#if i use the word 'correlation' once or twice i can even convince myself of that

[gammija]

ugh made the mistake of reading the comments on a blogpost about male flight in higher education

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 152

I’m not going to jinx it, I’m not going to jinx it, I’m not going to jinx it...

Okay, maybe I am. I managed to queue up the chapters I had in the barrel! Yay!! Which also means that I have a super duper exciting chapter coming up, which I can’t wait to write and can’t wait for y’all to read. I just need it to be perfect.

That said, thank you to @baelpenrose and @charlylimph-blog for your help with this particular chapter.  I love when we are all three in one of these sessions and just descending into chaos in the chat. Also, @mamayoda (who I can’t tag but I do want you to know I see your likes in my notes!) for love-bombing my notes recently.

“Is it just me or is everyone really jumpy?” Charly asked as I set my food down across from her.  It was our thrice-weekly lunch dates in one of the public mess halls, and she definitely had a point.  I had already noticed three people scowl distrustfully at the food consoles, hugging closely to the prepared food side of the room instead.

I sighed. “It has to have been Derek’s stress test.  It wasn’t supposed to impact systems we didn’t design, but…”

She snorted loudly. “Tell that to the week I spent taking cold showers again.  At least this time, the doors didn’t play any music when I walked through them.”

“Did your doors at least open consistently? I was stuck in my quarters for a whole day until we figured out that I could walk through if I had an escort.”  I laughed and shook my head before digging in to my food. “And, come to find out, we actually do manage the water systems, thanks to BioLab 2.”

Contrary to myself, Charly was entirely unperturbed at this revelation beyond sniffing her hoodie and shrugging. “My doors worked fine as far as I know, but Coffey and I tend to work the same hours, so… Maybe that was it.  Oo!” Her cheer of enthusiasm caught me off guard as she started bouncing in her seat. “OOOOO! I bet he activated the routine Xiomara had running when you and Jokul weren’t friends yet!”

“There was a routine!?” I asked, exasperated. “I behaved, thank you. It wasn’t necessary.”

“Meh. Just in case. What do you think her deal is?” She tilted her head to the side, at a table near us.

Sure enough, the woman at that table was darting glances around the room, her shoulders hunched, elbows close to her body, eyes wide.  I could practically feel her shaking from where I was. “I can’t tell if she looks suspicious or afraid,” I murmured, hoping the woman couldn’t hear me. “But the fact that I’ve met mice and chihuahuas who shook less, I’m going to go with afraid.”

As I watched the woman, weighing whether or not a stranger trying to comfort her would make it better or worse, Mona’s familiar face approached her instead.  She was speaking softly enough that I couldn’t make out words, but the woman clearly recognized her and only jumped slightly.

I was so focused on the sight of Mona comforting the woman that I nearly hit the ceiling when Parvati’s voice came from entirely too close to my right shoulder. “Rebecca.  She lost her family twice, first her parents, some cousins, and an uncle when the hack happened, and then her partner and children in the After.  It’s understandable that she’s terrified right now, after the stress test. Too many bad memories.”

My face flushed in humiliation. “Pranav and Zach sent a ship-wide alert that the stress test was happening - “

A perfectly manicured hand clapped over my mouth, one dark eyebrow arched in eloquent disbelief. “Sophia. You of all people know that mental scars do not heed logic.”

Charly’s hair flew around her face as she nodded enthusiastically. “After day three of cold showers, I flinched every time I went through a door in case that stupid song started playing again, no matter how many times I reminded myself that it was a stress test and I had decidedly not given Derek boba tea again.”

Both my hands flew up in surrender. “I stand corrected, I just feel awful to see people react like that.” Gazing around the room, I was suddenly much more aware of all the darting eyes, protective postures, seats turned so that backs were against walls.

Charly had obviously seen the same thing. “We may need to talk to Pranav about limiting the tests to one or two systems at a time.”

“I wish we could,” I admitted, stabbing a potato out of my pie slightly harder than necessary. “His department was passing the tests with flying colors when Derek was limited to one or two systems at a time.  But they failed this last test miserably, it turns out.  As soon as they would react to one thing, Derek would switch to another system, and they couldn’t be everywhere at once as well as they convinced themselves that they could.  And they can’t just be good at small scale attacks: the revolt that happened before the End brought everything down at once, from multiple access points. It was… kind of elegant, in a terrible way.  Very clean.”

Charly squinted at me and Parvati in suspicion. “Are you supposed to know that they crashed and burned in the test.”

I rocked my hand back and forth while I chewed on a mouthful of crust.  It had way too much butter in it, but at least it was actually crust this time. A week ago it had been something pretty close to paper mache. “Technically we don’t officially know that.  Officially, all we know is that Pranav has requisitioned enough additional staff to increase his team of programmers by seventy percent.”

“Asses handed to them, got it,” Charly nodded in understanding.

“We also officially know that Pranav currently owes Hannah quite the enormous favor,” Parvati confided.

“How big?” Charly ventured slowly.

“Big enough that his grandchildren may be indebted to hers,” came the laughing response.

Charly shook her head and clucked her tongue. “He should know better than to bet against Derek.  He breaks the systems for fun, and they asked him to really go for it. What did they expect?”

“Apparently to put up a better fight at least.” I forced a smile, but guilt weighed on my heart as I studied the room again, fully seeing the microexpressions of anxiety, fear, and anger.  It felt like the entire Ark was constantly swinging between hope and fear. The random drills weren’t really helping, either.

“They aren’t,” Parvati agreed, letting me know that I had been thinking out loud. “Everyone is sleep deprived, on high alert, and then all of a sudden all the computer systems went on the fritz for a week.”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead, pushing what was left of my pot pie away from me, appetite gone. “We need to talk to Grey and Antoine about getting counselling for everyone, seeing as how Xiomara and Pranav pretty much just triggered the entire ship. I mean, everyone knows counselling is available, but I think allocating training and resources to the therapy teams is going to take priority over Pranav’s request for the moment.”

Charly tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Do we have the space for some quiet rooms, like you set up for the Food Festival a few years back? That may be a good idea.”

Snapping into work-mode, Parvati flicked her datapad open, bangles clattering as she started making notes. “The quarters left by those who relocated closer to the Archives are still uninhabited, those can be used.  We may be able to convince some people to relocate so we can spread the rooms out more evenly, but even if we can’t, just having those rooms available will help.”

“Make a note to add in the proposal for Grey: possibility of having specific vendors permitted to serve food in BioLab 2.  Encourage mental health days and picnics.”

Parvati nodded in acknowledgement of my request, before adding her own spin. “As a contingency plan, find vendors who will pre-package picnics.  Between the current distrust of the consoles and the fact it will remind everyone of the annual Festival, the good emotions will help.”

“I like it,” I confirmed. “What else?”

“Paintball tag day in the corridors,” Charly announced, without preamble or warning. “Make it a holiday, everyone is off work, limit it to one end of the Ark.”

I shook my head. “Guns, not the best idea.”

“Ew, no. No pew-pew.” She wrinkled her nose. “I was thinking more paint-soaked splash bombs.”

Finger guns deployed, dual wielding. “I am so here for a paintball tag day in that case.  The flavored paint?”

“Not the scotch bonnet please,” Parvati begged. “I just know someone will get that in the face, I don’t care how much Else likes it.”

“Got it, no more pepper spraying people,” Charly agreed seriously. “OOO! I could test the new arrows out!  With something like buttered popcorn paint, obviously. Maybe kiwi on the other team.”

“Just limit the pull on the bows, okay? I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“Fiiiiine…”

Parvati smiled and added to her notes. “So, we probably want someone to correlate the current date to whatever the date would be on Earth… Just in case we need to get a consultant for Holi.”

“Good point. Conor is alarmingly good at that, so I can ask him.  It would be a nice cultural event if we could do that. If not, we can totally work on celebrating Holi when it comes around.”

“Final suggestion for right now, because I have to get back to work,” I sighed happily. “This is going to be the biggest ask, and the smallest at the same time…” Both nodded at me to continue. “Care packages, for everyone. And I mean everyone on the Ark.”

“Sophia,” Parvati scolded me. “That’s almost ten thousand people and sixteen animal companions.”

“Well aware,” I forged on, “We’ll talk to Sam about the bows, I can wrap them. Commission some of those really nice chocolates, or maybe some taffy from Simon. And something salty.  I know there is someone on the Ark who makes aromatherapy candles, Tyche is bananas about them.”

Shaking her head, she added it to the list. “If you insist on that, I insist on a celebration for the drop out of FTL.  Hannah and I can use some of the plans from the Food Festival, include Charly’s paint tag - “

“And Kink Night!”

“- and Kink Night, apparently… have several events going on across the Ark, since we already discussed declaring a holiday.”

“Get Bash’s permission to use the Undine again, and I won’t object,” I surrendered before standing. “On that note, I really do have to get back to work.  Come on, Vati, we have work to do apparently.”

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[celestialmark]

NEO CITY IN LONDON

okk guys so as most of you know i got to attend nct 127’s concert in london on the 7th and here’s my in depth experience and impressions of each members as promised :)

TAEIL: is an angel. he’s precious honestly. he’s just like how he is in nct videos. he has a really peculiar sense of humour which makes him even funnier and his gestures and facial expressions are exactly what you see in videos. his vocals are top notch wowza. his high notes are exceptional in bridges like chain, simon says, firetruck! what i remember the most about him is the part where he was asked to do something sexy and cute at the same time and this man licked his hand and did the peace sign after :)) said his iconic line “fans are our energy, we are always thankful and we love you.” love love loved him!!

TAEYONG: exudes leader energies all the way. honestly, the concert just really proved why all the members hold him in such high regard. his stage presence is so alluring and his voice is so clear and an exact replica of how we hear him in their songs. his dancing is oh my god absolutely dazzling and so smooth no wonder he’s a centre. he looks so good in blue hair his visuals are no joke + he spoke english a lot and did so well in communicating with the fans it was great. also his aegyo comes out in random bursts when you least expect it. it’s such a complete 360 contrast when he performs cos he’s so charismatic onstage but when he’s talking to fans, he’s a lil baby :( 100% precious. would definitely keep in my pocket.

JOHNNY: really really playful and dorky. johnny stays true to all the descriptions we’ve all read of him; funny and absolutely kind hearted. during their ments, he’s mostly the one who asks fans to get involved in their songs, i.e. doing the crowd wave or swinging the lightstick a certain type of way to correlate with their songs. he’s also very deep! one time, he talked about how open he felt within himself because he saw us being so open to cheering for them and hyping them up. also how could we forget— he clowned doyoung again and imitated his dance from masked singer and the crowd went balistic :))) also need to give him more credit for his singing as well as his dancing!! some fans in the crowd needed assistance since they didn’t feel too well and johnny openly asked for security and pointed out who needed help + voice slightly higher in pitch when talking.

YUTA: a crowd favourite! (he bias wrecked me the entire night). really really knows what the fans want and he delivered it so well in their songs. his smile is literally blinding and he had so much energy the whole night! his dancing is oof so so so fluid and the way he hit his high notes screamed effortless to me. you could literally see his passion burning as he performed onstage— intense and powerful. red hair suits him so much. his gestures during their songs were all captured so well by the cameras i’m pretty sure he stole everyone’s hearts that night. also his english is sooo sooo good. we stan this man.

DOYOUNG: another bias wrecker of mine. he’s beautiful onstage his eyes were literally shining i kid you not, so much so, i thought he was crying but really, they just had sparkles in them. his vocals, let me tell you, made all the hairs in my skin stand. he accentuated a lot of his notes and combine that with his emotions (esp, back 2 u— rip) really makes you think wow what a powerful talented man. i literally caught myself with my mouth open because i was so drawn to him. g o r g e o u s sweet man!!

JAEHYUN: wow this man. wow. absolutely ethereal in real life. his skin is so smooth and milky you could literally still see it miles away. his expressions were breathtaking, from his smiling, to smirking, to staring into your soul, you name it, he’ll just take your breath away. i’m convinced that man has no bones because his waves and his dancing were so fluid. the wigs were snatched with his vocals— so so good at maintaining his low notes and even better at reaching them notes so so high (timeless and no longer jdgsgsga). when he talks, his voice is actually a little higher pitched than what we expect it to be from videos and whatnot. will really steal your heart literally any day just by standing there looking all perfect.

JUNGWOO: precious precious precious. you know the way our baby gets nervous very easily? he said that he was nervous at the beginning but he felt so much better after seeing the lighsticks :(( his voice really really stands out when he sings, it just has that distinct sound that catches your attention. his smile is actually so pretty and cute! also his english was really good he had so much phrases and words up his sleeve and he spoke so well and without any effort. also dancing was phenomenal, very fluid and well delivered. we really gotta appreciate how he learned all of 127’s choreographies in such a short amount of time and dancing it all with so much ease!! we love love love :((

MARK: ok here we go. the first thing that caught my attention when mark spoke was his voice. it’s actually a tiny bit slightly higher pitched than what we hear from videos or their songs like jaehyun and johnny. but when i watched the videos i took, he sounds the exact same as other videos so i’m confused? regardless, mark proves he’s absolutely fully capable. he looked marvelous onstage and so comfortable there he literally does belong up there. he was so dynamic from his singing, rapping and dancing. he speaks really fast and i feel like his brain has no brakes so sometimes his words get jumbled around or he says the same thing twice in one sentence but it only makes him so much more endearing :( totally fell in love with him way more than i already have HAHAHA.

HAECHAN: oh my god this man. haechan’s voice is like honey okay, very very smooth and definitely one that you can distinguish right away. also watching him made me realise how not only should we praise him for his vocals, but also for his dancing. THIS BOY CAN DANCE. and may i add very very effortless too? he makes dancing look soooo easy and his footwork?? we should really consider putting him in the centre more and adding him to the dance line :(( his interaction with johnny are the most precious!! his skin glows it really really does he’s so beautiful :(

NCT127: overall, a team with really really good teamwork and unity. their choreographies were executed so well there’s so much hard work and late hours of practice evident in it. they all compliment each other really well, and for the members we don’t hear much from in their recorded songs, got other members’ lines or shared with them. THEY EAT CDS FOR BREAKFAST. they really outsold themselves— they make it all look so easy. all of the boys couldn’t stop thanking us and kept emphasising how it was their first time in europe and how it was all because of us that their visit to london was possible. they also kept reminding us to have a good time with them but on top of that, to mind ourselves and to be careful. all of their english was so so so good, they really did study so hard, they only needed the translator once. they’re very open with their gratitude to their fans and you could feel how thankful they really were :(( we tried to sing them a happy birthday but we weren’t in sync so jaehyun stopped us and counted us in so we could all sing together :)) honestly the sweetest souls ever!

pretty sure i repeated a lot of words and adjectives and i hope this gave you a good idea of the boys!! please do feel free to ask me anything if i’ve missed out on some things!!

[jiminddeok]

WINGS (PT. 1) - M

For it was he who dared lay with a mortal, be cast down from the heavens and forever marked as a sinner

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Reader

Words: 4K

Genre: Fantasy, AU, 18+ (for cursing and future smut)

Summary:  While going on a camping trip one weekend with your brother and his friends, you run into a mysterious stranger who catches your attention in all the ways no man has ever done before.

Part: One

A/N: So this is a fic I wrote like 2 years ago, I’m just re-uploading it cause there’s some things that annoyed me when I read over the chapters and I just wanna publish them again. Anyway its not the best fic but I loved the idea I had originally and I hope some readers might like it too ^^

~

Kim Taehyung had always been seen as a prodigy. He grew up on the higher tiers of the heavens, surrounded by the purest of pure. People praised him daily for his smarts, always the first to come up with a solution, and was never questioned for what he said.

Maybe it was because of all this, that the angel Taehyung began to stray from the path that was set out before him. When people told him, what was to become of him, he always wondered why? Why must he do what others want of him? Him being the smartest of them all. A king should not have to bow down to those of lesser importance, and Taehyung knew he was above all who surrounded him.

They say intelligence correlates with curiosity, and no place tempted the angels’ mind more than the forbidden lands that lay below.

~

“Shit, I think I’m lost.”

I was currently driving around a mountain trail, utterly convinced l was going the wrong way, seeing as my sat nav was telling me to go in a direction which I’m pretty sure would take me off a cliff.

“I’m gonna wring Jungkook’s neck when I see him,” I mumbled to myself. My little brother thought it would be a great idea to go camping for the weekend with his group of friends, but seeing as I was working late, I had to drive up to the camping site by myself to find them. I didn’t think twice about it when we had discussed it earlier and I’d agreed to come at a later time. But now that it was beginning to get dark out, my nerves were starting to get to me. I stopped the car and pulled over on the side of the dirt road, deciding maybe it was time to try and get some help.

“I suppose I should ring someo- Ah fuck!” I shouted as I looked at my phone, of course it would have chosen that moment to go dead, god forbid something actually went right for me for once. The lack of available communication just raised my level of worry from mild to extreme. “I should just turn around and forget the whole thing, my brother probably won’t even notice if I don’t show up,” I said with a whine.

I sat for a few moments in the car staring at the forest surrounding me, debating what to do. Jungkook had put a lot of effort into planning the trip, his friends were all home from college for the weekend, and he didn’t get to see them often because he was younger and still attending high school. The boys couldn’t have a wider range of personalities, but they all became good friends after signing up for the local music club. I genuinely loved those boys like they were my family. Since our father passed away, Jungkook didn’t have many male role models to look up to. But now he had five older brothers and I couldn’t be more thankful to them for looking after him.

I had just made my mind up when I noticed a figure suddenly emerge from between the trees. It was too dark to see their face, but the blond hair they sported was clearly visible. I remembered Jungkook mentioning Jimin having dyed his hair recently, so I didn’t give it a second thought when I jumped out of the car and ran towards the boy. Finally, I was rescued.

“Jimin, over here!” I shouted, waving at the figure.

Honestly, I should have at least waited by my car for him to come over, just in case. But I was too grateful by the thought of being rescued that I didn’t even consider that it could be someone else. As I grew nearer I began to notice things about the person. Things like how they were ever so slightly taller than the Jimin I remembered, and his back profile didn’t have the muscular structure I was guilty of staring at a little too often. My feet stopped moving when this information finally registered with me, and I came to a standstill when they turned around.

