Why You Shouldn't Start a Blog! The Reasons You Should Start a "note" Instead

The other day, I discovered an interesting YouTube video.

It was the following video by a "popular web writer" in the United States.

The reason it was interesting is that it perfectly articulated things I had been vaguely feeling about blogs, note, and Twitter.

It was packed with great information, so I would like to summarize it in this article, incorporating my own personal thoughts.

Reasons why you shouldn't start a blog

The danger of starting a blog right away is that you have to make every decision based on "predictions."

By blog here, I mean setting up a personal blog by purchasing your own domain like "~.com" or "~.jp" and renting a server.

To begin with, the major disadvantage of a blog is that there is no "reader community."

Because there is no community, it is difficult for your articles to be discovered, and you cannot collect the following "data."

・What exactly are readers looking for? = Demand
・What about me attracts readers? = My own strengths

If you launch a blog without this "data," you will continue to produce "things readers don't want" for the following reasons:

・Since there is no community to begin with, you won't be able to collect "data" in the future either
・Since there is no "data," you will continue to post articles based on "predictions"

Starting a blog right away is like "opening a shop suddenly in a land you know nothing about."

You end up starting a business without knowing what the people in that area want (demand) or what makes you superior to other shops (strengths).

You also have to start paying rent for the store (domain fees and rental server fees) from the very day you rent it, so the risk is high.

(If you jump on a trend like tapioca, it might sell explosively, but...)

Reasons why you should start a note

To put the appeal of "note" in one word, it is a "social blog."

A social blog is a platform where a reader community already exists.

The larger that community is, the more readers your articles will reach.

And what is important is that it is easy to collect "data" on a social blog.

Since readers can "like" or "comment" on articles and "follow" creators they are interested in, the more articles you post, the more of this "data" you can obtain, allowing you to understand "what readers want (demand)" and "your own strengths".

By knowing this data, you can improve the success rate of your "predictions" regarding what kind of articles will be well-received.

I used "note" as an example because I use it myself, but it's not limited to note; Facebook, Twitter, Ameblo, Quora, Qiita, and Zenn also fall under the category of social blogs.

(By the way, the person in the video above started their career on Quora.)

Strategy: Make consistency your first goal

Summarizing the above, the steps for starting a blog are as follows.

1. First, post "as many articles as possible" on a social blog to collect "data"

2. Analyze "demand" and "strengths" based on the collected data

3. Post articles based on the analysis results (if you really want to launch a blog, this is the time to do it)

4. Return to 2

The bottleneck here is that it takes a long time to collect "data".

Therefore, it is important to focus on the act of outputting itself, rather than seeking "results" like the number of "likes" from reader feedback, at first.

With the goal of collecting "data," you should just post articles every day without worrying about the reaction to each individual article.

Conclusion

Starting a blog suddenly based on mere "predictions" is highly likely to lead to a negative spiral of continuing to produce things that "readers don't want."

It is important to first collect "data" on social blogs like "note."

While the appeal of social blogs is that they can be started for free, in reality, few people can keep them up.

Watching this video allowed me to reaffirm the importance of "consistency."

I have been posting to "note" for 740 consecutive days, so I intend to keep posting steadily, aiming for 10,000 days.

And, rather than just posting, I want to perform "data analysis" and "posting based on analysis."