you don’t want :p
@Els - EXACTLY. This illustrates my point to a tee. I guess I should be more careful with my titles though…
Cheers,
Aidan
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:39 pm
[…] Aidan Henry threw down the gauntlet for me to explain why I do (semi)daily link posts from Diigo on my blogs: Obviously, many will disagree with my view as auto-posting is quite widespread within the blogosphere. In any case, whenever I come across a link post in my RSS reader, 99% of the time I’ll just skip over it. Blog posts are meant to spur discussions and create conversations. A list of links isn’t very interesting or engaging. Instead of a blog post, a quick Tweet may be a better way to share links and generate reader engagement.—Del.icio.us Link Posts […]
June 4th, 2008 at 8:09 am
I think publishing Del.icio.us Links is fine on the context of an article. But just publishing a list of them is not.