TLDR? Or is it Just Me?

When you come to this blog every Monday, you know what to expect in terms of length. Well, hopefully content too, but let’s just focus this week on the amount of time you figure it will take you to read what gets posted when you come here at the start of your work week.

The Web, after all, is where blogs have lived for years and years.  And years, let me add for emphasis.

Don’t get me wrong, although I’m referring to them residing on websites, I can remember five years ago posting blogs that one of my clients was writing not only on her website, but on Medium and Blogger, plus one other niche website.

Of course, in 2025 Substack has become the giant in what I would call the blogging world, although given the capabilities of that platform, I’m sure they much prefer to be known as something more than a destination to read posts such as I’m doing here every Monday.

It’s here that I’ll point out that when you come to the Now Hear This website and read a post written by someone other than me, I have given that person some parameters ahead of time, including approximately what the length should be (as it relates to the number of words).

Some might say that that’s ironic, given that you can write as much as you want on the internet.  It’s not a printed newspaper or magazine where there is a limited amount of space allotted for the various articles and columns that they publish.

But why is it that the envelope is getting pushed with regards to social media posts that almost appear to be blogs in and of themselves?  I’m thinking of both Instagram and LinkedIn, specifically.

And here’s why I take issue with those placements.

One of the most attractive characteristics of social media has always been that it’s bite sized.  One need look no further than Twitter (now known as X) and their 140-character limit for tweets (posts).  Instagram didn’t have a character limit, but you typically knew that you’d see a photo, read a brief caption/description, and move on to the next post.  Facebook posts were maybe a little longer, but still not what I’m seeing across social media today.

The acronym TLDR (too long didn’t read) was born out of the short attention span we all seem to have adopted.  So, when you write something – again, I’ll stick with Instagram and LinkedIn – that I would expect to see in a forum such as what you’re currently reading from, I’m skipping it.

Now, some people are going to tell you that “they” say that there is more of a tolerance for long form posts these days.  Immediately I ask, “Who are ‘they’ and what is this based on?  What study was done and what was the sample size?”  And by the way, you’ll also be told that – like watch time on TikTok or YouTube – keeping people hanging around longer will help.  For a text post.  Supposedly.  (If there’s no value, though?  I digress.)

At Now Hear This, among our many, many services is writing a press release when there is a major announcement for a client.  Click here to see a recent example and then ask yourself if you would have read that entire release if it was under a photo as a “caption” on Instagram.  I think not.

Of course, someone will attempt to make the very valid point that it’s tough to put a link on Instagram to a long post, people don’t want to have to go off platform, and LinkedIn and Facebook allegedly have their algorithm trained to display your post to fewer accounts if you have a link in it.  And then yes, I know, some people try to game that system by putting the link in the first comment.

Someone tried to make a case to me that saying Link in Bio is adding too many extra (undesirable) taps.  How?  It’s ONE tap.

Let’s take YouTube out of the equation, by the way.  And even TikTok, for that matter.  Those are video platforms and whether one side wants to argue, “I agree!  Isn’t that the whole point of Shorts?!” or another side wants to point to long-form video or even TikTok having a button for a ten-minute post, the fact is, those are video platforms, and we’re focused in this conversation about written posts.

Do a self-audit.  Where are you putting your long form text posts and why?  Is it because that’s what the trend seems to be, or do you feel convicted that that’s where you have decided it needs to be?  And of course, look at your analytics.

Now a Member of the Recording Academy, I have been helping indie music artists, authors, actors, entrepreneurs, podcasters, filmmakers, small business owners, and more for over twenty years.  What challenges are you having in your creator career that I can lend some insight to?  Connect with me so you can take advantage of all my experience, and I can help and keep you moving forward.