It was an angel.

Or at least they looked as though they could’ve been one. The man who stood in front of me looked as though he’d literally descended into the forest. He had a mess of blond hair on top of his head, which I had already seen from a distance, but now that I was closer I could tell there was no way that this blond came from a bottle. It was a golden colour unlike any I’d seen before, a perfect contrast to his dark eyes, which were directly into mine.

It took me a while before I realised neither of us were talking, only staring at each other. Him with a smirk on his face, and me with my mouth hanging open like a fool.

“You’re not Jimin,” were the only words I could think to say. The stranger chuckled at me and I swear my heart jumped.

“No, I’m certainly not.” He replied.

Fuck me. With a face like that I hadn’t expected a voice so deep to respond. I needed to get a grip, this guy probably thought there was something wrong with me seeing as all I was doing was staring.

“Ye-yeah, sorry, I thought you were someone else,” I managed to stammer out a reply, for once thankful for the dark so he couldn’t see my blushing face. “I’ll just be going, sorry again,” I held up my hand as a sort of parting wave towards him and turned to walk away, but a tug at my sleeve pulled me back.

“Are you lost?” the stranger asked, holding onto my sleeve. “With the way you came running over, I’m guessing you’re looking for someone? A boyfriend maybe?” He cocked his head at me in question, still not having left go of me.

“Uh, yea- I mean no. I’m supposed to be camping with my brother and friends. No boyfriend, definitely no boyfriend. But yeah, I’m lost. I was just going to drive around again when I saw you. I was hoping you were someone I knew,” I stammered out, cringing internally at myself. What was wrong with me? I spent most of my life hanging around those of the opposite sex and I’d never been affected in this manner.

“Is it the campsite near the waterfall? Because I can guide you there if you need,” the stranger asked. Was this really happening? Was a super hot guy offering to save my lost ass out in this forest?

I stared at him trying to decide whether it was a good idea or not to trust him, but before I could, he started dragging me back in the direction of my car.

“Get in. If you drive, I can direct you,” the stranger said.

I didn’t even get a chance to refuse, not that I wanted to really, before he shoved me behind the wheel of my old banger of a car and closed my door shut behind me. He then walked around the front of the car and sat himself into the passenger seat next to me.

As he sat into the car, he carried a scent in with him, a scent like fresh air. The kind of smell you get when you first open your windows on a spring morning. I was utterly mesmerized.

“I take it you’re not in a hurry?” He said with a smug voice.

I gazed to the side and the handsome stranger was looking back at me with a smirk on his face.

“Ugh, yeah sorry. So which way do we go?” The stranger chuckled and began pointing me in the direction of the campsite.

~

“Finally!” I shouted out.

We had just rounded a corner, and I could see a campfire flickering up ahead, with the silhouettes of people around it. It had taken us about 20 minutes of traversing the mountain, but we’d finally found the campsite.

The stranger hadn’t spoken much to me, aside from giving directions, but I felt his gaze on me the entire time. It was quite flattering, but I had never felt so self conscious in my life. I could feel his eyes following my every movement, every time I pushed my hair out of my face or licked my lips out of nervousness.

I pulled up next to the car that I recognised as my brothers new jeep, thankful that I finally found them. Now I just had the problem of getting rid of the stranger before the boys noticed him. Not that they were overprotective, but they would take any chance they could to tease me, and showing up with a boy would be prime teasing material.

I took a deep breath and turned to the passenger seat, but the man was already exiting the car.

“Hey wai-”

He was walking towards the back of the car and I had to twist in my seat to follow his movement. He paused for a moment, I’m guessing to find the button to open the booth, before succeeding and ultimately cutting off my view. I scrambled to get out of the car and stop him before he could try and do anything, but he had already managed to pick up half the bags I had stuffed in the back.

“I really appreciate all your help with getting me here, but I couldn’t possibly ask you to do anymore for me, you can leave those there, it’s fine,” I said as I fumbled out of the car and made to go to the booth. I tried to grab the bags from the stranger’s hands, but he must have been hiding some serious muscles under his shirt because all my tugging did nothing.

“Just let me help you,” he said, clearly amused at my attempts to take back my stuff. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been this interested in something.” His words caught me by surprise and I dropped my arms to my sides.

I dared to look into the eyes of the stranger and found him already gazing at me. With some form of superhuman strength, he managed to shuffle all the bags into one hand, and reached out to me with the other. Usually I’d be wary of strange men trying to get so close to me, but there was just something about this guy that shut off all reasoning in my brain. His fingers touched the side of my face and I let out a huge deep breath that I didn’t know I was holding. His hand continued across my face to tuck a piece of stray hair behind my ear, and then rested there on the side of my head. My body seemed to have a mind of its own, as I began to inch closer to the man in front of me, not breaking eye contact for a second.

“Y/n!”

I probably jumped about three feet into the hair at the sound of my younger brother calling out to me. I’d been so caught up in my moment with the stranger, that I hadn’t heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Jungkook came right up to me and pulled me into his arms, totally oblivious to the moment that he’d ruined.

Jungkook was my younger brother by 4 years, but most days he acted as if he was the older one. I know he felt pressured to become the “man of the house” once dad passed. He took on a weekend job as soon as he could, to help mom out with the bills, and he was always looking out for me too. But because of this, he was awful for showing respect to us as his elders. Not just with me, but with all our friends. He was a cheeky little shit sometimes but he was too cute and always got away with it.

“Where have you been? We were so worried about you,” my brother said, as he held me out in front of him, giving me the once over making sure I was all in one piece. I strained my neck to look behind me, searching for the stranger, while Jungkook fussed. He was still there, staring at us with a confused look on his face.

“Who’s this?” Jungkook had stopped checking me over, and instead was now focused on the man standing behind me.

“Uh, this is the guy who helped me here. I got lost on the way and he was nice enough to give me directions. His name is…” I trailed off realising that I hadn’t even thought to ask his name.

“V,” the stranger cut in, “you can call me V.” He held out his hand to Jungkook, who took it and gave it a firm shake. I stood in between the two, still trying to process the last few minutes.

“Are you up camping around here too? Do you wanna join us?” My brother asked V. That was another thing I hadn’t questioned, V had been wandering out in the forest alone with no equipment when I had found him. There was something seriously wrong with my brain not to question any of this.

“I’ve set up camp nearby, but I’ll join you for a bit, I’m in no rush to leave.” V said, winking at me as he walked off with my brother. The two of them had managed to take all my bags between them, and I was left standing there with arms empty and mouth hanging open.

I felt like I was stuck in the middle of a dream, or possibly a nightmare depending on the reaction of the rest of the gang. This stranger could be a complete psychopath, and he’s just waltzed right into our company without a hint of suspicion by anyone. What was going on?

~

By the time I’d made it over to the campfire, V had settled himself in between Jungkook and Jimin. Looking at the back of the two now, I wonder how I ever could’ve mistaken V for Jimin, even at a distance. The two had totally different builds, Jimin was very broad, muscled and pale, whereas V was slender and toned looking, with a slight tan to his skin tone.

I made my way to the other side of the fire, and sat down next to Yoongi, the only person I knew who wouldn’t tease me for arriving with a strange man. He was probably my favourite person out of all the boys to hang out with. We had an easy friendship, neither of us pressured the other into talking when we were in a foul mood, but we were always there for each other too when we needed to talk. We both loved to just sit at home and relax whenever we all got together, which is something none of the rest of the boys understood.

Jin and Namjoon weren’t too bad, we like to joke that they were the mom and dad of the group. They had a tendency to look out for the rest of the gang, and take charge in certain situations. But they had their crazy moments too. Then there was my brother and Jimin who were like two little children always running around the place. They were so hyperactive all the time and seemed to have a never ending supply of energy. When they got together, chances are we’d always find them off doing some sort of physical activity.

“So y/n, who knew you were the kind to pick up strangers eh?” one of the boys joked.

I hadn’t even fully sat down before the teasing began. Jimin stared across the fire at me, smirking and looking between me and the stranger he was speaking of.

“I’d say I’m less of a stranger and more of a guardian angel. Who knows how long she’d have taken to find this place if it weren’t for me,” V said, winking over at me. I swear he had an obsession with winking. The rest of the group laughed along with him and I just put my head on my lap, groaning in response.

“Well at least you’re here now,” Yoongi said sympathetically, rubbing my back. I subconsciously began to sway along with the motion of the rubbing. I loved having my back rubbed. My mom used to say I was like a cat because I melted into people whenever they rubbed my back or head. It was a guaranteed way to calm me down in most situations.

I lifted my heavy head to see V once again giving me that strange look, the same one he had earlier when Jungkook hugged me. I wouldn’t call it a jealous look or anything, more like a confused look. This was in turn confusing me, seeing as I couldn’t see why he would be looking at me like that.

“Right well I’d better go set up my tent then,” I said, standing up. It was dark which meant it would be difficult enough to set up my tent, but better to do it now while I wasn’t as tired.

“I’ll help,” Jungkook said, standing up with me. Normally I’d be a bit stubborn and refuse the help, but I’d already wasted enough time getting here tonight, I didn’t want to miss out on anything more by having to spend hours setting up the tent. I nodded over towards him as a silent thanks and collected my stuff from where him and V had dropped it earlier.

“Be back soon,” I called out and we walked over to where the rest of the tents were set up.

~

“Jungkook what are you- OUCH! That was my face you moron!” I shouted.

To say we were struggling was an understatement. My tent was one of those ones where you had to connect the poles and slide them through hoops in the tent, which wouldn’t have been so bad if either of us had brought something stronger than the light of our phones to see with.

“It’s not my fault you decided to stick your eye where the pole is supposed to come out!” Jungkook snapped back at me as he tried once again to stab my eye out.

“Need a hand?” V emerged through the bushes, looking ever so like the guardian angel he claimed to be. My heart rate jumped a bit at the sight of him, as if it had been weeks, rather than minutes since I’d last seen him. I was seriously going to have to get myself checked out if I was going this loopy over a man, this just isn’t like me at all.

“Yes please, you can take over here and I’ll head back to the guys before someone here gets hurt,” Jungkook said, and took off before I could even argue with what he said.

V strolled over to me, and took the pole from my hand, grazing my fingers as he did so. Once again I just kind of stood there with my mouth hanging open as V took the reins and began fixing up the tent.

“Are you an experienced camper?” I asked, amazed at the skill he was showing. His fingers worked so quickly at getting the poles to go in the right places.

“No,” he laughed, “I’m just good with my hands,” he said and winked over at me.

Once again I was glad for the darkness around us, because I know right then and there that my face must have been the brightest shade of red ever.

“You’re very fond of winking you know,” I stuttered out, trying to appear as if I hadn’t been affected by his previous words.

“It’s a new concept to me, and I like the way it seems to affect you,” he replied in a deadly serious tone.

“A new concept? Do they not wink where you’re from?” I tried to play it cool, choosing to ignore the latter half of his sentence. V got up, having finished setting up the tent, and moved to stand in front of me.

“Yes surprisingly, I’m from a pretty far away place and winking isn’t something you would see often,” he said moving closer to me, “and neither are girls like you.”

V brushed his hand up against my face like earlier, moving his hand to rest behind my ear. He began rubbing his thumb along the side of my head, and I closed my eyes, melting into his touch, and to be honest I don’t think I’d have been able to stop myself even if I wanted to.

“You really are such an interesting creature.”

I was about to ask him what he meant by that, but when I opened my eyes, I realised how close he had gotten to me. Our faces were mere inches apart and he was staring very intently at my lips.

So I kissed him.

If someone ever asked me what had possessed me to do it, I wouldn’t know what to say. Kissing strangers wasn’t something I did, I never made the first move. But it felt as though my body was working separately to my mind and just went for it.

V went rigid as soon as my lips touched his. Neither of us had closed our eyes and I could see the shocked look reflected on his face. His lips were sealed tight and had not responded at all to my touch.

I was mortified.

I started to pull back, but V’s grip on the side of my head tightened.

Then, he closed his eyes, and his mouth began to move against mine.

It was like nothing I’d ever felt.

My stomach was churning with butterflies and I thought my heart would beat out of my chest.

I closed my eyes and moved my lips back along with his. He placed his free hand on my side, and I felt my skin singing at his touch.

I moved my hands, which had been dangling by my sides, and I used them to grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer.

Our lips were moving furiously against each other, with a passion I had never before felt.

V’s hand squeezed my side, causing my ticklish self to let out a gasp, leaving my mouth open against his. He used the opportunity to gently brush his tongue along mine and I swear the movement started a fire between my legs.

It’s not as though I’d never been intimate with a boy before, but no one had ever made me feel so alive just by kissing.

I boldly pushed back against his tongue, swiping along it, enjoying the feeling of the two slick muscles rubbing off each other.

As our mouths moved, and our tongues danced together, I began to move my hands lower down his body, to his sides. Once I got a grip on his hips, I pulled his towards my lower half, mashing our bodies as close together as they could go.

V let out a growl from his throat at the contact, and wrapped his hands further around my body, until we were both so caught up in each other that you couldn’t tell where I started and he ended.

Seeing as our bodies were so close to each other, it made sense that I noticed it as soon as he did, when a movement began in his pants. Considering the intimacy between us, I wasn’t surprised to feel him getting hard. But V suddenly froze, and pushed me away.

We stood facing each other, both panting and out of breath. There was a look of pain etched across V’s face, and if he was having an internal fight with his body.

I couldn’t understand what had gone wrong, and as I took a step towards V, he took a step back.

A different feeling began to take over my stomach, this one was a feeling of dread and rejection. Had I done something wrong? Did he not want to kiss me?

“V…”

I whispered his name but trailed off, not knowing what to say.

“I’m sorry,” was all he said before he turned away and walked through the bushes, leaving me standing in the cold, having never felt so alone.

[almostnoisydonut]

𝓦𝓪𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓢𝓲𝓰𝓷𝓼 𝓞𝓯 𝓐𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓼𝓱 𝓦𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰

I started academic writing just over 7 years ago, at that point, my knowledge of the proper usage of grammar and punctuation was subjectively slightly above average.

Just over 7 years later, it’s still not perfect. Just ask my senior who’s always spotting slight mistakes on my twice proofread articles, and it’s always much appreciated. It’s not everyday you meet a fellow writer who likes to help out.

The truth is, even the seasoned writers and best selling novelists still make errors similar to ours even when proofread by them or their editors.

The difference is their errors are common mistakes. They might even be overlooked by a lot of readers.

An amateur writer’s errors are spotted right when your eyes hit the words and punctuation. When you read it, something feels off; it can be easily misunderstood or just very sour to read.

Here are some warning signs of amateur writing:

Of course, this refers to sentences that end in two or more !, ?, or worse, ?!. But it also refers to frequent exclamation point usage.

Some good rules of thumb:

if your dialogue needs an exclamation point, usually the dialogue or action isn’t strong enough

you never need an exclamation point in narration, unless it’s a children’s book

Limit your exclamation point usage to 2 every 50k words. Never use “!!,” “??,” nor “?!“.

A lot of writing requires research. Once you’ve done the research, it only makes sense to share what you’ve learned with the reader, right?

No. You have to be conscious of blatantly sharing information.

For example: say you had to research women’s roles during WWII America. You could write, “Many women started working in factories after the men went to war.”

Or, you could relate the information to the story: “Minnie started working at the factory down by the shipyard. Just a couple weeks later, Jane and Pearl joined her.”

Be subtle in how you relay information, especially historical fact. Your reader is always smarter than you expect.

Most of the time, the culprit here is the word count that we’re trying to achieve so we try to sneak in a few more adjectives or anything that might help reach that word count.

When we do this, sometimes the sentence can sound untasteful. Like you just opened up your thesaurus just to find words to cram in.

There’s beauty in simplicity. Don’t over complicate your writing. Stay true to the truth of what your writing is all about.

Poor spelling/grammar/syntax: As others have mentioned, this is a pretty obvious indicator of an amateur writer. Sometimes it’s a result of the writer’s lack of education or inexperience with the English language, which is no fault of their own, but it’s such a common plague of online writing that sometimes I have a hard time convincing myself that it’s not sheer laziness. Yes, it matters. It matters because poor English is difficult to read, distracts from the story, and usually correlates with poor storytelling as well.

An amateur writer stops at “because it’s cool.”

A good writer starts at “because it’s cool” and spins an entire web of story and worldly lore around it.

Lastly, professional writers remember they are in service to language, to their characters, and to their readers. If you underestimate or take for granted any of those 3 things, you're going to be in trouble.

[wordsinwinters]

Then Again, P2 Peter Parker x Reader

Author’s Note: Thank you so much to my new followers and to everyone who liked Part 1! As I mentioned before, this is the first piece of writing I’ve ever posted online, so each response means the world to me. Thank you guys so much! In particular, a huge thanks to fanboyswhereare-you, my wonderful beta.

Again, if you have any comments, questions, or anything at all that you want to tell me, send me a message. Reviews are welcome! (Please review, as a writer, I really really really value peer responses and vague validation.)

Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

Without further ado,

Then Again, Part 2:

(Word count: 2,022)

I hate the waiting game.

It is by far my least favorite game to play with Peter. QuizUp, Kahoots, Monopoly, How-Many-Arguments-Can-We-Start-Between-Ned-and-MJ-In-A-Day, Charades, and Scrabble are all entertaining games to play with him. The waiting game, however, is grey and bland. Moreover, it makes me feel paranoid and clingy. Both paranoid and clingy, yet simultaneously doubtful of how valid those two emotions can be, given the circumstances. It’s a draining game of mental tennis. On one side of the court: I’m being - and coming across as - so clingy. On the other: My emotions are justified reactions that anyone would have in this situation, not knowing if their friend is okay. Peter probably knows that too. Trying to decipher which is true and which is false only leads me to bounce back and forth between those two sides for hours. Until Peter responds. Then it all goes away.

The stress of the waiting game always manifests as an itch on my right index finger.

Most days that itch only somewhat bothers me - but today, of course, isn’t most days. It’s been a wonderful, sunny day that everyone (but Flash) has been planning for over a month. Like the city, it might not be glamorous, but it’s ours and it’s meant to be special.

