How short-form writing can work?
Short-forms are often given bad rap. Most people view them as lazy work, without enough research or examples to do a topic justice. They just add to the noise of Internet. This is not exactly true. If you take a bird eye view, you’ll see that short-forms hold many merits.
To begin with, short-forms can serve as teasers for bigger work. For example, you can post a bunch of tweets or tease an idea in emails. If people show interest, you can start to dig in more and write a full post about it. By listening to feedback, you avoid the guesswork and craft what people want to read.
Yet, for this type of short-form to work, it has to be an asset of its own. Don't be lazy and produce fragmented ideas. Try to offer as much value in your short-form as in the longform. For if people don't buy into your shorter work, they're not going to buy into the longer work either.
Second, some types of content are not intended to be long. For example, updates about a product launch or a scientific discovery can be wrapped up in less than 200 words. Still, they are important to keep people informed.
Finally, a lot of short-form writings are brilliant. If you look at writers like Seth Godin or Ben Settle, they're excellent at delivering ideas in a clear yet concise way. Short-forms can be as powerful as long-forms.
They can tweak, bend, influence our thinking the same way a 10,000-word essay does. In some cases, they are much harder to produce as it’s hard mental work to distill a complex idea into just a few words. Being lengthy, on the other hand, can be easy.
I once came across an analogy which I really like: If longforms are like 3-course meals, short-forms are the appetizer or dessert. It’s better to consume on the side. It will add favour and make the meal more enjoyable.
Many people worry short form is bad for SEO, but isn't it ironic to let a machine determine the quality of our writing?
Writing is a human thing. The search engine is useful for matching relevant content with searcher's intent but it's up for the reader to decide if the piece is good or not. Also, what if the machine is wrong? Just because a post doesn't comply with the algorithms means that it's bad?
The SEOers may be right that long-form writing performs better in statistics. But there's no guarantee long-forms are always good. In fact, these are face value, the real benefit remains what the writing brings to the reader.
This doesn't mean short form can't be bad. Short forms are bad when they don't serve a purpose—When the writer abuses his creative asset to amplify the noise of the Internet. When his intent is not to provide helpful information, only to make some bucks. When he fails to do the research he is supposed to do or avoid painstaking edits. When he is too lazy to smoothen the language, his writing becomes stiff. When he is a hypocrite, giving advice for the sake of giving advice. When he writes for clickbaits without being able to meet the promise, short-forms are bad. Though this is not reserved for short-form but any form of writing.