I’m making a concerted effort to start blogging again on a more frequent basis. It’s not that I have suddenly discovered lots of free time. However, I’ve decided that it’s time to change priorities.

In my attempt to keep up with the demands of work and home I had mostly given up on blogging. Part of it was that my style of writing (blame it on writing academic papers and a thesis!) was such that I wanted to include references, provide background, explore things from different angles. However, that style of writing is not conducive to blogging. Blogging needs to be more stream of consciousness and quick bursts. Otherwise analysis paralysis sets in and you end up with a long list of things you would like to write about but don’t. That’s what happened to me.

I tried to supplant my blogging activity with tweets or Facebook status updates, but tweets and Facebook status updates tend to be terse and very ephemeral especially since neither Twitter, nor Facebook, have been able to implement a half decent search experience making posts unreferenceable for future conversation.

During my blogging hiatus, I also noticed something else: There is NO substitute for blogging and long-form. Tweets are great, but by their very nature, they are not a great avenue for discourse. Trying to hold an extended conversation on twitter quickly breaks down. Perhaps that may have something to do with why Evan Williams (@ev), co-founder of Blogger and then Twitter, is now doing another long-form publishing platform, Medium. (That said, Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) has recently taken to twitter with a vengeance, and has a rather unique style of using twitter where the tweets are often continuations of one another rather than bite sized morsels of 140 characters. I’m intrigued by his style.) Facebook does do better since all the interactions are in one long comments thread, but the expectation of privacy is different on Facebook and the fact that you can’t search your own posts and comments, just makes it less interesting for the long-term value of the content.

There are two types of people on social media. Those who produce content and those who consume content. The number of producers is far fewer than the number of consumers (I’m not going to hunt for stats, as then again I’d be off looking for references rather than making my point!). A more provocative nomenclature would be exhibitionists and voyeurs, but in the interest of not devolving the conversation, lets stick with Producers and Consumers. Also note that there is no hard line between Producers and Consumers, it is a continuum. Most people who produce content will also tend to consume content, but those that tend to err more on the side of consumption contribute far less content. You know whether you are a Producer or a Consumer.

Producers tend to publish information which shows them in the most positive light (positive bias of social media). It shows them having fun, visiting interesting places, amplifying articles and posts which resonate with their view of the world — political, social, technological, or business (guilty as charged). They, generally, avoid publishing things that show them in poor light, or show that they may not have their act together as much as it seems. The truth is often very different. There is a whole other part of their lives which often doesn’t make it on to social media at all (the social media blind spot). Apps like Path, Whisper, and Secret have attempted to suss out this social media blind spot by relying on smaller groups or anonymous posts.

Producers get a high, presumably an adrenaline rush (anyone have any research on this?), from watching how many people liked their post, commented on their post, retweeted their tweet or replied to it. Ultimately, Producers are not publishing content for Consumers, they are publishing content for the satisfaction they receive when others consume and react to their content.

The net result of this is that Producers end up opening up a selective part of themselves to the outside world, in exchange for the validation, reinforcement, reputation-boost and ego boost that comes from it. They take a risk, they contribute, and they benefit — generally speaking. The benefits can be subtle and personal, or they can be concrete and very public.

Consumers on the other hand tend to consume information voraciously, however, they often forget that what they are consuming suffers from the positive bias of social media. What they consume is that very thin sliver of the public persona that is exposed by the Producers. How Consumers react to that depends on their proclivity towards being either self-confident or self-conscious. A self-confident Consumer will generally be genuinely happy for the Producer of the content, and react in a positive way (even if it means expressing sympathy or kudos). A self-conscious Consumer however, typically reacts with feelings of inferiority, jealousy, loathing or lacking. (These words feel a lot stronger than what I want to express, but I couldn’t come up with words that would be softer and get the point across).

The self-conscious Consumer may often not engage in any interaction on social media, but does get impacted by in. Often that impact is a downward spiral, which over time can leave to feelings of isolation or sometimes even depression. I say this with a little bit of apprehension as this I purely a theory and I would like to see this studied more. If I were Facebook or Twitter, I would consider funding a no-strings-attached grant for some social science researchers to delve into this topic in more detail. Perhaps they already have and I’m not aware of it.

Of course, there is a third kind of person who is simply not on social media at all. Those that don’t engage on social media are missing the benefits that can come from it, but at the same time they are by corollary, also protected from the negative impacts of social media and of course don’t have to spend the time on it either.

Both Producers and Consumers are critical to the social media eco-system and are critical for the business models of the companies involved. Facebook and Twitter wouldn’t be anywhere close to as valuable as they are without the large numbers of people who come to their site to consume information, and a smaller fraction of people who are creating that information (UGC).

So enough with the sweeping generalizations, how does this apply to startups and founders?

In my opinion, it is critical for startups to engage in social media. But that engagement mustn’t be robotic, reactionary, or impersonal. Instead, it needs to be authentic, proactive, and real. It must have a voice that reflects the culture and the values of the company. Lyft (@lyft) and Twilio (@twilio) are two K9 portfolio companies that do a great job of this. Their engagement on Twitter and Facebook is a reflection of the culture of the company.

Founders are already over-worked and spread too thin as they try to get their company going. Few of them have the time to consider blogging., but I would go so far as to recommend that they must. Blogging establishes more credibility in your field than any other activity. You want to position yourself as a thought leader, and there is no better way to let people see why you are the thought leader in your domain.  So if you get a chance, spend 1 hour a week being a Producer, and write about something related to your business/domain of expertise. It will be worth 10x of the >5 hours you may spend being a Consumer of content in the same week.

Bottomline: Being a Producer in social media is way more valuable than being just a Consumer.

You can follow me on Twitter at @ManuKumar or @K9Ventures for just the K9 Ventures related tweets. K9 Ventures is also on Facebook and Google+.