I mean, even Peter has been excited about this from the start, all the way up to today. Despite being somewhat of a recluse this week.

At this point, my finger is red and burning. Peter hasn’t answered my texts, Michelle’s ironically professional emails, or Ned’s dozen calls. It’s 7:15 p.m.

Michelle thought it best to arrive early, so the three - rather than four - of us await the rest of the team at a large table in a decently busy restaurant.

I open my messages. Nothing.

“We’re already here, btw.”

Whoosh. I close them. Ned glances at my phone.

“Tell him if he’s later than 8, I’ll rat him out to Aunt May. She told him this morning that he should skip his ‘Starky stuff’ and just hang out with everybody today. I don’t think she was too happy when she got home and saw he wasn’t there.”

I hadn’t heard May say anything to Peter this morning. Then again, I had fallen asleep at the table. (Michelle kept kneeing me on the couch all night - the reason I barely slept.) And when Peter woke me up because the cereal bowl I was cradling threatened to fall, May didn’t even make a joke about it. Did they have an argument?

“Earth to Y/N?” Ned waved his hand in front of my face. “Daydreaming about Spider-Man again?”

On the bright side, Peter isn’t here to hear that. Ned’s been making a lot of weird comments like that today. It’s not helping the fact I feel so paranoid. How would Ned know? And why so suddenly?

“Very funny. I’ll text him.”

I open my messages again.

“You and May okay? Ned says he’ll tell her you bailed if you don’t get here by 8. Don’t shoot the messenger.”

A few minutes later, the waiter brings a tray of waters. Two minutes more and he leads Abe, Cindy, Sally, and unexpectedly, Betty, the blonde newsgirl, non-decathlon member, to the table.

A round of “Hello!”’s are exchanged.

“It’s cool if Betty joins us, right?” Sally asks. “We all kind of met up on our way here and she was about to pass by, so we thought it’d be alright?”

“Of course,” Michelle says. Her nails drum the table. Our little code.

“Absolutely,” I add. “Ned was just saying we should have invited you, Betty!”

Ned thinks he can keep a secret. But he can’t. I’ve noticed him staring at her in seventh hour and Michelle is far too perceptive to miss it. With me, Michelle, Peter, and Flash all being in that class, you’d think he might make an effort to be less obvious.

Have I been obvious? Is that why Ned’s been making those jokes today? But why today? I barely even saw Peter today, let alone while Ned was there.

“Really? Thank you! I didn’t want to intrude on the team before you guys left or anything.”

Her smile is genuine. I suppress a laugh as Ned’s ears twinge red and he struggles for a cool way to play along.

“Yeah, totally. I mean, you should go with us to D.C. It’d be totally cool.”

“And totally against the rules,” Cindy points out, frowning. “Don’t get me wrong, it would be cool, but Mr. Harrington doesn’t let anyone outside of the team come. Trust me, I-”

BEEEEEEP! A horn blares outside. Once. Twice. Thrice. The third blast holds for ten seconds, minimum.

A waitress, her arms full of hot plates, glares out the window she’s now blocking. I have a guess as to which car in all of New York it is, though. Nevertheless, the scent of freshly baked salmon, wild rice, chocolate, and something lemony from the plates is making my mouth water. Hurry up, Parker. Even Flash is on time.

“I predict,” Abe says, “Flash will walk through those doors in approximately sixty seconds.”

Everyone watches the clock, all knowing it’s undoubtably him.

Sixty seconds later, Flash strides in.

“You know,” he announces, pulling off his the price of this could buy Ned a new gaming console jacket, “in this world, there are the Have’s and the Have-Not’s. And the Have-Not’s are real dicks to any Have’s with a worthwhile car.”

Michelle immediately starts to speak.

“No need to go off on a spiel, O Captain, Our Captain,” he mocks. “I know, I know. Rich people, poor people, power structures, etcetera etcetera. Don’t get your braids in a knot.”

“Are-”

“Oh my god! It’s not a race thing! Chill out. It’s literally because you’re wearing braids today. Not everything means something, you know!”

He’s barely sat down and he’s already trying his best to pick a fight. The consistency of it borders on comforting. In a strange, stupid way, Flash is dependable.

“Freud would beg to differ,” says a voice to my left.

I’m surprised for the second time in the last ten minutes. Peter didn’t bail.

I feel my pulse jump as he runs a hand through his hair and shrugs. I hate myself for it. He slides into the booth to take the table’s last seat beside me. Oddly, he doesn’t say hello or acknowledge me at all. Then again, he’s been odd all week.

Does Ned know something? Did he tell Peter? Does Peter feel awkward about me now?

I try to shake myself of these thoughts. Ned can’t know anything. I haven’t said a thing to anyone. It has to be something else. It has to be.

“Yeah, well,” Flash says, affronted. “Freud wasn’t a real psychologist anyway. What’s his work got to offer? It’s not even valid.”

Everyone races into the topic at once, drowning out the restaurant’s gentle music.

Moments like this make me fall in love with friends all over again. My best friends are talking passionately with their hands, their individual mannerisms and voices blending together like warm colors and soft city sounds. My other friends (or teammates, however you would label it) are bouncing points and ideas from each person to the next like an inflatable beach ball, never stumbling over one another.

For once, I sit back and soak up the moment. Admittedly, Freud is a subject I would rarely pass up, but I’m too relieved at the turn-out to think. Everyone showed up. Everyone is getting along. (As much as ever.) Rather than participate in the aggressive bonding of our group, I smile, listen, and laugh, trying to convince myself things with Peter are fine. This is the perfect night for an almost perfect day, don’t overthink it.

I take a moment to admire the restaurant. It’s one Abe suggested. The room is deep red, the hanging lights emit a delicate glow, and for the sake of minimalistic elegance, gold flecks are painted to sprinkle down the walls from the ceiling. It’s such a small detail I almost miss it. Other tables are talking and joking, silverware clanging and plates steaming. It smells like a fresh bakery impregnated with a vegetable garden and a smokehouse.

Mouth watering again, I notice Flash is the only one looking at a menu. He’s gotten to the “I don’t care about this topic anymore” stage of his argument. I don’t want to interrupt anyone, so I pick up my menu as well. Maybe someone else will catch on and one by one we’ll come back down to Earth.

“Yes it does!” Peter shouts beside me.

Maybe not.

“You can’t bring that up without discussing the one thing that clearly directly correlates his childhood to that thesis!” Peter says. I suddenly realize he’s seriously into this argument. The point he’s making is one of my own though, so it gives me a short flutter of pride. I know he listens to me and to everyone else, but it’s satisfying to have it confirmed, to know, with evidence, that we learn from each other. “Right, Ned?”

Peter turns from Flash to me to Ned. In the half-second they’re directed at me, his eyes shine with anger. My gut drops. Peter never gets angry, not like this, not at me.

“Yeah,” Ned says slowly, “but Y/N gets this better than I do. Didn’t you say-?”

Peter whips back to Flash.

“My point is-”

Ned gives me a questioning look, head tilted.

Peter is less than a foot to my left, but I take out my phone anyway. He’s too deep into the argument to notice and I can’t ignore whatever is going on anymore. I message Ned and Michelle.

“Peter mad at me for something?”

Whoosh.

The waiter returns to the table.

“Anyone ready to order?” he says, pen and paper pad in hand.

“I am,” Flash affirms immediately. “I’ll have the-”

“We’ll need a few minutes,” I say. Nobody picked up the menu hint.

The waiter nods and leaves with a smile.

“Okay, children,” Michelle says. “Let’s be quiet for a couple minutes and focus at the task at hand. Everyone have their menus? Excellent. I’m so proud. Ready. Set. Go!”

The table as a whole seems fine. Everyone here takes debating as entertainment and few topics result in any real disagreements. (Well, we get over them quickly, at least.)

Across the table, Abe points at his favorite dish as a suggestion for Cindy. Everyone else is calmly reading the first page.

Except Peter. Peter’s mouth is screwed up in mute irritation. In truth, it’s hard to take him seriously with that expression. It looks like he’s trying to hide something in there. Just a couple secrets, no big deal. I consider whispering a joke to him about it to lighten the mood. I deflect the thought immediately; I doubt it would work right now.

Ding! Ding!

My phone. Peter huffs. I switch it to silent.

MJ: “He’s acting weird. Maybe it’s about May? They got into an argument in her room while you were cuddling your Fruity Pebbles.”

“About what?”

Whoosh.

Bzz.

MJ: “I couldn’t hear. Kind of pissed me off. I have no idea. Ned?”

I glance up. Michelle has built a house out of her and Abe’s menu since he’s looking at Cindy’s. Her phone must be hidden inside like an Easter egg.

Ned, like me, hasn’t put that kind of effort into covering up our gossiping. He’s scanning the menu, but texting under the table.

Bzz.

Ned: “I heard 1: time management 2: friendly-at-home-occasionally Peter Parker 3. Y/N might”

Me?

“I might what???”

Whoosh.

Ned: “I cnat believe i typed that without any mistakes not looking. and idk. those were just the words i cauhgt.”

MJ: “Ironic, Ned.”

I sneak a peek at Peter. He lifts an eyebrow. I’m not sure if it’s a reaction to something on the menu or if he knows I’m trying to analyze him through my peripheral vision. Either way, I give up on both the analysis and the texts.

Part 3

Part 3 will be posted tomorrow night! 

Let me know what you think :)

[officetime02-blog]

Does a ketogenic diet confer the benefits of butyrate without the fibre?

Tenuous arguments from fibre apologists

According to many plant-eating enthusiasts, we must eat fibre to be healthy for the following reasons:

Note: These are not the only arguments people make for eating fibre. These are only reasons related to butyrate.

Fibre is the only way to get butyrate.

Butyrate prevents colon cancer.

Butyrate in the colon treats colitis.

Butyrate is the preferred fuel of the colonocyte, therefore it is essential.

Without butyrate your colon cells will die off.

Of the above statements, only one of them seems well-justified to me, but it also seems irrelevant. Let's start from the end.

Without butyrate your colon cells will die off.

This idea (a quote from Wikipedia) seems to to be an exaggerated interpretation of a study by Donohoe et al.. The authors are studying germ-free mice, who don't, of course, have bacteria synthesising butyrate. They describe what looks to them like impaired colon cell energetics in the mice and ultimately autophagy upregulation, meaning the cells are eating themselves. They reverse these effects with butyrate. I've already written about some of the curious paradoxes inherent in the study. To summarise, other studies consistently find germ-free mice to be healthier than wild mice by many a measure, including appearing to be more energetic, and living longer. There seems to have been a conflation of cell energy with mitochondrial energy, by not looking for mitochondrial density changes. So, I'm not convinced the butyrate made things better.

Likewise, the reported evidence of autophagy (increased autophagosomes attributed to upregulation of AMPK), insofar as it indicates autophagy, could equally be a desirable result, given the role of autophagy in maintaining healthy tissues. See, e.g. [Miz2011]. Certainly unrestrained autophagy, with no homeostatic mechanism, should result in total loss of tissue, but that doesn't seem to happen with the germ-free mice. Germ-free rodents have freakishly large caecums, and somewhat reduced small intestines, but so far as I can tell, no colon abnormalities worth mentioning. For an extensive review of the data already available in 1971 on germ-free animals, including the structure and function of various organs, see The gnotobiotic animal as a tool in the study of host microbial relationships..

In any case, if the colons of germ-free mice are at any disadvantage there are clearly more differences that might be attributable to than mere lack of butyrate. Are there other reasons to worry about colon cells that don't get any?

Butyrate is the preferred fuel of the colonocyte, therefore it is essential.

If you haven't read my thoughts on the term "preferred", the point is that what a cell will consume first isn't necessarily the fuel that is the healthiest, though it certainly can be. Other reasons could be to get rid of it, or to access the metabolites. I'm not really suggesting that butyrate is toxic to colon cells. (Though as soon as that thought occurred to me I looked for evidence that it can be, which, of course there is [Pen2007]. Apparently it can accumulate due to maldigestion or bacterial overgrowth and cause serious epithelial damage. But I digress.) All I'm saying is that habitual heavy use doesn't imply something is needed. The same argument has been made about glucose in the brain, and we all know that the brain actually needs only a very small amount of glucose, if β-hydroxybutyrate is in good supply. It's still possible that other fuels are as good or better than butyrate for the colonocyte.

Butyrate in the colon treats colitis.

Normally, colonocytes do metabolise butyrate, mostly into CO2 and ketone bodies, but this is impaired in ulcerative colitis [Roe1980], [Roe1993], [Ahm2000], such that ketogenesis is is inversely proportional to the severity of the disease [Roe1980].

This impairment may explain the mixed results in treatments involving butyrate. Some researchers have tried to treat colitis by adding more butyrate for substrate, by enema. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that has not met with much success. Or has it? I read a somewhat confusing review [Mal2015] that has several citations in it that don't appear to line up with the claims preceded by the citations, including citing the same paper that I've cited above (Roe1980), as showing "that restoration of butyrate levels by intracolonic infusion treats UC", which I can find no mention of in the paper, and citing a single paper twice, ([Ham2010]), once to say that enemas had very limited effect (which I think is correct) and once, later, to say it was a "well demonstrated" "cure". These are probably just simple citation errors on my part or theirs.

There have been some successes using enemas, but the results are mixed [Ham2008]. Insofar as there are successes, it is worth noting that the butyrate was taken in by rectal cells, not colon cells, and so the effect was post-absorptive. In other words, it must have come systemically. In fact, when the butyrate is applied directly to impaired cells it seems to worsen the situation. These points are noted in the review, and motivates their own contribution.

The researchers used intraperitoneal injections of butyrate to apparently almost completely restore colonocyte integrity in rodent models of colitis. At face value, this would suggest that it is not the butyrate that helped, but a metabolite of butyrate, i.e. ketone bodies, since peritoneal injections normally pass through the liver [Tur2011]. If it's systemic ketone bodies we want, we know how to do that! Also, this method is rarely used in humans, so it may not be easy to make any practical use of. In any case, none of this would suggest that eating plant fibre will help colitis in any way, given that the issue appears to depend on inability to use the butyrate.

Ulcerative Colitis UC and Crohn's Disease (CD) constitute the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD). There is not clear evidence that fibre intake helps with IBD, and in fact, "low residue" or "low fibre" diets are usually recommended (see below). In case you were wondering, "residue" means anything that survives digestion, and comes all the way through the intestines. That includes fibre , but also microorganisms, and secretions and cells shed from the alimentary tract.

While there are studies that support the benefit of fibre in IBD, there are others showing harm. The evidence is mixed enough to be called weak and inconclusive [Kap2016].

Anecdotes such as the "Crohn's Carnivore" suggest a different solution might hold for some:

"Eight years ago I decided to eat nothing but meat for a year. Now I have a perfectly normal colon. If those two events are indeed correlated, and someone could figure out exactly how, a whole lot of people would be able to find relief from a terrible disease."

That experience runs both with and possibly against current dietary guidelines for IBD. In a 2011 review [Bro2011], the authors show that most guidelines advise low fibre intake, especially during flares. Some also advise low fat intake, and in particular, to eat lean meat. I'm not sure whether the Crohn's Carnivore was eating lean or fatty meat during his year of healing. At first blush, the low fat advisory looks like just another "extra-mile" kind of recommendation, in which guideline writers are throwing in other ideas about healthy diet for good measure. However, they state that it comes from the reported reactions of some patients. They also cite patient surveys which list meat as a provoking food in 25% of respondents. (The most common response was vegetables, at 40%). One wonders if there are conflations. Later, the authors specifically say that there is little to support or refute a low fat recommendation.

Another anecdote, this time elevated to "case study" level, because physicians penned it, comes from the Evolutionary Medicine Working Group, in Budapest, Hungary [Tot2016]. They report complete resolution of symptoms in a child with Crohn's and cessation of medications from an essentially meat-only diet. The exception was that patient was allowed some honey, but it was low enough that ketosis was maintained. This was a 2:1 fat:protein diet, so definitely not low fat. The child had previously tried low fat, low fibre, and several medications without improvement. It is interesting to note that even one dose of "paleo approved" fibre caused a flare up.

"Given the patient's severe condition upon the first visit the paleolithic ketogenic diet was started in the strictest form thus containing no vegetables and fruits at all. Such a diet may first sound restrictive but our previous experience indicate that a full fat-meat diet is needed in the most severe cases of Crohn's disease. In addition, our experience shows that even a single occasion of deviation from diet rules may result in lasting relapse. This was the case in the present patient too where breaking the strict rules (eating the "paleo cakes") resulted in a thickening of the bowel wall. Based on our experience this is due to the components of the popular paleolithic diet including coconut oil, oil seeds and sugar alcohols which may trigger inflammation."

In other words, a fibre-free ketogenic diet appears help IBD more than a diet including fibre, even a ketogenic diet including fibre.

Butyrate prevents colon cancer.

The idea that butyrate might be protective of colon cancer seems to have started in the 1980s (see, e.g., [Sen2006].

This area of research is extensive, and I am by no means an expert. If you haven't guessed, that butyrate has a protective effect on colon cancer is the one statement I think is entirely defensible.

It's not known exactly how butyrate exerts its protective effects, but some mechanisms held to be important are also induced by β-hydroxybutyrate. For example butyrate's histone deacelytase (HDAC) inhibition is considered an important mechanism [Hin2002], [Blo2011]. β-Hydroxybutyrate is also an HDAC inhibitor [Shi2013].

Gpr109a receptor activation is a recently identified mechanism [Sin2014]. Gpr109a has many aliases, including hydroxycarboxylic acid receptor 2 (HCA2) or niacin receptor 1 (NIACR1), and HM74a/PUMA-G. Gpr109a is activated by β-hydroxybutyrate [Tag2005], [Rah2014], [Gam2012]. It is sometimes simply called the β-hydroxybutyrate receptor.

In fact, the argument behind the relevance of the Gpr109a discovery is just as strong an argument for a ketogenic diet as for eating fibre! (This sentence is incorrect. See Edit.) That is, the researchers demonstrated that butyrate could substitute for niacin in activating these receptors, and that just as niacin activation of Gpr109a in fat cells is protective of cardiovascular disease, it may also be in diseases of the colon, and this argues for eating fibre to substitute for pharmalogic doses of niacin. From a press release:

"We think mega-doses of niacin may be useful in the treatment and/or prevention of ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and colorectal cancer as well as familial adenomatous polyposis, or FAP, a genetic condition that causes polyps to develop throughout the gastrointestinal tract"

...

