Too Much, Didn’t Read (TM,DR)
A few weeks ago I posted about the case of Too Long, Didn’t Read. I want to add another to that catalog of reasons people don’t read your posts; Too Much, Didn’t Read (TM,DR) and its corollary; Too Many, Ignored (TM,I). Those who “press” everything they read into their blog quickly go into my TM,DR bucket. I will follow a blogger because I feel they are an expert in a particular field and I am looking to them to point out important “stuff” within their area of expertise. Posting about too many topics makes it harder to find the items about the topic for which I followed the blogger. It reduces their “position of authority” and their posts start going into the TM,DR bucket. Not adding a comment about the shared content gets a blogger into the TM,DR bucket even faster. I have the same google alerts set up as they do. I don’t really need the source material; it is your comments on the topic that are of real interest to me.
The corollary is TM,I. Facebook recently added the “Facebook Movie” feature. I looked at the first few that friends posted, but after that, the whole thing got put into my TM,I bucket. There were just too many posts about this same “thing” for me to look at. I have extended this concept to include those people who “press” generally available news into their blogs. I can’t tell you how many people put an article about Microsoft’s new CEO into their blog. I am looking for the bloggers I follow to post interesting and unique items, not what I can get from every news source on the planet. As with TM,DR, not adding a relevant comment gets a blogger into the TM,I bucket even faster.
We all know that people are overwhelmed with content. They are following you for a reason. Don’t give them a reason to ignore you.