It’s all about time.

As a marketer, part of my job is building and maintaining a professional platform to get closer to new projects. You cannot advise your clients to do so when you are neglecting your own.

However, when I thought about my own platform, I was reluctant about writing traditional articles. 

I feel like they are pure noise. More than 92,000 articles are published online every day, so standing out doing the same thing as everyone else is delusional.

I grew tired of them and refuse to be part of what I criticize.

So before launching my platform, I was thinking about how to differentiate myself from all that noise. Online, we are demanded to do things differently. I would like to know how good those blogs are doing with their repetitive, short, valueless articles. But my bet is pessimistic.

Besides my desire of doing something different, I had a few other interests. For example, enjoying while creating content and benefit from it even if no one consumes it.

For me, writing is exploration, discovery, and learning

But these things do not occur with short-form articles. When I try to explain something, especially through written words, I find and comprehend novel aspects of that idea. Even when I think I fully understand something, writing about it teaches me new things. So I found myself thinking in long-form content that serves this and many other purposes.

I’m no expert. I learn every day and will do it until I die. And that’s totally fine.

So, I asked myself how to be most effective: how could I build a platform while boosting my learning process?

I decided to write long-form content (or handbooks, if you want) in the upcoming years because it represents an extraordinary learning process.

I found Julian Shapiro’s blog a few years ago and I loved his approach to content marketing. His handbooks are truly extraordinary and provide great value, especially the one focusing on Growth Marketing.

What I found even more interesting is that he isn’t okay with the relationship we have with books, where a few interesting ideas are painfully scattered in thousands of pages. While many may argue that repetition in reading is key for the comprehension of complex ideas, it’s also true that in the era of information our time is extremely limited.

We must be very skilled when it comes to time management. If we don’t, we are going to die professionally. 

So instead of writing books, he is writing long-form reads with a handbook format in mind and he is doing it for free. This way, Julian claims, he can navigate knowledge and boost his learning in plenty of topics, creating high-quality pieces of content for his platform in the process.

Working in digital marketing since 2012, blog articles represent a currency to me. However, I grew tired of low-quality, poorly-written articles online. So I came here, trying to make a difference for myself.

And while writing a quality handbook demands a lot of time (Julian says writing one of his handbooks demands 1,000 hours of work), I am willing to do it because:

• Writing them is an incredible opportunity to learn a lot about a particular topic
• Writing them provides huge value to readers (when done right, of course)
• Writing them is a great pleasure to me, as I’m passionate about researching and writing on complex ideas
• Writing them gives me leverage and boosts the chances for my own platform to success

As today (February 13th, 2020), I’m currently writing my first handbook on digital marketing, focusing on the framework I personally designed and use to plan and execute digital strategies for my clients. 

After that, I will choose the next topic among the different interests I have. Maybe B2B sales, marketing for SaaS, AI in marketing, product design, project management, or even something more personal, such as practical stoicism or fitness.

Time will tell.