"Research teams at GlaxoSmithKline and the University of Heidelberg, Germany showed in 2003 that Gpr109a receptors on the surface of fat cells mediate the protective cardiovascular effect of niacin, including increasing good cholesterol, or HDL, while decreasing levels of disease-producing LDL. Their search for other activators identified butyrate, which led Ganapathy to find that not only is the Gpr109a receptor expressed on the surface of colon cells, but that with sufficient fiber intake, butyrate levels in the colon can activate it."

[Edit]

2018-01-04: A critic pointed out that the cell receptors for SCFAs are facing the lumen, and therefore argued that beta-hydroxybutyrate from the portal side would be irrelevant. Indeed, the researchers using niacin also assume that the extremely high dose of niacin does not act sytemically, but rather reaches the lumen because of the super-high doses. So the statement I made above, about the argument for beta-hydroxybutyrate being equal to that for niacin is not correct. The argument still stands that the beta-hydroxybutyrate metabolites activating targets inside could be where the majority of the benefits of butyate come from. That is where the HDAC inhibition occurs and where the immune cell receptors are. At least one research group agrees with my speculation that the interior metabolites may be important for the effect [Siv2017]

" "As the cell-surface receptors for SCFAs are located on the lumen-facing apical membrane of colonic epithelial cells (see below), the luminal concentrations of these agonists are physiologically relevant. SCFAs are low-affinity agonists for these receptors, and the normal luminal concentrations of these bacterial metabolites are in the millimolar levels, sufficient to activate these receptors from the luminal side. However, some of the molecular targets for these metabolites are either inside the cells (e.g., HDACs) or on the surface of the immune cells located in the lamina propria. Therefore, concentrations of these metabolites inside the colonic epithelial cells and in the lamina propria are relevant to impact these molecular targets. The intracellular target HDAC is inhibited by butyrate and propionate at low micromolar concentrations. There are effective transport systems for SCFAs in the apical membrane of colonic epithelial cells (e.g., proton-coupled and sodium-coupled monocarboxylate transporters) [47], thus making it very likely for these SCFAs to reach intracellular levels sufficient to inhibit HDACs. Even though the luminal concentrations of SCFAs are in the millimolar range, it is unlikely that they reach lamina propria at significant levels to activate the cell-surface receptors present on the mucosal immune cells. These metabolites are present only at micromolar levels in the portal blood [57], indicating that they undergo robust metabolism inside the colonic epithelial cells. This raises the question as to the physiological relevance of these bacterial metabolites to the activation of the cell-surface SCFA receptors in immune cells located in the lamina propria. With regard to this issue, it is important to note that colonic epithelial cells are highly ketogenic; they use acetate and butyrate to generate the ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate [58]. This ketone body is released from the cells into portal blood. As β-hydroxybutyrate is 3–4 times more potent than butyrate in activating its receptor GPR109A, it can be speculated that the colon-derived ketone body is most likely involved in the activation of the SCFA receptor in mucosal immune cells."

Moreover, see the preliminary systemic evidence below.

Interestingly, as in the case of colitis, colorectal cancer appears to involve a dysfunction in ability to use butyrate. Specifically, there are detrimental changes in membrane transport that reduce its entry into the cell [Gon2016]. Therefore, it's unclear that once the disease process has begun, increased fibre intake will be of any use. Beta-hydroxybutyrate in the bloodstream, however, might.

There is at least some preliminary evidence that butyrate in the bloodstream has similar effects on intestinal tissue as butyrate coming from the colon itself [Kor1990], [Rol1997], [Bar2004], as does infusion of glutamine and acetoacetate, another ketone body [Rom1990]. Ketogenic diets do increase blood acetoacetate. If bloodstream infusion of butyrate is as effective as absorption of butyrate in the intestines in protecting colon cells from degradation, then it seems reasonable to hypothesise that β-hydroxybutyrate in the bloodstream would also have this effect.

These common mechanisms suggest that much or even all of the benefits obtainable by butyrate are equally achievable simply through ketogenic diets, making additional butyrate in the context of a ketogenic diet potentially superfluous.

Fibre is the only way to get butyrate.

Even though it seems likely that a fibre-free ketogenic diet is not only sufficient for colon health, but better for treating colon disease, we might feel cautious about going without the butyrate from fibre, given the dire pronouncements from nutritional scientists. Is there any other way to get butyrate? The most significant food source, butter, doesn't give much. Only about 3-4% of butter is butyric acid. According to [Sen2006] we produce >200mmol per day. That would take about a pound of butter!

Stepping back, it should be obvious that carnivores such as felines and canines provide an important source of data relevant to this question. Carnivores have colons, and they are not normally in ketosis unless food is scarce. Either their colons don't need butyrate, or they are getting sufficient butyrate from some other source. As it happens, there are microbes that ferment amino acids in to short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), including butyrate. Carnivores are known to get "animal fibre" from their prey. That is, amino acids from incompletely digested animal parts reach their colons and are fermented. In particular, in cheetahs, casein, collagen, and glucosamine have been shown to result in butyrate production comparable to fructo-oligosaccharides [Dep2012].

Beyond poorly digested animal sourced fibre, many amino acids are fermented into SCFAs, including butyrate [Ras1988], and these amino acids are abundant in human intestines and colons and are fermented there [Vit2014], [Dai2015], [Nei2015], [Wie2017]. I was unable to determine how much butyrate this would account for.

I did find research comparing the SCFA levels produced in dogs under conditions of high fibre vs. meat alone showing that they produced almost as much VFA (another word for SCFA) in their colons eating meat alone [Ban1979].

In any case, we certainly do generate butyrate in the absence of dietary fibre.

In sum

Although many in the medical community consider butyrate an essential fuel for colon cells, there may be a parallel to glucose and brain cells, in that some or all of this functionality could be replaceable with β-hydroxybutyrate. This idea is supported by these observations:

Carnivores and even germ-free mice have intact, working colons without contributions from fibre-derived butyrate, so it stands to reason that humans may not need it either.

Although not discussed in this post, some recent societies thrived on animal-based diets with little and infrequent plant intake.

β-hydroxybutyrate triggers many of the same mechanisms that butyrate does; those very mechanisms thought to explain its role in preventing colon cancer and the intestinal degradation seen in diseased colons or the colons of those receiving reduced fibre diets to promote bowel rest.

β-hydroxybutyrate may even be the pathway through which butyrate exerts its beneficial effects, given that it is a direct metabolite of butyrate, and that systemic butyrate appears to be as effective or even more effective in treating colitis, than direct application of butyrate to the cells.

Even without eating fibre, our intestinal microbes produce butyrate from amino acids. If systemic ketone bodies supplant or even just reduce the need for butyrate, amino acid derived butyrate may supply this need, even if the quantities turn out to be less than we would get from fibre.

End-to-end citations

[Ahm2000]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Butyrate and glucose metabolism by colonocytes in experimental colitis in mice.

Ahmad MS, Krishnan S, Ramakrishna BS, Mathan M, Pulimood AB, Murthy SN.

Gut. 2000 Apr;46(4):493-9.

"Abstract

"BACKGROUND/AIMS:

"Impaired colonocyte metabolism of butyrate has been implicated in the aetiopathogenesis of ulcerative colitis. Colonocyte butyrate metabolism was investigated in experimental colitis in mice.

"METHODS:

"Colitis was induced in Swiss outbred white mice by oral administration of 4% dextran sulphate sodium (DSS). Colonocytes isolated from colitic and normal control mice were incubated with [(14)C]butyrate or glucose, and production of (14)CO(2), as well as of intermediate metabolites (acetoacetate, beta-hydroxybutyrate and lactate), was measured. The effect of different substrate concentrations on oxidation was also examined.

"RESULTS:

"Butyrate oxidation (micromol/h per mg protein; mean (SEM)) was significantly reduced in DSS colitis, values on day 7 of DSS administration being 0.177 (0.007) compared with 0.406 (0.035) for control animals (p<0.001). Glucose oxidation (micromol/h per mg protein; mean (SEM)) on day 7 of DSS administration was significantly higher than in controls (0.06 (0.006) v 0.027 (0.004), p<0.001). Production of beta-hydroxybutyrate was decreased and production of lactate increased in DSS colitis compared with controls. Increasing butyrate concentration from 10 to 80 mM enhanced oxidation in DSS colitis (0.036 (0.002) to 0.285 (0.040), p<0.001), although it continued to remain lower than in controls. Surface and crypt epithelial cells showed similar ratios of butyrate to glucose oxidation. When 1 mM DSS was added to normal colonocytes in vitro, it did not alter butyrate oxidation. The initial histological lesion of DSS administration was very patchy and involved crypt cells. Abnormal butyrate oxidation became apparent only after six days of DSS administration, at which time histological abnormalities were more widespread.

"CONCLUSIONS:

"Colonocyte metabolism of butyrate, but not of glucose, is impaired in DSS colitis, and may be important in pathophysiology. Histological abnormalities preceded measurable defects in butyrate oxidation."

[Ban1979]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Sites of organic acid production and patterns of digesta movement in the gastrointestinal tract of dogs

Banta, C. A., Clemens, E. T., Krinsky, M. M., and SheiIy, B. E., 1979,

J. Nutr. 109:1592-1600.

"Two commercial type diest, one a cereal based dry food, the other a fortified all meat canned food were fed to male and female adult beagle dogs to evaluate effects of diet on rate of digesta passage and organic acid concentration along the gastrointestinal tract. [...] Concentrations of VFA were highest in the cecum and colon and were not significantly affected by diet."

"Symbols on the abscissa denote sec tions of tract as follows : cranial stomach ( Si ) ; caudal stomach ( 82) ; proximal ( Sii ), middle (SI2) and distal (SL) thirds of the small intestine; cecum (Ce); and proximal (Ci) and distal (C«) halves of the colon ( n = 3 )."

[...]

"It was surprising to see high concentrations of VFA produced in the lower gut of dogs fed the meat diet. It was logical to assume that liver and muscle glycogen could serve as the fermentable substrate for lactate production in the stomach, but most of this should have been digested and absorbed by the small intes tine. Another possible source of ferment able substance which could survive passage through the small intestine is the protein- polysaccharides of the connective tissue ground substance found in abundance in the meat by-products and whole ground chicken. The ground substance is made up of chondroitin sulfates and hyaluronic acid. The polysaccharide portion of these substances is composed of long chains of disaccharide units consisting of glucosa- mine or galactosamine and glucuronic acid. The linkages of these polysaccharides are not such that they can be cleaved by the endogenous digestive enzymes found in the gut but they could be split by microbial enzymes."

[Bar2004]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Supplementation of total parenteral nutrition with butyrate acutely increases structural aspects of intestinal adaptation after an 80% jejunoileal resection in neonatal piglets.

Bartholome AL1, Albin DM, Baker DH, Holst JJ, Tappenden KA.

JPEN J Parenter Enteral Nutr. 2004 Jul-Aug;28(4):210-22; discussion 222-3.

"BACKGROUND:

"Supplementation of total parenteral nutrition (TPN) with a mixture of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) enhances intestinal adaptation in the adult rodent model. However, the ability and timing of SCFA to augment adaptation in the neonatal intestine is unknown. Furthermore, the specific SCFA inducing the intestinotrophic effects and underlying regulatory mechanism(s) are unclear. Therefore, we examined the effect of SCFA supplemented TPN on structural aspects of intestinal adaptation and hypothesized that butyrate is the SCFA responsible for these effects.

"METHODS:

"Piglets (n = 120) were randomized to (1) control TPN or TPN supplemented with (2) 60 mmol/L SCFA (36 mmol/L acetate, 15 mmol/L propionate and 9 mmol/L butyrate), (3) 9 mmol/L butyrate, or (4) 60 mmol/L butyrate. Within each group, piglets were further randomized to examine acute (4, 12, or 24 hours) and chronic (3 or 7 days) adaptations. Indices of intestinal adaptation, including crypt-villus architecture, proliferation and apoptosis, and concentration of the intestinotrophic peptide, glucagon-like pepide-2 (GLP-2), were measured.

"RESULTS:

"Villus height was increased (p < .029) within 4 hours by supplemented TPN treatments. Supplemented TPN treatments increased (p < .037) proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression along the entire intestine. Indicative of an antiapoptotic profile, jejunal Bax:Bcl-w abundance was decreased (p = .033) by both butyrate-supplemented TPN treatments, and ileal abundance was decreased (p = .0002) by all supplemented TPN treatments, regardless of time. Supplemented TPN treatments increased (p = .016) plasma GLP-2 concentration at all time points.

"CONCLUSIONS:

"Butyrate is the SCFA responsible for augmenting structural aspects of intestinal adaptations by increasing proliferation and decreasing apoptosis within 4 hours postresection. The intestinotrophic mechanism(s) underlying butyrate's effects may involve GLP-2. Ultimately, butyrate administration may enable an infant with short-bowel syndrome to successfully transition to enteral feedings by maximizing their absorptive area."

[Bro2011]

Evidence type: review

Existing dietary guidelines for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

Brown AC, Rampertab SD, Mullin GE.

Expert Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2011 Jun;5(3):411-25. doi: 10.1586/egh.11.29.

"In terms of existing guidelines for dietary modifications, three suggested limiting dairy if lactose intolerant, two suggested limiting excess fat, one indicated decreasing excess carbohydrates, and five suggested avoiding high-fiber foods, especially during flares. The question of whether or not to use probiotics continues to be debated."

[...]

"Reducing high-fiber foods during symptoms appears to have generated the most support in the dietary guidelines. It may be important to communicate to IBD patients that high-fiber foods are not recommended, especially for those with CD, during flares or in the presence of active disease states, fistulas or strictures. There appears to be a tendency among the dietary guidelines to restrict foods such as raw fruits, raw vegetables, beans, bran, popcorn, seeds, nuts, corn hulls, whole grains, brown rice and wild rice. Although not mentioned, raw salads would also fall into this category."

[...]

"Some patients with IBD react to excess dietary fat and perhaps this is where the recommendation is derived. Few research studies are available to support or refute such a recommendation. The topic needs further investigation because patients with malabsorption may be at risk of not obtaining their necessary essential fatty acids. Perhaps saturated fats should be limited, with more of an emphasis on more healthy fat intakes."

[Dai2015]

Evidence type: review

Amino acid metabolism in intestinal bacteria and its potential implications for mammalian reproduction

Zhaolai Dai Zhenlong Wu Suqin Hang Weiyun Zhu Guoyao Wu

MHR: Basic science of reproductive medicine, Volume 21, Issue 5, 1 May 2015, Pages 389–409

"Recent studies with the human colonic bacteria have shown that protein- and AA-fermenting bacteria are abundant and diverse in the colon. The abundance of the AA-fermenting bacteria in the large intestine is very high and their number can reach up to 1011 per gram dry feces (Smith and Macfarlane, 1998). Using the traditional plate counting technique, the authors have also reported that the dominant bacterial species for the utilization of single AA or pairs of AA are very different. For instance, Clostridium bifermentans is the predominant bacteria for the utilization of lysine or proline, and pairs of AA (e.g. phenylalanine/leucine, isoleucine/tryptophan and alanine/glycine), whereas Peptostreptococcus spp. bacteria are predominant for the utilization of glutamate or tryptophan. Many species of bacteria utilize the same AA as substrates for growth (Smith and Macfarlane, 1998). Overall, bacteria belonging to the Clostridium spp. dominate in AA fermentation in the human large intestine, but other bacterial species, such as Fusobacterium spp., Bacteroides spp., Veillonella spp., Megasphaera elsdenii and Selenomonas ruminantium, may also be important for AA metabolism in the large intestine (Smith and Macfarlane, 1998; Dai et al., 2011)."

[Dep2012]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Fermentation of animal components in strict carnivores: A comparative study with cheetah fecal inoculum.

Depauw, S., G. Bosch, M. Hesta, K. Whitehouse-Tedd, W. H. Hendriks, J. Kaandorp, and G. P. J. Janssens. 2012.

J. Anim. Sci. 90:2540-2548. doi:10.2527/jas.2011-4377

"End-product profile per unit of OM differed among substrates (Table 3). The greatest total SCFA production was recorded for FOS (P < 0.05), followed by collagen, casein, and glucosamine (P < 0.05). The FOS and collagen showed comparable acetate production. Collagen not only had a high production of total SCFA but also resulted in a greater acetate to propionate ratio relative to all other substrates (8.41:1 for collagen and 1.67:1–2.97:1 for other substrates). Chicken cartilage and glucosamine-chondroitin produced similar total SCFA production, which was moderate compared with FOS (P < 0.05). Total SCFA production from incubated rabbit bone and skin was low (P < 0.05), whereas total SCFA production from rabbit hair was negligible and comparable with the negative control cellulose. Butyrate production was greatest for casein and glucosamine (P < 0.05). Incubation with casein resulted in the greatest total BCFA production (P < 0.05), which was more than double compared with all other substrates that had similar total BCFA production. Considerable variation in BCFA ratios was observed among substrates. In all animal substrates, isovalerate was the main BCFA, whereas fermentation of FOS, glucosamine, and glucosamine-chondroitin led to valerate as the main BCFA. The greatest amount of ammonia production was observed for casein, collagen, and rabbit bone (P < 0.05), whereas the least ammonia production was detected for FOS, cellulose, and rabbit hair (P < 0.05)."

[Gam2012]

Evidence type: non-human animal and human cell in vitro experiments

GPR109A as an Anti-Inflammatory Receptor in Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells and Its Relevance to Diabetic Retinopathy.

Gambhir D, Ananth S, Veeranan-Karmegam R, et al.

Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. 2012;53(4):2208-2217. doi:10.1167/iovs.11-8447.

