I thought those 'ugly' long form social posts were a waste of time

For months, I kept my posts short and punchy, thinking no one would read a big block of text. Then I wrote a 500 word story on LinkedIn about a client project that went wrong, just to vent. It got 3 times more comments and shares than my normal stuff, and I got two new leads from it. I mean, people actually read the whole thing and connected with the real problem. Maybe it's just me, but showing the messy middle part worked better than just the shiny result. Has anyone else seen this with longer content on other platforms?

3 comments

3 Comments

hannahs711mo ago

Yeah, the "messy middle part" is exactly it. I used to only post the polished final product on my portfolio site. Then I started a blog post walking through a design that completely failed at first. It was my most visited page that month. People emailed me saying they had the same problem. Showing the struggle just makes it real.

the_sarah1mo ago

Totally agree with you about the "messy middle part" @hannahs71. I started doing quick video clips of me stuck on a coding bug, then showing the fix. It feels scary to put the bad drafts out there, but it's what people actually connect with. They need to see the process, not just the perfect end result. My engagement went way up when I stopped hiding the struggle. It just proves that real work is never as clean as a portfolio makes it look.

thompson.tyler1mo agoMost Upvoted

But honestly, sometimes the struggle just looks like bad work. I follow people for their skill, not to watch them fail for ten minutes. A clean portfolio shows you can actually deliver a good final product.