When Less is More: Lessons from Thermopylae

I said only 300 words!!

This is a post about writing better blog posts. But why not learn some Greek history along the way?

I want to underscore the importance of keeping blog posts short - in the 200-300 word range. To make my point, I thought I'd refer to the recent 300 movies you may have seen. The first of these films retells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae, when a very small group of Spartans, a scant 300, led the Greek army of some 6,000 against the 100,000 Persian invaders.

The Spartans got slaughtered. Sometimes, Goliath slays David. Funny thing, though, nobody remembers those Persians and everybody remembers the brave Greek Spartans who perished. Why?

Because sometimes less is more. Being so few in number, it brought the very best out in them. Their bravery in the face of certain death became legendary, and inspired the Greeks to rally agains the Persians. Yep, sometimes less is more.

When composing for an online audience, you must be concise and appealing. You have to go bite-sized. Otherwise, people see a wall of text and they click away. You can make your point briefly. Briefer posts inspire more conversation, and those conversations can end up being long and quite engaged. But they need to start small. So keep it short.

(Keep your comments short, too. A couple sentences will do. Have more to say? Write your own post -- of about 300 words).

(This post is 249 words long, by the way. Just right.)