"GPR109A is the G-protein–coupled receptor responsible for mediating the antilipolytic actions of niacin (nicotinic acid), a B-complex vitamin and also a drug used widely to lower blood lipid levels.1 β-hydroxybutyrate (β-HB) is the physiologic ligand for this receptor.2 GPR109A expression was initially thought to be limited to adipocytes, the cell type in which its antilipolytic functions are most warranted, and immune cells.3–5 Recent reports, however, have described expression of the receptor in a number of other cell types, including hepatocytes6 and epithelial cells of the small intestine and colon.7,8 In addition, we demonstrated GPR109A expression in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), localized specifically to the basolateral membrane.9 Although GPR109A is most noted functionally for its antilipolytic effects in adipocytes, recent studies suggest that activation of the receptor also is associated with novel immunomodulatory responses.10–12 We have characterized expression of GPR109A in RPE; however, the functional significance of receptor expression in this cell type remains unknown."

[Gon2016]

Evidence type: review

Regulation of colonic epithelial butyrate transport: Focus on colorectal cancer

Pedro Gonçalves and Fátima Martel

Porto Biomedical Journal Volume 1, Issue 3, July–August 2016, Pages 83-91

"The most important molecular mechanisms involved in the anticarcinogenic effect of BT are dependent on its intracellular concentration (because HDAC expression is overregulated,41,42 while BT membrane receptors (GPR109A and GPR43) are silenced or downregulated in CRC34,38). So, knowledge on the mechanisms involved in its membrane transport is relevant to both its physiological and pharmacological benefits. Also, changes in transporter expression or function will have an obvious impact on the effect of BT, and therefore, knowledge on the regulation of its membrane transport seems particularly important.

[...]

"[D]ifferences in MCT1, SMCT1 and BCRP expression between normal colonocytes and tumoral cells contribute to the different effects of BT in these cells (‘the BT paradox’). More specifically, BT is transported into normal colonic epithelial cells by both MCT1 and SMCT1, but its intracellular concentration is kept low because it is efficiently metabolized and effluxed from these cells by BCRP-mediated transport. In contrast, colonic epithelial tumoral cells show a decrease in SMCT1 protein expression, and BT is taken up by these cells through MCT1. In these cells, BT accumulates intracellularly because it is inefficiently metabolized (due to the fact that glucose becomes the primary energy source of these cells) and because there is a reduction in BCRP expression."

[Hin2002]

Evidence type: human cell in vitro experiment

The Effects of Short-Chain Fatty Acids on Human Colon Cancer Cell Phenotype Are Associated with Histone Hyperacetylation

Brian F. Hinnebusch, Shufen Meng, James T. Wu, Sonia Y. Archer, and Richard A. Hodin

J. Nutr. May 1, 2002 vol. 132 no. 5 1012-1017

"The short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) butyrate is produced via anaerobic bacterial fermentation within the colon and is thought to be protective in regard to colon carcinogenesis. Although butyrate (C4) is considered the most potent of the SCFA, a variety of other SCFA also exist in the colonic lumen. Butyrate is thought to exert its cellular effects through the induction of histone hyperacetylation. We sought to determine the effects of a variety of the SCFA on colon carcinoma cell growth, differentiation and apoptosis. HT-29 or HCT-116 (wild-type and p21-deleted) cells were treated with physiologically relevant concentrations of various SCFA, and histone acetylation state was assayed by acid-urea-triton-X gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting. Growth and apoptotic effects were studied by flow cytometry, and differentiation effects were assessed using transient transfections and Northern blotting. Propionate (C3) and valerate (C5) caused growth arrest and differentiation in human colon carcinoma cells. The magnitude of their effects was associated with a lesser degree of histone hyperacetylation compared with butyrate. Acetate (C2) and caproate (C6), in contrast, did not cause histone hyperacetylation and also had no appreciable effects on cell growth or differentiation. SCFA-induced transactivation of the differentiation marker gene, intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP), was blocked by histone deacetylase (HDAC), further supporting the critical link between SCFA and histones. Butyrate also significantly increased apoptosis, whereas the other SCFA studied did not. The growth arrest induced by the SCFA was characterized by an increase in the expression of the p21 cell-cycle inhibitor and down-regulation of cyclin B1 (CB1). In p21-deleted HCT-116 colon cancer cells, the SCFA did not alter the rate of proliferation. These data suggest that the antiproliferative, apoptotic and differentiating properties of the various SCFA are linked to the degree of induced histone hyperacetylation. Furthermore, SCFA-mediated growth arrest in colon carcinoma cells requires the p21 gene."

[Blo2011]

Evidence type: in vitro experiments

Butyrate elicits a metabolic switch in human colon cancer cells by targeting the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex.

Blouin, J.-M., Penot, G., Collinet, M., Nacfer, M., Forest, C., Laurent-Puig, P., Coumoul, X., Barouki, R., Benelli, C. and Bortoli, S. (2011)

Int. J. Cancer, 128: 2591–2601. doi:10.1002/ijc.25599

"Butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid produced by the colonic bacterial fermentation is able to induce cell growth inhibition and differentiation in colon cancer cells at least partially through its capacity to inhibit histone deacetylases. Since butyrate is expected to impact cellular metabolic pathways in colon cancer cells, we hypothesize that it could exert its antiproliferative properties by altering cellular metabolism. We show that although Caco2 colon cancer cells oxidized both butyrate and glucose into CO2, they displayed a higher oxidation rate with butyrate as substrate than with glucose. Furthermore, butyrate pretreatment led to an increase cell capacity to oxidize butyrate and a decreased capacity to oxidize glucose, suggesting that colon cancer cells, which are initially highly glycolytic, can switch to a butyrate utilizing phenotype, and preferentially oxidize butyrate instead of glucose as energy source to produce acetyl coA. Butyrate pretreated cells displayed a modulation of glutamine metabolism characterized by an increased incorporation of carbons derived from glutamine into lipids and a reduced lactate production. The butyrate-stimulated glutamine utilization is linked to pyruvate dehydrogenase complex since dichloroacetate reverses this effect. Furthermore, butyrate positively regulates gene expression of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinases and this effect involves a hyperacetylation of histones at PDK4 gene promoter level. Our data suggest that butyrate exerts two distinct effects to ensure the regulation of glutamine metabolism: it provides acetyl coA needed for fatty acid synthesis, and it also plays a role in the control of the expression of genes involved in glucose utilization leading to the inactivation of PDC."

[Jas1985]

Evidence type: armchair

Diet, butyric acid and differentiation of gastrointestinal tract tumours.

Jass JR

Med Hypotheses. 1985 Oct;18(2):113-8.

"Abstract

"Butyric acid has two contrasting functional roles. As a product of fermentation within the human colon, it serves as the most important energy source for normal colorectal epithelium. It also promotes the differentiation of cultured malignant cells. A switch from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism accompanies neoplastic transformation in the colorectum. The separate functional roles for n-butyrate may reflect the different metabolic activities of normal and neoplastic tissues. Relatively low intracolonic levels of n-butyrate are associated with a low fibre diet. Deficiency of n-butyrate, coupled to the increased energy requirements of neoplastic tissues, may promote the switch to anaerobic metabolism. The presence of naturally occurring differentiating agents, such as n-butyrate, may modify the patterns of growth and differentiation of gastrointestinal tumours."

[Ham2008]

Evidence type: review

Review article: the role of butyrate on colonic function.

HAMER, H. M., JONKERS, D., VENEMA, K., VANHOUTVIN, S., TROOST, F. J. and BRUMMER, R.-J. (2008)

Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 27: 104–119. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2036.2007.03562.x

"Although some controlled studies with enemas containing butyrate or SCFA mixtures in UC patients did not find beneficial effects121 or only trends towards clinical improvement,46, 118, 119 various other studies revealed a significant improvement in clinical and inflammatory parameters.45, 115, 120, 124, 126 Studies in patients with diversion colitis reported inconsistent results with regard to improvement in clinical symptoms and inflammatory parameters in response to administration of mixtures of SCFAs vs. placebo.96, 114 Two other human intervention studies determined mucosal cell proliferation in patients after Hartmann’s procedure and found trophic effects of SCFA mixtures in the mucosa of the closed rectal and sigmoid segment.73, 116"

"The effects of butyrate containing enemas on radiation proctitis113, 117, 122, 125 and pouchitis123 have been studied in small groups and besides one report125 that showed that butyrate was an effective treatment of radiation proctitis, other studies did not report clear-cut beneficial effects of SCFA irrigation in these two patient groups."

[Ham2010]

Evidence type: human experiment

Effect of butyrate enemas on inflammation and antioxidant status in the colonic mucosa of patients with ulcerative colitis in remission.

Hamer HM, Jonkers DM, Vanhoutvin SA, Troost FJ, Rijkers G, de Bruïne A, Bast A, Venema K, Brummer RJ.

Clin Nutr. 2010 Dec;29(6):738-44. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2010.04.002. Epub 2010 May 15.

"Abstract

"BACKGROUND & AIMS:

"Butyrate, produced by colonic fermentation of dietary fibers is often hypothesized to beneficially affect colonic health. This study aims to assess the effects of butyrate on inflammation and oxidative stress in subjects with chronically mildly elevated parameters of inflammation and oxidative stress.

"METHODS:

"Thirty-five patients with ulcerative colitis in clinical remission daily administered 60 ml rectal enemas containing 100mM sodium butyrate (n=17) or saline (n=18) during 20 days (NCT00696098). Before and after the intervention feces, blood and colonic mucosal biopsies were obtained. Parameters of antioxidant defense and oxidative damage, myeloperoxidase, several cytokines, fecal calprotectin and CRP were determined.

"RESULTS:

"Butyrate enemas induced minor effects on colonic inflammation and oxidative stress. Only a significant increase of the colonic IL-10/IL-12 ratio was found within butyrate-treated patients (p=0.02), and colonic concentrations of CCL5 were increased after butyrate compared to placebo treatment (p=0.03). Although in general butyrate did not affect colonic glutathione levels, the effects of butyrate enemas on total colonic glutathione appeared to be dependent on the level of inflammation.

"CONCLUSION:

"Although UC patients in remission were characterized by low-grade oxidative stress and inflammation, rectal butyrate enemas showed only minor effects on inflammatory and oxidative stress parameters."

[Kap2016]

Evidence type: review

Fiber and the Risk of Flaring in Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: Lessons From the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America Database

Gilaad G. Kaplan, MD, MPH, FRCPC

Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology , Volume 14 , Issue 8 , 1137 - 1139

"After reviewing the study from Brotherton et al and prior literature, information for patients with IBD on the effects of fiber on the risk of flaring is unclear. The current article adds to this discussion but does not definitively answer the question. Overall, the data suggest that in the absence of a known fibrostenotic stricture with obstructive symptoms, a high fiber diet is likely safe in patients with IBD and may impart a weak benefit. Yet, answering these clinically relevant questions with more confidence and detail is within our grasp. The advent of e-cohorts offers the potential to transform research in the future by allowing investigators to design cost-efficient Web-based clinical studies, particularly for interventional environmental clinical trials."

[Kor1990]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Parenteral nutrition supplemented with short-chain fatty acids: effect on the small-bowel mucosa in normal rats.

Koruda MJ1, Rolandelli RH, Bliss DZ, Hastings J, Rombeau JL, Settle RG.

Am J Clin Nutr. 1990 Apr;51(4):685-9.

"Abstract

"When enteral nutrition is excluded from animals maintained solely with total parenteral nutrition (TPN), atrophy of the intestinal mucosa is observed. Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) are produced in the colon by the fermentation of dietary carbohydrates and fiber polysaccharides and have been shown to stimulate mucosal-cell mitotic activity in the intestine. This study compared the effects of an intravenous and an intracecal infusion of SCFAs on the small-bowel mucosa. Rats received standard TPN, TPN with SCFAs (sodium acetate, propionate, and butyrate), TPN with an intracecal infusion of SCFAs, or rat food. After 7 d jejunal and ileal mucosal weights, DNA, RNA, and protein were determined. Standard TPN produced significant atrophy of the jejunal and ileal mucosa. Both the intracecal and intravenous infusion of SCFAs significantly reduced the mucosal atrophy associated with TPN. The intravenous and intracolonic infusion of SCFAs were equally effective in inhibiting small-bowel mucosal atrophy."

[Mal2015]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Intraperitoneal administration of butyrate prevents the severity of acetic acid colitis in rats

Joshua J. Malago and Catherine L. Sangu

Zhejiang Univ Sci B. 2015 Mar; 16(3): 224–234. doi: 10.1631/jzus.B1400191

"Earlier studies that linked the development of UC and butyrate levels in the colon, observed that deficiency of butyrate leads to disease development and that restoration of butyrate levels by intracolonic infusion treats UC (Roediger, 1980). Since then, butyrate enemas have popularly been used as medicaments stemming from their potential to impart beneficial attributes to the colon. This potential involves an increase in mechanical strength of injured colonic mucosa to hasten the healing process (Bloemen et al., 2010; Mathew et al., 2010), suppression of IL-8 production by intestinal epithelial cells to protect against the inflammatory process (Malago et al., 2005), and clinical remission of UC by protecting against inflammatory and oxidative stress parameters of the disease (Hamer et al., 2010b). Much as butyrate tends to impart a protective effect, several authors have indicated failures or limited success of butyrate to relieve IBD patients (Harig et al., 1989; Sanderson, 1997; Hamer et al., 2010b)."

...

"Topical administration of butyrate to cure colitis has been fairly well demonstrated (Scheppach et al., 1992; Hamer et al., 2010a; 2010b). This is done mainly through intrarectal administration of enemas that contain butyrate. The procedure is one of the earliest approaches to treat UC even in patients who had been unresponsive to or intolerant of standard therapy (Scheppach et al., 1992). The intrarectally administered butyrate needs to be absorbed before it works. Normally butyrate absorption mainly occurs in proximal colon whose function is impaired during UC. This hinders absorption of topically administered butyrate and may not benefit UC patients. However, butyrate absorption in the colon can be increased by manipulating electrolyte composition in the rectal lumen (Holtug et al., 1995) since rectal butyrate absorption remains normal during UC (Hove et al., 1995). Thus, topical butyrate, given intrarectally in form of SB, plays a double role; firstly by employing sodium ions, it accelerates rectal absorption of SB and secondly, the absorbed butyrate imparts healing to the colonocytes. The end result is epithelial proliferation to restore the damaged epithelium, especially the lost colonic epithelial continuity."

...

"We have demonstrated the potential of intraperitoneally administered butyrate to prevent the severity of AA-induced UC lesions. To the best of our knowledge, this finding has not been reported before. However, the systemic effect of butyrate to other body systems and organs has been reported. For instance, intraperitoneal injection of butyrate at 50–200 mg/kg body weight decreases gentamicin-induced nephrotoxicity in rats by enhancing renal antioxidant enzyme activity and expression of prohibitin protein (Sun et al., 2013). When given at 1200 mg/kg, intraperitoneal butyrate ameliorates an aging-associated deficit in object recognition memory in rats (Reolon et al., 2011). Silingardi et al. (2010) further demonstrated that chronic intraperitoneal administration of butyrate to long-term monocularly deprived adult rats causes a complete recovery of visual acuity. A more recent study has also reported that intraperitoneal injections of butyrate for 28 d to adult C57BL/6 mice prevent repressed contextual fear memory caused by isoflurane (Zhong et al., 2014). All these facts and our own study affirm that butyrate has a potential to impart protective roles to various body organs and systems through systemic administration."

[Mil2017]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Supplementation of Low- and High-fat Diets with Fermentable Fiber Exacerbates Severity of DSS-induced Acute Colitis.

Miles JP, Zou J, Kumar MV, Pellizzon M, Ulman E, Ricci M, Gewirtz AT, Chassaing B.

"Abstract

"BACKGROUND:

"Lack of dietary fiber has been suggested to increase the risk of developing various chronic inflammatory diseases, whereas supplementation of diets with fiber might offer an array of health-promoting benefits. Consistent with this theme, we recently reported that in mice, compositionally defined diets that are made with purified ingredients and lack fermentable fiber promote low-grade inflammation and metabolic syndrome, both of which could be ameliorated by supplementation of such diets with the fermentable fiber inulin.

"METHODS:

"Herein, we examined if, relative to a grain-based mouse diet (chow), compositionally defined diet consumption would impact development of intestinal inflammation induced by dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) and moreover, whether DSS-induced colitis might also be attenuated by diets supplemented with inulin.

"RESULTS:

"Analogous to their promotion of low-grade inflammation, compositionally defined diet of high- and low-fat content with cellulose increased the severity of DSS-induced colitis relative to chow. However, in contrast to the case of low-grade inflammation, addition of inulin, but not the insoluble fiber cellulose, further exacerbated the severity of colitis and its associated clinical manifestations (weight loss and bleeding) in both low- and high-fat diets.

"CONCLUSIONS:

"While inulin, and perhaps other fermentable fibers, can ameliorate low-grade inflammation and associated metabolic disease, it also has the potential to exacerbate disease severity in response to inducers of acute colitis."

[Miz2011]

Evidence type: review

Autophagy: renovation of cells and tissues.

Mizushima N, Komatsu M.

Cell. 2011 Nov 11;147(4):728-41. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2011.10.026.

"Autophagy is the major intracellular degradation system by which cytoplasmic materials are delivered to and degraded in the lysosome. However, the purpose of autophagy is not the simple elimination of materials, but instead, autophagy serves as a dynamic recycling system that produces new building blocks and energy for cellular renovation and homeostasis. Here we provide a multidisciplinary review of our current understanding of autophagy's role in metabolic adaptation, intracellular quality control, and renovation during development and differentiation. We also explore how recent mouse models in combination with advances in human genetics are providing key insights into how the impairment or activation of autophagy contributes to pathogenesis of diverse diseases, from neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson disease to inflammatory disorders such as Crohn disease."

[Nei2015]

Evidence type: review

The Role of Microbial Amino Acid Metabolism in Host Metabolism.

Neis EPJG, Dejong CHC, Rensen SS.

Nutrients. 2015;7(4):2930-2946. doi:10.3390/nu7042930.

"Although protein breakdown followed by amino acid absorption in the small intestine is a rather efficient process, substantial amounts of amino acids seem to escape assimilation in the small intestine in humans [38]. These amino acids can subsequently be used by the microbiota in the colon, or transported from the lumen into the portal blood stream. In addition, the host itself produces substrates such as glycoproteins (e.g., mucins) which contribute to the available amino acids within the colon [39]. "

[...]

