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Long form? Short form?  What kind of content works best?

Louis Henry Sullivan, the famous architect, once said: “Form ever follows function.”    Although, he was referring to design and architecture, I think it holds in content marketing too!

What is the function of your content?  And which media are you using?  Some media platforms are automatically constrained to short form: Twitter and its 140 characters for example; or it’s sister, Vine, with 6 second videos.     On other platforms you might have a choice.    LinkedIn is rolling out long-form blog posts to its users so you can either do a short status update or write a longer post.   You can check mine out here.

I often recommend to clients that they need to be thinking about building visibility, credibility and personality in their messaging to their clients.   (This is slightly modified from the in-person networking model developed by Dr. Ivan Meisner:   Visibility leads to Credibility leads to Profitability.)

Of course on your own website/blog or in your own email newsletter you can write as much or as little as you want.  So, again form follows function.  Sometimes you might want to maintain visibility with your audience and not need a long form. Other times, you might want to build credibility and so something longer to illustrate your expertise makes sense.   Finally, I recommend that you include your personality whether or not it’s long or short!