Online Advice Courtesy Of Oprah Winfrey
I don’t consider myself to be one of Oprah’s fans among the millions, but a few months ago while eating my lunch, I watched her show as she interviewed Will Smith concerning his recent movie, “The Pursuit of Happyness”. Now, I’m far from being a ‘movie buff’, but after watching the show, which had nothing but praise for the movie, I couldn’t help but think, “I must see that movie”.
Sure enough, about a month ago my wife and I rented the movie, but when it ended I felt disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, it was great, but it had been somewhat spoiled by Oprah, and it taught me a vital lesson which can be turned into a very apt piece of online advice.
Less is more
My disappointed feeling after the movie, was due to the fact that I was hoping for more. Now I don’t think it can be put down simply that the Oprah show overpromised, and the movie underperformed. To say that would be a little unfair. However, what The Oprah Winfrey Show did do, was show far too much of the movie in scenes and clips. The result was, I was expecting everything in the movie. I knew where it was going, what was going to happen, and how. It had nothing more to tell me. Thanks Oprah!
If the show had shown a few short clips, rather than half a dozen critical scenes, I would have enjoyed the film a lot more. In this case, less is definately more.
What I learned
The very same can be applied to advice giving blogs. For example, giving every SEO tip you know in the one post might bring you a tidal wave of traffic from the social bookmark sites, but with nothing else to offer to your readers, your blog will die in less time than it took to reach Digg’s front page!
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have 500 daily visitors for weeks and months, than 10,000 in 24 hours, and never being looked at again. Be careful with your knowledge. Break it up into hundreds of pleasent, bite-sized chunks, rather than making your visitors gorge themselves to the death of your blog.
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Comments
4 Responses to “Online Advice Courtesy Of Oprah Winfrey”
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I think this is excellent advice. People also appreciate serialized content, and tend to consume in bite-sized chunks. Keep the audience hungry. Don’t let them gorge. Thanks for this (short) lesson.
Great post, I can’t count the number of films friends have spoiled for me by over-enthusing. The worst case was the matrix, my friend said it was the best film he had ever seen and proceeded to describe in detail the best bits. When I came to see it there was no hope it would live up to my expectations. I enjoyed it but not half as much as I would have going in cold
Jason - No problem. Thanks for the feedback!
Chris - Yeah, similar scenario. It’s really frustrating!
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