"Regarding the large intestine, it appears that amino acids are not significantly absorbed by the colonic mucosa, but rather are intensively metabolized by the large intestinal microbiota [23]. This higher rate of bacterial protein fermentation has been related to high pH and low carbohydrate availability in the large intestine [22]. The preferred amino acid substrates of colonic bacteria include lysine, arginine, glycine, and the BCAA leucine, valine, and isoleucine [32], resulting in the generation of a complex mixture of metabolic end products including among others ammonia, SCFA (acetate, propionate, and butyrate), and branched-chain fatty acids (BCFA; valerate, isobutyrate, and isovalerate). "

[Pen2007]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Effects of Butyrate on Intestinal Barrier Function in a Caco-2 Cell Monolayer Model of Intestinal Barrier

Luying Peng, Zhenjuan He, Wei Chen, Ian R Holzman and Jing Lin

Pediatric Research (2007) 61, 37–41; doi:10.1203/01.pdr.0000250014.92242.f3

"In premature infants, the maturation of the intestinal barrier function does not develop properly in the absence of enteral nutrients (6). Intestinal barrier function is significantly less developed in full-term newborn piglets receiving total parental nutrition compared with those receiving enteral nutrition (7). Production of SCFA in the bowel may be crucial for gastrointestinal adaptation and maturation in the early stage of postnatal life (8). However, overproduction and/or accumulation of SCFA in the bowel due to maldigestion and bacterial overgrowth may be toxic to mucosal cells and cause intestinal mucosal injury (9,10). Overproduction and/or accumulation of SCFA in the bowel and inability to clear the intraluminal SCFA because of poor gastrointestinal motility in premature infants have been hypothesized to play a role in the pathogenesis of neonatal NEC (11)."

[Rah2014]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

The β-hydroxybutyrate receptor HCA2 activates a neuroprotective subset of macrophages.

Rahman M, Muhammad S, Khan MA, Chen H, Ridder DA, Müller-Fielitz H, Pokorná B, Vollbrandt T, Stölting I, Nadrowitz R, Okun JG, Offermanns S, Schwaninger M.

Nat Commun. 2014 May 21;5:3944. doi: 10.1038/ncomms4944.

"Abstract

"The ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) is an endogenous factor protecting against stroke and neurodegenerative diseases, but its mode of action is unclear. Here we show in a stroke model that the hydroxy-carboxylic acid receptor 2 (HCA2, GPR109A) is required for the neuroprotective effect of BHB and a ketogenic diet, as this effect is lost in Hca2(-/-) mice. We further demonstrate that nicotinic acid, a clinically used HCA2 agonist, reduces infarct size via a HCA2-mediated mechanism, and that noninflammatory Ly-6C(Lo) monocytes and/or macrophages infiltrating the ischemic brain also express HCA2. Using cell ablation and chimeric mice, we demonstrate that HCA2 on monocytes and/or macrophages is required for the protective effect of nicotinic acid. The activation of HCA2 induces a neuroprotective phenotype of monocytes and/or macrophages that depends on PGD2 production by COX1 and the haematopoietic PGD2 synthase. Our data suggest that HCA2 activation by dietary or pharmacological means instructs Ly-6C(Lo) monocytes and/or macrophages to deliver a neuroprotective signal to the brain."

[Ras1988]

Evidence type: in vitro experiment

Degradation of amino acids to short-chain fatty acids in humans. An in vitro study.

Rasmussen HS, Holtug K, Mortensen PB.

Scand J Gastroenterol. 1988 Mar;23(2):178-82.

"Short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) originate mainly in the colon through bacterial fermentation of polysaccharides. To test the hypothesis that SCFA may originate from polypeptides as well, the production of these acids from albumin and specific amino acids was examined in a faecal incubation system. Albumin was converted to all C2-C5-fatty acids, whereas amino acids generally were converted to specific SCFA, most often through the combination of a deamination and decarboxylation of the amino acids, although more complex processes also took place. This study indicates that a part of the intestinal SCFA may originate from polypeptides, which apparently are the major source of those SCFA (isobutyrate, valerate, and isovalerate) only found in small amounts in the healthy colon. Moreover, gastrointestinal disease resulting in increased proteinous material in the colon (exudation, mucosal desquamation, bleeding, and so forth) may hypothetically influence SCFA production."

[Roe1980](1, 2)

Evidence type: human experiment

The colonic epithelium in ulcerative colitis: an energy-deficiency disease?

Roediger WE.

Lancet. 1980 Oct 4;2(8197):712-5.

"The view that UC might be due to a metabolic defect in the epithelial cells[5,6] has received little general recognition. The present study was undertaken to assess the metabolic performance of the mucosa in UC and especially to explore whether a metabolic abnormality could be detected. To facilitate this approach a method of preparing suspensions of colonocytes was devised.[7] Colonocytes have been used to determine the utilisation of respiratory fuels by the non-diseased ascending and descending colon in man.[8] The results showed that short-chain fatty acid (SCFA), especially n-butyrate of bacterial origin, was the predominant contributor to cellular oxidation and that a large proportion of the carbon atoms of colonocyte respiration was derived from SCFAs. Mucosa of the distal colon depended metabolically mostly on n-butyrate, whereas the proximal colonic mucosa depended mostly on glucose and glutamine for respiratory fuel.[8] These same respiratory fuels were chosen for the investigation of colonocytes prepared from the mucosa of patients with ulcerative colitis.

...

"Generation of 14C02 from radioactively labelled butyrate was observed for at least 40 min. Production of 14C02 was linear whenever this could be tested for 60 min. Generation of 14C02 was significantly less in quiescent and acute-colitis cells than in controls (p = <0.001) (table II). Some of the oxidised butyrate appeared as ketone bodies (acetoacetate and β-hydroxybutyrate, table III). The diminished production of ketone bodies mirrors the decreased oxidation of butyrate to CO2. Ketogenesis was significantly lower in the quiescent-colitis group than the control group and lower still in the acute-colitis group.

...

"The metabolism of colonocytes from patients with UC seemed to differ in three respects from the metabolism of colonocytes prepared from non-ulcerated and apparently normal mucosa. In UC: 1. Butyrate oxidation to C02 and ketone bodies was significantly impaired, and the impairment correlated with the acute or chronic involvement of the mucosa. 2. Glucose oxidation was increased. 3. Glutamine oxidation was increased."

...

"Ketogenesis was significantly lower in the quiescent-colitis group than the control group and lower still in the acute-colitis group."

[Roe1993]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Sulphide impairment of substrate oxidation in rat colonocytes: a biochemical basis for ulcerative colitis?

Roediger WE, Duncan A, Kapaniris O, Millard S.

Clin Sci (Lond). 1993 Nov;85(5):623-7.

"Abstract

"Isolated colonic epithelial cells of the rat were incubated for 40 min with [6-14C]glucose and n-[1-14C]butyrate in the presence of 0.1-2.0 mmol/l NaHS, a concentration range found in the human colon. Metabolic products, 14CO2, acetoacetate, beta-hydroxybutyrate and lactate, were measured and injury to cells was judged by diminished production of metabolites. 2. Oxidation of n-butyrate to CO2 and acetoacetate was reduced at 0.1 and 0.5 mmol/l NaHS, whereas glucose oxidation remained unimpaired. At 1.0-2.0 mmol/l NaHS, n-butyrate and glucose oxidation were dose-dependently reduced at the same rate. 3. To bypass short-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase activity necessary for butyrate oxidation, ketogenesis from crotonate was measured in the presence of 1.0 mmol/l NaHS. Suppression by sulphide of ketogenesis from crotonate (-10.5 +/- 6.1%) compared with control conditions was not significant, whereas suppression of ketogenesis from n-butyrate (-36.00 +/- 5.14%) was significant (P = < 0.01). Inhibition of FAD-linked oxidation was more affected by NaHS than was NAD-linked oxidation. 4. L-Methionine (5.0 mmol/l) significantly redressed the impaired beta-oxidation induced by NaHS. Methionine equally improved CO2 and ketone body production, suggesting a global reversal of the action of sulphide. 5. Sulphide-induced oxidative changes closely mirror the impairment of beta-oxidation observed in colonocytes of patients with ulcerative colitis. A hypothesis for the disease process of ulcerative colitis is that sulphides may form persulphides with butyryl-CoA, which would inhibit cellular short-chain acyl-CoA deHydrogenase and beta-oxidation to induce an energy-deficiency state in colonocytes and mucosal inflammation."

[Rol1997]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Intravenous butyrate and healing of colonic anastomoses in the rat.

Rolandelli RH, Buckmire MA, Bernstein KA.

Dis Colon Rectum. 1997 Jan;40(1):67-70.

"PURPOSE:

"Intracolonic infusions of short chain fatty acids promote healing of colonic anastomoses. Because the intravenous route may have wider clinical application, we studied the effect of intravenous n-butyrate on the mechanical strength of colonic anastomoses in the rat.

"METHODS:

"After placement of an indwelling intravenous catheter, the descending colon was transected and an anastomosis was performed. Rats were then randomized to receive total parenteral nutrition (TPN group; n = 15) or total parenteral nutrition plus 130 mM/l of n-butyrate (TPN+BUT group; n = 13). On the fifth postoperative day, bursting pressure and bowel wall tension of the anastomoses were measured in situ. Anastomotic tissues were analyzed for hydroxyproline.

"RESULTS:

"The TPN+BUT group had a significantly higher bursting pressure (107.5 +/- 30.3 vs. 83 +/- 41.0 mmHg; P = 0.04) and bowel wall tension (20.7 +/- 7.6 vs. 14.1 +/- 9.9 Newton; P = 0.03). Tissue hydroxyproline was not different between the two groups (TPN, 45.8 +/- 9.2, and TPN+BUT, 47.9 +/- 2.9 microg/mg tissue nitrogen).

"CONCLUSIONS:

"We conclude that intravenous butyrate improves mechanical strength of a colonic anastomosis without a detectable change in total collagen content."

[Rom1990]

Evidence type: review

Short-Chain Fatty Acids.

Rombeau J.L., Kripke S.A., Settle R.G. (1990)

In: Kritchevsky D., Bonfield C., Anderson J.W. (eds) Dietary Fiber. Springer, Boston, MA

"As mentioned previously hepatic metabolism of butyrate and acetate results in the production of glutamine and the ketone bodies acetoacetate and which are the preferred oxidative fuels of enterocytes (Windmueller and Spaeth, 1978). The enteral or parenteral provision of glutamine and acetoacetate has been shown to be trophic to both small and large intestinal mucosa (Fox et al., 1987; Kripke et al., 1988a)."

[Sen2006](1, 2)

Evidence type: review

Does butyrate protect from colorectal cancer?

Sengupta S, Muir JG, Gibson PR.

J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2006 Jan;21(1 Pt 2):209-18.

"Abstract

"Butyrate, the four-carbon fatty acid, is formed in the human colon by bacterial fermentation of carbohydrates (including dietary fiber), and putatively suppresses colorectal cancer (CRC). Butyrate has diverse and apparently paradoxical effects on cellular proliferation, apoptosis and differentiation that may be either pro-neoplastic or anti-neoplastic, depending upon factors such as the level of exposure, availability of other metabolic substrate and the intracellular milieu. In humans, the relationship between luminal butyrate exposure and CRC has been examined only indirectly in case-control studies, by measuring fecal butyrate concentrations, although this may not accurately reflect effective butyrate exposure during carcinogenesis. Perhaps not surprisingly, results of these investigations have been mutually contradictory. The direct effect of butyrate on tumorigenesis has been assessed in a number of in vivo animal models, which have also yielded conflicting results. In part, this may be explained by methodological differences in the amount and route of butyrate administration, which are likely to significantly influence delivery of butyrate to the distal colon. Nonetheless, there appears to be some evidence that delivery of an adequate amount of butyrate to the appropriate site protects against early tumorigenic events. Future study of the relationship between butyrate and CRC in humans needs to focus on risk stratification and the development of feasible strategies for butyrate delivery."

[Shi2013]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Suppression of Oxidative Stress by β-Hydroxybutyrate, an Endogenous Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor.

Shimazu T, Hirschey MD, Newman J, et al.

Science (New York, NY). 2013;339(6116):211-214. doi:10.1126/science.1227166.

"Concentrations of acetyl–coenzyme A and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) affect histone acetylation and thereby couple cellular metabolic status and transcriptional regulation. We report that the ketone body d-β-hydroxybutyrate (βOHB) is an endogenous and specific inhibitor of class I histone deacetylases (HDACs). Administration of exogenous βOHB, or fasting or calorie restriction, two conditions associated with increased βOHB abundance, all increased global histone acetylation in mouse tissues. Inhibition of HDAC by βOHB was correlated with global changes in transcription, including that of the genes encoding oxidative stress resistance factors FOXO3A and MT2. Treatment of cells with βOHB increased histone acetylation at the Foxo3a and Mt2 promoters, and both genes were activated by selective depletion of HDAC1 and HDAC2. Consistent with increased FOXO3A and MT2 activity, treatment of mice with βOHB conferred substantial protection against oxidative stress."

[Sin2014]

Evidence type: non-human animal experiment

Activation of Gpr109a, Receptor for Niacin and the Commensal Metabolite Butyrate, Suppresses Colonic Inflammation and Carcinogenesis

Singh, Nagendra et al.

Immunity , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , 128 - 139

"The most widely studied function of butyrate is its ability to inhibit histone deacetylases. However, cell surface receptors have been identified for butyrate; these receptors, GPR43 and GPR109A (also known as hydroxycarboxylic acid receptor 2 or HCA2), are G protein coupled and are expressed in colonic epithelium, adipose tissue, and immune cells (Blad et al., 2012, Ganapathy et al., 2013). GPR43-deficient mice undergo severe colonic inflammation and colitis in DSS-induced colitis model and the GPR43 agonist acetate protects germ-free mice from DSS-induced colitis (Maslowski et al., 2009). Although GPR43 is activated by all three SCFAs, GPR109A (encoded by Niacr1) is activated only by butyrate (Blad et al., 2012, Taggart et al., 2005). GPR109A is also activated by niacin (vitamin B3) (Blad et al., 2012, Ganapathy et al., 2013). In colonic lumen, butyrate is generated at high concentrations (10–20 mM) by gut microbiota and serves as an endogenous agonist for GPR109A (Thangaraju et al., 2009). We have shown that Gpr109a expression in colon is induced by gut microbiota and is downregulated in colon cancer (Cresci et al., 2010, Thangaraju et al., 2009). Gpr109a in immune cells plays a nonredundant function in niacin-mediated suppression of inflammation and atherosclerosis (Lukasova et al., 2011). Gut microbiota also produce niacin. Niacin deficiency in humans results in pellagra, characterized by intestinal inflammation, diarrhea, dermatitis, and dementia (Hegyi et al., 2004). It is of great clinical relevance that lower abundance of GPR109A ligands niacin and butyrate in gut is associated with colonic inflammation."

[...]

"Activation of Gpr109a Suppresses Colonic Inflammation and Carcinogenesis in the Absence of Gut Microbiota or Dietary Fiber

"We then examined the relevance of niacin, a pharmacologic agonist for GPR109A, to colonic inflammation. For this, we first depleted gut microbiota with antibiotics, which reduces the production of butyrate, the endogenous agonist for GPR109A. Antibiotic treatment resulted in >300-fold reduction in aerobic and anaerobic bacterial counts in the stool (data not shown). Antibiotic treatment increased DSS-induced weight loss, diarrhea, and bleeding in WT mice (Figures 7B and S6A). Consistent with increased inflammation, we found that antibiotic treatment increased the number of polyps (8.2 ± 2.2 polyps/mouse with antibiotics; 1.6 ± 1.5 polyps/mouse without antibiotics) in WT mice (Figures 7C and 7D). We then tested whether administration of niacin protects antibiotic-treated mice against colonic inflammation and carcinogenesis. Niacin was added to drinking water along with antibiotic cocktail. Niacin ameliorated AOM+DSS-induced weight loss, diarrhea, and bleeding and reduced colon cancer development in antibiotic-treated WT mice (Figures 7B–7D and S6A). Consistent with a role of niacin in IL-18 induction, the protective effect of niacin in DSS-induced weight loss and diarrhea in antibiotic-treated Il18−/− mice was significantly blunted (Figure S6B). Niacin did not alter the development of weight loss, diarrhea, rectal bleeding, and colon cancer in antibiotic-treated Niacr1−/− mice, suggesting an essential role of Gpr109a in niacin-mediated promotion of colonic health (Figures 7B–7D and S6A). Antibiotic treatment reduced colonic inflammation and number of polyps in Niacr1−/− mice. This may be due to the presence of altered colitogenic gut microbiota in Niacr1−/− animals. "

[...]

"Although it has been known for decades that the commensal metabolite butyrate suppresses inflammation and carcinogenesis in colon, the exact identity of molecular target(s) of butyrate in this process remained elusive. The present studies identify Gpr109a as an important mediator of butyrate effects in colon and also as a critical molecular link between colonic bacteria and dietary fiber and the host. These findings have important implications for prevention as well as treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer and suggest that under conditions of reduced dietary fiber intake and/or decreased butyrate production in colon, pharmacological doses of niacin might be effective to maintain GPR109A signaling and consequently protect colon against inflammation and carcinogenesis."

[Siv2017]

Evidence type: review

Cell-Surface and Nuclear Receptors in the Colon as Targets for Bacterial Metabolites and Its Relevance to Colon Health. <http://europepmc.org/articles/pmc5579649#B58-nutrients-09-00856>-

Sathish Sivaprakasam, Yangzom D. Bhutia, Sabarish Ramachandran, and Vadivel Ganapathy

Nutrients. 2017 August; 9(8): 856.

"As the cell-surface receptors for SCFAs are located on the lumen-facing apical membrane of colonic epithelial cells (see below), the luminal concentrations of these agonists are physiologically relevant. SCFAs are low-affinity agonists for these receptors, and the normal luminal concentrations of these bacterial metabolites are in the millimolar levels, sufficient to activate these receptors from the luminal side. However, some of the molecular targets for these metabolites are either inside the cells (e.g., HDACs) or on the surface of the immune cells located in the lamina propria. Therefore, concentrations of these metabolites inside the colonic epithelial cells and in the lamina propria are relevant to impact these molecular targets. The intracellular target HDAC is inhibited by butyrate and propionate at low micromolar concentrations. There are effective transport systems for SCFAs in the apical membrane of colonic epithelial cells (e.g., proton-coupled and sodium-coupled monocarboxylate transporters) [47], thus making it very likely for these SCFAs to reach intracellular levels sufficient to inhibit HDACs. Even though the luminal concentrations of SCFAs are in the millimolar range, it is unlikely that they reach lamina propria at significant levels to activate the cell-surface receptors present on the mucosal immune cells. These metabolites are present only at micromolar levels in the portal blood [57], indicating that they undergo robust metabolism inside the colonic epithelial cells. This raises the question as to the physiological relevance of these bacterial metabolites to the activation of the cell-surface SCFA receptors in immune cells located in the lamina propria. With regard to this issue, it is important to note that colonic epithelial cells are highly ketogenic; they use acetate and butyrate to generate the ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate [58]. This ketone body is released from the cells into portal blood. As β-hydroxybutyrate is 3–4 times more potent than butyrate in activating its receptor GPR109A, it can be speculated that the colon-derived ketone body is most likely involved in the activation of the SCFA receptor in mucosal immune cells."

[Tag2005]

Evidence type: in vitro non-human animal experiment

(D)-beta-Hydroxybutyrate inhibits adipocyte lipolysis via the nicotinic acid receptor PUMA-G.

Taggart AK1, Kero J, Gan X, Cai TQ, Cheng K, Ippolito M, Ren N, Kaplan R, Wu K, Wu TJ, Jin L, Liaw C, Chen R, Richman J, Connolly D, Offermanns S, Wright SD, Waters MG.

J Biol Chem. 2005 Jul 22;280(29):26649-52. Epub 2005 Jun 1.

"Here we show that the fatty acid-derived ketone body (d)-β-hydroxybutyrate ((d)-β-OHB) specifically activates PUMA-G/HM74a at concentrations observed in serum during fasting. Like nicotinic acid, (d)-β-OHB inhibits mouse adipocyte lipolysis in a PUMA-G-dependent manner and is thus the first endogenous ligand described for this orphan receptor. These findings suggests a homeostatic mechanism for surviving starvation in which (d)-β-OHB negatively regulates its own production, thereby preventing ketoacidosis and promoting efficient use of fat stores."

[Tot2016]

Evidence type: human case study

Crohn's disease successfully treated with the paleolithic ketogenic diet

Tóth C, Dabóczi A, Howard M, Miller NJ, Clemens Z.

Int J Case Rep Images 2016;7(10):570–578.

"Given the ineffectiveness of standard therapies the parents of the child were seeking for alternative options. When we first met the patient he reported bilateral pain and swelling of the knee, frequent episodes of fever and night sweats as well as fatigue. He looked pale. We offered the paleolithic ketogenic diet along with close monitoring of the patient. The patient started the diet on 4 January 2015. The diet is consisting of animal fat, meat, offal and eggs with an approximate 2:1 fat : protein ratio. Red and fat meats instead of poultry as well as regular intake of organ meats from pork and cattle were encouraged. Grains, milk, dairy, refined sugars, vegetable oils, oilseeds, nightshades and artificial sweeteners were excluded. Small amount of honey was allowed for sweetening. The patient was not taking any supplements. Regular home monitoring of urinary ketones indicated sustained ketosis. Regular laboratory follow-up was used to monitor the course of the disease as well as for giving feedback how to fine tune the diet. The patient was under our close control and gave frequent feedbacks and so we could assess the level of dietary compliance. The patient maintained a high level dietary adherence on the long-term, yet on his birthday, he made a mistake: he has eaten two pieces of commercially available "paleo" cake which contained coconut oil, flour from oilseeds as well as sugar alcohol. Clinical consequences are discussed later. From July 2015 onwards he also consumed small amounts of vegetables and fruits. Given the persistence of certain alterations in laboratory values (mild anemia) on 10 November 2015, despite 10 months on the paleolithic ketogenic diet, we suggested to tighten the diet again. From this time on he did neither consume vegetables and fruits nor vegetable oil containing spices such as cumin and cinnamon.

"Discontinuing medication

"Within two weeks after diet onset the patient discontinued azathioprine, the only medicine he was taking at this time. Currently, he is without medicines for 15 months.

"Symptoms

"The frequent night sweats of the patient disappeared within three weeks after diet onset and thus his sleep improved significantly. The knee pains of the patient began to lessen at 4th week on the diet and completely disappeared by the third month. From this time onwords he regularly went to school by bike (20 km daily). He reported restored energy and increased physical and mental fitness. Although during the eight months before diet onset his weight was declining, following diet onset he began to gain weight. At diet onset his weight was 41 kg and was 152 cm tall (BMI = 17.7). At 12 months after diet onset, his height was 160 cm and weighted 50 kg (BMI: 19.5). The change in his height and weight is depicted in Figure 5. At the time of writing the article he is on the diet for 15 months and is free of symptoms as well as side effects."

[Tur2011]

Evidence type: review

Administration of Substances to Laboratory Animals: Routes of Administration and Factors to Consider

Patricia V Turner, Thea Brabb, Cynthia Pekow, and Mary Ann Vasbinder

J Am Assoc Lab Anim Sci. 2011 Sep; 50(5): 600–613.

"Intraperitoneal administration.

"Injection of substances into the peritoneal cavity is a common technique in laboratory rodents but rarely is used in larger mammals and humans. Intraperitoneal injection is used for small species for which intravenous access is challenging and it can be used to administer large volumes of fluid safely (Table 1) or as a repository site for surgical implantation of a preloaded osmotic minipump. Absorption of material delivered intraperitoneally is typically much slower than for intravenous injection. Although intraperitoneal delivery is considered a parenteral route of administration, the pharmacokinetics of substances administered intraperitoneally are more similar to those seen after oral administration, because the primary route of absorption is into the mesenteric vessels, which drain into the portal vein and pass through the liver.74 Therefore substances administered intraperitoneally may undergo hepatic metabolism before reaching the systemic circulation. In addition, a small amount of intraperitoneal injectate may pass directly across the diaphragm through small lacunae and into the thoracic lymph."

[Vit2014]

Experiment type: metagenomic analysis

Revealing the Bacterial Butyrate Synthesis Pathways by Analyzing (Meta)genomic Data

Marius Vital, Adina Chuang Howe, and James M. Tiedje

mBio. 2014 Mar-Apr; 5(2): e00889-14. Published online 2014 April 22. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00889-14

"Diet is a major external force shaping gut communities (33). Good reviews of studies investigating the influence of diet on butyrate-producing bacteria exist (11 and 34) and suggest that plant-derived polysaccharides such as starch and xylan, as well as cross-feeding mechanisms with lactate-producing bacteria, are the main factors governing their growth. Our metagenomic analysis supports the acetyl-CoA pathway as the main pathway for butyrate production in healthy individuals (Fig. 4), implying that a sufficient polysaccharide supply is probably sustaining a well-functioning butyrate-producing community, at least in these North American subjects. However, the detection of additional amino acid-fed pathways, especially the lysine pathway, indicates that proteins could also play an important role in butyrate synthesis and suggests some flexibility of the microbiota to adapt to various nutritional conditions maintaining butyrate synthesis. Whether the prevalence of amino acid-fed pathway is associated with a protein-rich diet still needs to be assessed. It should be noted that those pathways are not restricted to single substrates, as displayed in Fig. 1, i.e., glutarate and lysine, but additional amino acids, such as aspartate, can be converted to butyrate via those routes as well (26). Furthermore, the acetyl-CoA pathway also can be supplied with substrates derived from proteins either by cross-feeding with the lysine pathway (as discussed above) or by direct fermentation of amino acids to acetyl-CoA (35). However, whereas diet-derived proteins are probably important for butyrate synthesis in the ileum, where epithelial cells use butyrate as a main energy source as well (36), it still needs to be assessed whether enough proteins reach the human colon to serve as a major nutrient source for microorganisms. Another possible colonic protein source could originate with lysed bacterial cells. Enormous viral loads have been detected in this environment, suggesting fast cell/nutrient turnover, which might explain the presence of corresponding pathways in both fecal isolates and metagenomic data (Fig. 1, 4, and 5). Detailed investigations of butyrate-producing communities in the colon of carnivorous animals will add additional key information on the role of proteins in butyrate production in that environment. It should be noted that diet provides only a part of the energy/carbon sources for microbial growth in the colon, since host-derived mucus glycans serve as an important nutrient source as well. Several butyrate-producing organisms do specifically colonize mucus (37), and for some, growth on mucus-derived substrates was shown (38). "

[Wie2017]

Evidence type: review

Amino Acid Absorption in the Large Intestine of Humans and Porcine Models.

van der Wielen N, Moughan PJ, Mensink M.

J Nutr. 2017 Aug;147(8):1493-1498. doi: 10.3945/jn.117.248187. Epub 2017 Jun 14.

"Protein digestion and fermentation in the large intestine. Intact proteins that escape the small intestine or produced in the large intestine (mucus, cells, microbial proteins) are digested further in the large intestine by bacterial enzymes and the surviving pancreatic proteases and peptidases (35, 36). This protein degradation has been reported to be highest in the distal large intestine and is m ost likely related to the pH in the different regions (37). The di gested proteins can be used by the microbiota, which produce several metabolites such as SCFAs, ammonia, and amines. These metabolites may be linked to several health outcomes (38)."

[...]

"The large intestine is important for whole-body protein and nitrogen metabolism, in particular via bacterial metabolism. Both small and large intestinal microbiota are capable of synthesizing AAs, and absorption of microbial AAs has been demonstrated to take place in the intestine."

Source: http://www.ketotic.org/2017/11/does-ketogenic-diet-confer-benefits-of.html

[maryhare96]

Why Today’s Bloggers Spend More Time Writing Less Content

What are bloggers’ biggest challenges, processes, and goals in 2017? What are the trends that bloggers need to be paying attention to in 2018?

Andy Crestodina, my Andy (Andy Tyson), and me, looking crazy as usual

Every year for the last four years, the wonderful Andy Crestodina has been on a quest to answer these questions in his blogger survey. I met Andy a number of years ago at a social media event, and we became fast friends. In fact, one of the weddings I was invited to actually listed “Jess Ostroff & Andy Crestodina” on the invitation because we had so many pictures together on Facebook and the bridesmaid at the wedding got confused about who my boyfriend was. (His name is also Andy—easy mistake to make.)

But I digress.

This year, an impressive 1,377 bloggers answered the call to provide their insights. That’s a lot of bloggers! I’m not surprised, given Andy’s charm and smarts. He is a true data nerd, and I can say for myself that the reason I spent the time filling out the survey was that I knew the output would be interesting, useful, and perhaps even inspiring.

I was right.

Behold: Five major takeaways from the 2017 blogger survey. And please do yourself a favor and download the full survey for more delicious insights. You won’t be disappointed in the time, energy, and work that went into analyzing this data!

1. Writing Time Increases, Publishing Frequency Decreases

Despite the fact that videos, Stories, and Snaps are growing in popularity, it’s clear from these 1000+ bloggers that writing still matters. (Thank goodness!) Bloggers are spending more time than ever crafting high-quality pieces. But the number of hours in the day remains the same, which means that something has to give.

It’s no longer about publishing 500-word articles every day to keep people’s RSS readers topped up. Instead, more and more bloggers are moving to a once or twice per week strategy. Many are culling it back even more to a few times per month.

In 2014, almost 40 percent of bloggers said they were knocking out posts in one to two hours. But when I look back at the content I published in 2014, I can tell you with a straight face that it wasn’t very good. It sounds like other bloggers are reflecting and finding the same results. We didn’t spend enough time researching, looking for unique snippets of information, or injecting our own perspective.

From 2014 to now, I’d argue that many of us were creating content for the sake of content instead of for results. Now, finally, we are taking into account what our audience wants and how blogging fits into our overall marketing strategy.

According to the report, the average blog post takes a whopping three hours and 20 minutes to write. I’m definitely on the longer side—closer to five or six hours per post—especially if you include the time I spend brainstorming in the shower.

This tells me that even if your entire job is creating blog content, the average writer can’t really create more than one or two posts per day, let alone go through the editorial process of editing, graphics-creation, and promotional strategy to get those posts published as quickly.

So that explains the decrease in publishing frequency, but is less really more? According to these bloggers, the answer is, “Perhaps.” 49 percent of bloggers say that spending more time on each post does make a difference in the results they get from those posts.

However, this is not a conclusive finding because bloggers also find a correlation between frequency and success.

This begs the question: How can we keep up with the demand to create more when we don’t have more resources, more budget, or more talent to produce at a high level?

In my humble opinion, if you are stuck with the decision about whether to create more content to keep up with frequency demands or better content with less frequency, creating less content that is of better quality and is more suited to your audience’s needs is the best option.

Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes, agrees:

“The bigger themes here are two. One: Quality matters. And two: We don’t need more content. We need more relevant content.”

Relevancy is the killer app, and writers are reaping the rewards of spending more time making fewer pieces of content better, not creating more pieces that suck.

The average blog post takes a whopping 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. Click To Tweet 2. Quality and Media Matter More Than Ever

When I saw the figure that says that bloggers who have a formal process for edits are 43 percent more likely to report strong results, I did a happy dance.

This goes back to the point I mentioned earlier about timing, however, because adding an editor into the process increases the overall time spent on a blog post. And it’s still true that the majority of bloggers edit their own work instead of going through a formal editing process, but the numbers are slowly rising, so I’ll keep dreaming about the day when all content creators use editors—because it truly does make a difference. After all, no one likes reading blog posts that are riddled with typos, and a poorly written article decreases your credibility as a thought leader.

In addition to the conversation around quality, bloggers are also experimenting with including other types of media within their written pieces of content. Most bloggers are adding more images to their posts, which helps break up the text and provides a visual element for those of us who like to skim.

When it comes to other forms of media, such as audio and video, I found it interesting that the biggest percentage of bloggers are seeing strong results from including audio in their content.

I believe this is related to the increasing number of podcasters out there and may also be related to including an audio reading of the blog post itself, which we have done here on Convince & Convert. People love to have different avenues for consuming content, and audio has proven to be a great one because it allows listeners to multitask while learning.

Still, the most common form of media used among bloggers is images, and 30 percent more bloggers are using multiple images to draw readers into their posts. This increasing use of media is paying off, with the bloggers who do use video, audio, and graphical elements reporting strong results.

3. Long-Form Articles Are Winning

As you may have guessed, while bloggers are spending more time on each post, they aren’t spending more time writing the same amount of words. Blog posts are getting longer. They are trending toward the long-form, 2,000+ word posts.

At Convince & Convert, we’ve seen the positive results that are associated with longer form content. That’s because readers these days are looking for a one-stop shop of information. They don’t want to scour through a bunch of 250-word articles when they can skim through one 3,000 word article to find the answers they need.

Bloggers from this survey agree. In fact, over half of them report strong results when a post is 2,000 words or more.

Today, the average blog post is 1,142 words long, which is 41 percent longer than the average post just three years ago. Plus, six times as many bloggers are writing 2,000+ word posts—six times! It’s no wonder bloggers are spending more time than ever on writing.

I’d be willing to wager that the average word count will increase next year after seeing that longer form posts drive better results. Would you agree?

4. Paid Promotion Plus Influencer Marketing Equals Content Promotion Success

It’s not surprising that using paid advertising tactics to promote blog posts wasn’t very popular in 2014. Back then, social media ad platforms were in their infancy (or non-existent), and most people didn’t know how to leverage them effectively.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have made it easy for anyone to become an advertiser. Combine that with the fact that organic reach continues to decline, and the insane spike in the usage of paid services is hardly a mystery.

According to the survey, paid content promotion has seen a 5X increase since 2014. If this increase in usage continues, we will see half of all bloggers using paid services within the next four years.

Part of the reason paid services are so attractive right now is because their reporting tools help us justify the spend in ways that most other promotional tactics do not. It’s always about proving effectiveness, measuring content marketing efforts against goals, and reaching audiences where they are. Paid advertising services that provide targeted, specific options allow us to do just that.

And while none of the other promotion tactics compared to the massive rise in paid services, influencer outreach has seen its own success over the last couple of years as well.

It’s interesting to note that while influencer outreach is not the most popular form of promotion, it is reported to be one of the most effective. Almost half of bloggers who are collaborating with influencers are seeing strong results.

That’s compared to only about 30 percent from social media marketing, even though social media marketing is by far the most widely used tactic for promotional efforts.

Remember: Just because things like tweeting or sharing a Facebook post are easy doesn’t mean they work. This research suggests that you may benefit more from investing your time and resources in the tactics that are harder but provide better results.

5. Updating Old Posts Is a Worthwhile Strategy

Although only 55 percent of bloggers are updating older posts with new information and links, 74 percent of those bloggers are reporting strong results. This means that the ones who aren’t doing this may simply not know what they’re missing!

I could go on and on about the reasons why updating old content is so important. Here are just a few reasons:

It allows you re-use content you’ve already spent lots of time and energy on.

It signals to Google that you’re maintaining popular content.

It tells your readers that you care about them because you’re consistently providing them with useful information.

Here at Convince & Convert, we have implemented a new strategy where we go through our most popular blog posts based on Google Analytics and update the top 10 posts every quarter. If the top 10 are the same for the next quarter and there are no new updates to make to those particular posts, we move on to the top 20, and so on.

This allows us to continue ranking for the terms that people are searching for and providing them with the information they need.

Lisa Jenkins from Social Media Examiner started using this strategy when she noticed that visitors continued to find and click on older articles through Google, but bounce rates were increasing. Starting with those articles is a great step toward developing an ongoing update strategy that works.

Just remember: “While you can update the text and should include a date stamp at the top of the article to show readers when the last update occurred, you should never change the original URL, or you’ll lose all that search juice,” Lisa cautions.

Bottom Line: Blogging (Still) Works

I might argue that “blogging” is out and “content marketing” is in. This is because bloggers aren’t just writers anymore—they’re strategists, editors, promoters, and data analysts. It’s not enough to spend hours writing a piece of content. The success of bloggers’ creations lies in the quality, relevancy, and promotion.

And as bloggers evolve into content marketers, their success evolves with them. From 2016 to 2017, 20 percent more bloggers report strong results from their blogging efforts.

Yes! This is encouraging, especially for those of us who are still camera-shy or are not excited about all the Snap-stagram madness. If we keep investing our energy in writing, hiring the right editors, and putting our sights on the promotion engines that produce the highest ROI, we will all be just fine.

Don’t forget to download the full report here. Thanks to Andy and his team for pulling together this helpful research year after year.

http://ift.tt/2yZYRzJ

[mercedessharonwo1]

Why Today’s Bloggers Spend More Time Writing Less Content

What are bloggers’ biggest challenges, processes, and goals in 2017? What are the trends that bloggers need to be paying attention to in 2018?

Andy Crestodina, my Andy (Andy Tyson), and me, looking crazy as usual

Every year for the last four years, the wonderful Andy Crestodina has been on a quest to answer these questions in his blogger survey. I met Andy a number of years ago at a social media event, and we became fast friends. In fact, one of the weddings I was invited to actually listed “Jess Ostroff & Andy Crestodina” on the invitation because we had so many pictures together on Facebook and the bridesmaid at the wedding got confused about who my boyfriend was. (His name is also Andy—easy mistake to make.)

But I digress.

This year, an impressive 1,377 bloggers answered the call to provide their insights. That’s a lot of bloggers! I’m not surprised, given Andy’s charm and smarts. He is a true data nerd, and I can say for myself that the reason I spent the time filling out the survey was that I knew the output would be interesting, useful, and perhaps even inspiring.

I was right.

Behold: Five major takeaways from the 2017 blogger survey. And please do yourself a favor and download the full survey for more delicious insights. You won’t be disappointed in the time, energy, and work that went into analyzing this data!

1. Writing Time Increases, Publishing Frequency Decreases

Despite the fact that videos, Stories, and Snaps are growing in popularity, it’s clear from these 1000+ bloggers that writing still matters. (Thank goodness!) Bloggers are spending more time than ever crafting high-quality pieces. But the number of hours in the day remains the same, which means that something has to give.

It’s no longer about publishing 500-word articles every day to keep people’s RSS readers topped up. Instead, more and more bloggers are moving to a once or twice per week strategy. Many are culling it back even more to a few times per month.

In 2014, almost 40 percent of bloggers said they were knocking out posts in one to two hours. But when I look back at the content I published in 2014, I can tell you with a straight face that it wasn’t very good. It sounds like other bloggers are reflecting and finding the same results. We didn’t spend enough time researching, looking for unique snippets of information, or injecting our own perspective.

From 2014 to now, I’d argue that many of us were creating content for the sake of content instead of for results. Now, finally, we are taking into account what our audience wants and how blogging fits into our overall marketing strategy.

According to the report, the average blog post takes a whopping three hours and 20 minutes to write. I’m definitely on the longer side—closer to five or six hours per post—especially if you include the time I spend brainstorming in the shower.

This tells me that even if your entire job is creating blog content, the average writer can’t really create more than one or two posts per day, let alone go through the editorial process of editing, graphics-creation, and promotional strategy to get those posts published as quickly.

So that explains the decrease in publishing frequency, but is less really more? According to these bloggers, the answer is, “Perhaps.” 49 percent of bloggers say that spending more time on each post does make a difference in the results they get from those posts.

However, this is not a conclusive finding because bloggers also find a correlation between frequency and success.

This begs the question: How can we keep up with the demand to create more when we don’t have more resources, more budget, or more talent to produce at a high level?

In my humble opinion, if you are stuck with the decision about whether to create more content to keep up with frequency demands or better content with less frequency, creating less content that is of better quality and is more suited to your audience’s needs is the best option.

Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes, agrees:

“The bigger themes here are two. One: Quality matters. And two: We don’t need more content. We need more relevant content.”

Relevancy is the killer app, and writers are reaping the rewards of spending more time making fewer pieces of content better, not creating more pieces that suck.

The average blog post takes a whopping 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. Click To Tweet 2. Quality and Media Matter More Than Ever

When I saw the figure that says that bloggers who have a formal process for edits are 43 percent more likely to report strong results, I did a happy dance.

This goes back to the point I mentioned earlier about timing, however, because adding an editor into the process increases the overall time spent on a blog post. And it’s still true that the majority of bloggers edit their own work instead of going through a formal editing process, but the numbers are slowly rising, so I’ll keep dreaming about the day when all content creators use editors—because it truly does make a difference. After all, no one likes reading blog posts that are riddled with typos, and a poorly written article decreases your credibility as a thought leader.

In addition to the conversation around quality, bloggers are also experimenting with including other types of media within their written pieces of content. Most bloggers are adding more images to their posts, which helps break up the text and provides a visual element for those of us who like to skim.

When it comes to other forms of media, such as audio and video, I found it interesting that the biggest percentage of bloggers are seeing strong results from including audio in their content.

I believe this is related to the increasing number of podcasters out there and may also be related to including an audio reading of the blog post itself, which we have done here on Convince & Convert. People love to have different avenues for consuming content, and audio has proven to be a great one because it allows listeners to multitask while learning.

Still, the most common form of media used among bloggers is images, and 30 percent more bloggers are using multiple images to draw readers into their posts. This increasing use of media is paying off, with the bloggers who do use video, audio, and graphical elements reporting strong results.

3. Long-Form Articles Are Winning

As you may have guessed, while bloggers are spending more time on each post, they aren’t spending more time writing the same amount of words. Blog posts are getting longer. They are trending toward the long-form, 2,000+ word posts.

At Convince & Convert, we’ve seen the positive results that are associated with longer form content. That’s because readers these days are looking for a one-stop shop of information. They don’t want to scour through a bunch of 250-word articles when they can skim through one 3,000 word article to find the answers they need.

Bloggers from this survey agree. In fact, over half of them report strong results when a post is 2,000 words or more.

Today, the average blog post is 1,142 words long, which is 41 percent longer than the average post just three years ago. Plus, six times as many bloggers are writing 2,000+ word posts—six times! It’s no wonder bloggers are spending more time than ever on writing.

I’d be willing to wager that the average word count will increase next year after seeing that longer form posts drive better results. Would you agree?

4. Paid Promotion Plus Influencer Marketing Equals Content Promotion Success

It’s not surprising that using paid advertising tactics to promote blog posts wasn’t very popular in 2014. Back then, social media ad platforms were in their infancy (or non-existent), and most people didn’t know how to leverage them effectively.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have made it easy for anyone to become an advertiser. Combine that with the fact that organic reach continues to decline, and the insane spike in the usage of paid services is hardly a mystery.

According to the survey, paid content promotion has seen a 5X increase since 2014. If this increase in usage continues, we will see half of all bloggers using paid services within the next four years.

Part of the reason paid services are so attractive right now is because their reporting tools help us justify the spend in ways that most other promotional tactics do not. It’s always about proving effectiveness, measuring content marketing efforts against goals, and reaching audiences where they are. Paid advertising services that provide targeted, specific options allow us to do just that.

And while none of the other promotion tactics compared to the massive rise in paid services, influencer outreach has seen its own success over the last couple of years as well.

It’s interesting to note that while influencer outreach is not the most popular form of promotion, it is reported to be one of the most effective. Almost half of bloggers who are collaborating with influencers are seeing strong results.

That’s compared to only about 30 percent from social media marketing, even though social media marketing is by far the most widely used tactic for promotional efforts.

Remember: Just because things like tweeting or sharing a Facebook post are easy doesn’t mean they work. This research suggests that you may benefit more from investing your time and resources in the tactics that are harder but provide better results.

5. Updating Old Posts Is a Worthwhile Strategy

Although only 55 percent of bloggers are updating older posts with new information and links, 74 percent of those bloggers are reporting strong results. This means that the ones who aren’t doing this may simply not know what they’re missing!

I could go on and on about the reasons why updating old content is so important. Here are just a few reasons:

It allows you re-use content you’ve already spent lots of time and energy on.

It signals to Google that you’re maintaining popular content.

It tells your readers that you care about them because you’re consistently providing them with useful information.

Here at Convince & Convert, we have implemented a new strategy where we go through our most popular blog posts based on Google Analytics and update the top 10 posts every quarter. If the top 10 are the same for the next quarter and there are no new updates to make to those particular posts, we move on to the top 20, and so on.

This allows us to continue ranking for the terms that people are searching for and providing them with the information they need.

Lisa Jenkins from Social Media Examiner started using this strategy when she noticed that visitors continued to find and click on older articles through Google, but bounce rates were increasing. Starting with those articles is a great step toward developing an ongoing update strategy that works.

Just remember: “While you can update the text and should include a date stamp at the top of the article to show readers when the last update occurred, you should never change the original URL, or you’ll lose all that search juice,” Lisa cautions.

Bottom Line: Blogging (Still) Works

I might argue that “blogging” is out and “content marketing” is in. This is because bloggers aren’t just writers anymore—they’re strategists, editors, promoters, and data analysts. It’s not enough to spend hours writing a piece of content. The success of bloggers’ creations lies in the quality, relevancy, and promotion.

And as bloggers evolve into content marketers, their success evolves with them. From 2016 to 2017, 20 percent more bloggers report strong results from their blogging efforts.

Yes! This is encouraging, especially for those of us who are still camera-shy or are not excited about all the Snap-stagram madness. If we keep investing our energy in writing, hiring the right editors, and putting our sights on the promotion engines that produce the highest ROI, we will all be just fine.

Don’t forget to download the full report here. Thanks to Andy and his team for pulling together this helpful research year after year.

http://ift.tt/2yZYRzJ

[conniecogeie]

Why Today’s Bloggers Spend More Time Writing Less Content

What are bloggers’ biggest challenges, processes, and goals in 2017? What are the trends that bloggers need to be paying attention to in 2018?

Andy Crestodina, my Andy (Andy Tyson), and me, looking crazy as usual

Every year for the last four years, the wonderful Andy Crestodina has been on a quest to answer these questions in his blogger survey. I met Andy a number of years ago at a social media event, and we became fast friends. In fact, one of the weddings I was invited to actually listed “Jess Ostroff & Andy Crestodina” on the invitation because we had so many pictures together on Facebook and the bridesmaid at the wedding got confused about who my boyfriend was. (His name is also Andy—easy mistake to make.)

But I digress.

This year, an impressive 1,377 bloggers answered the call to provide their insights. That’s a lot of bloggers! I’m not surprised, given Andy’s charm and smarts. He is a true data nerd, and I can say for myself that the reason I spent the time filling out the survey was that I knew the output would be interesting, useful, and perhaps even inspiring.

I was right.

Behold: Five major takeaways from the 2017 blogger survey. And please do yourself a favor and download the full survey for more delicious insights. You won’t be disappointed in the time, energy, and work that went into analyzing this data!

1. Writing Time Increases, Publishing Frequency Decreases

Despite the fact that videos, Stories, and Snaps are growing in popularity, it’s clear from these 1000+ bloggers that writing still matters. (Thank goodness!) Bloggers are spending more time than ever crafting high-quality pieces. But the number of hours in the day remains the same, which means that something has to give.

It’s no longer about publishing 500-word articles every day to keep people’s RSS readers topped up. Instead, more and more bloggers are moving to a once or twice per week strategy. Many are culling it back even more to a few times per month.

In 2014, almost 40 percent of bloggers said they were knocking out posts in one to two hours. But when I look back at the content I published in 2014, I can tell you with a straight face that it wasn’t very good. It sounds like other bloggers are reflecting and finding the same results. We didn’t spend enough time researching, looking for unique snippets of information, or injecting our own perspective.

From 2014 to now, I’d argue that many of us were creating content for the sake of content instead of for results. Now, finally, we are taking into account what our audience wants and how blogging fits into our overall marketing strategy.

According to the report, the average blog post takes a whopping three hours and 20 minutes to write. I’m definitely on the longer side—closer to five or six hours per post—especially if you include the time I spend brainstorming in the shower.

This tells me that even if your entire job is creating blog content, the average writer can’t really create more than one or two posts per day, let alone go through the editorial process of editing, graphics-creation, and promotional strategy to get those posts published as quickly.

So that explains the decrease in publishing frequency, but is less really more? According to these bloggers, the answer is, “Perhaps.” 49 percent of bloggers say that spending more time on each post does make a difference in the results they get from those posts.

However, this is not a conclusive finding because bloggers also find a correlation between frequency and success.

This begs the question: How can we keep up with the demand to create more when we don’t have more resources, more budget, or more talent to produce at a high level?

In my humble opinion, if you are stuck with the decision about whether to create more content to keep up with frequency demands or better content with less frequency, creating less content that is of better quality and is more suited to your audience’s needs is the best option.

Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes, agrees:

“The bigger themes here are two. One: Quality matters. And two: We don’t need more content. We need more relevant content.”

Relevancy is the killer app, and writers are reaping the rewards of spending more time making fewer pieces of content better, not creating more pieces that suck.

The average blog post takes a whopping 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. Click To Tweet 2. Quality and Media Matter More Than Ever

When I saw the figure that says that bloggers who have a formal process for edits are 43 percent more likely to report strong results, I did a happy dance.

This goes back to the point I mentioned earlier about timing, however, because adding an editor into the process increases the overall time spent on a blog post. And it’s still true that the majority of bloggers edit their own work instead of going through a formal editing process, but the numbers are slowly rising, so I’ll keep dreaming about the day when all content creators use editors—because it truly does make a difference. After all, no one likes reading blog posts that are riddled with typos, and a poorly written article decreases your credibility as a thought leader.

In addition to the conversation around quality, bloggers are also experimenting with including other types of media within their written pieces of content. Most bloggers are adding more images to their posts, which helps break up the text and provides a visual element for those of us who like to skim.

When it comes to other forms of media, such as audio and video, I found it interesting that the biggest percentage of bloggers are seeing strong results from including audio in their content.

I believe this is related to the increasing number of podcasters out there and may also be related to including an audio reading of the blog post itself, which we have done here on Convince & Convert. People love to have different avenues for consuming content, and audio has proven to be a great one because it allows listeners to multitask while learning.

Still, the most common form of media used among bloggers is images, and 30 percent more bloggers are using multiple images to draw readers into their posts. This increasing use of media is paying off, with the bloggers who do use video, audio, and graphical elements reporting strong results.

3. Long-Form Articles Are Winning

As you may have guessed, while bloggers are spending more time on each post, they aren’t spending more time writing the same amount of words. Blog posts are getting longer. They are trending toward the long-form, 2,000+ word posts.

At Convince & Convert, we’ve seen the positive results that are associated with longer form content. That’s because readers these days are looking for a one-stop shop of information. They don’t want to scour through a bunch of 250-word articles when they can skim through one 3,000 word article to find the answers they need.

Bloggers from this survey agree. In fact, over half of them report strong results when a post is 2,000 words or more.

Today, the average blog post is 1,142 words long, which is 41 percent longer than the average post just three years ago. Plus, six times as many bloggers are writing 2,000+ word posts—six times! It’s no wonder bloggers are spending more time than ever on writing.

I’d be willing to wager that the average word count will increase next year after seeing that longer form posts drive better results. Would you agree?

4. Paid Promotion Plus Influencer Marketing Equals Content Promotion Success

It’s not surprising that using paid advertising tactics to promote blog posts wasn’t very popular in 2014. Back then, social media ad platforms were in their infancy (or non-existent), and most people didn’t know how to leverage them effectively.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have made it easy for anyone to become an advertiser. Combine that with the fact that organic reach continues to decline, and the insane spike in the usage of paid services is hardly a mystery.

According to the survey, paid content promotion has seen a 5X increase since 2014. If this increase in usage continues, we will see half of all bloggers using paid services within the next four years.

Part of the reason paid services are so attractive right now is because their reporting tools help us justify the spend in ways that most other promotional tactics do not. It’s always about proving effectiveness, measuring content marketing efforts against goals, and reaching audiences where they are. Paid advertising services that provide targeted, specific options allow us to do just that.

And while none of the other promotion tactics compared to the massive rise in paid services, influencer outreach has seen its own success over the last couple of years as well.

It’s interesting to note that while influencer outreach is not the most popular form of promotion, it is reported to be one of the most effective. Almost half of bloggers who are collaborating with influencers are seeing strong results.

That’s compared to only about 30 percent from social media marketing, even though social media marketing is by far the most widely used tactic for promotional efforts.

Remember: Just because things like tweeting or sharing a Facebook post are easy doesn’t mean they work. This research suggests that you may benefit more from investing your time and resources in the tactics that are harder but provide better results.

5. Updating Old Posts Is a Worthwhile Strategy

Although only 55 percent of bloggers are updating older posts with new information and links, 74 percent of those bloggers are reporting strong results. This means that the ones who aren’t doing this may simply not know what they’re missing!

I could go on and on about the reasons why updating old content is so important. Here are just a few reasons:

It allows you re-use content you’ve already spent lots of time and energy on.

It signals to Google that you’re maintaining popular content.

It tells your readers that you care about them because you’re consistently providing them with useful information.

Here at Convince & Convert, we have implemented a new strategy where we go through our most popular blog posts based on Google Analytics and update the top 10 posts every quarter. If the top 10 are the same for the next quarter and there are no new updates to make to those particular posts, we move on to the top 20, and so on.

This allows us to continue ranking for the terms that people are searching for and providing them with the information they need.

Lisa Jenkins from Social Media Examiner started using this strategy when she noticed that visitors continued to find and click on older articles through Google, but bounce rates were increasing. Starting with those articles is a great step toward developing an ongoing update strategy that works.

Just remember: “While you can update the text and should include a date stamp at the top of the article to show readers when the last update occurred, you should never change the original URL, or you’ll lose all that search juice,” Lisa cautions.

Bottom Line: Blogging (Still) Works

I might argue that “blogging” is out and “content marketing” is in. This is because bloggers aren’t just writers anymore—they’re strategists, editors, promoters, and data analysts. It’s not enough to spend hours writing a piece of content. The success of bloggers’ creations lies in the quality, relevancy, and promotion.

And as bloggers evolve into content marketers, their success evolves with them. From 2016 to 2017, 20 percent more bloggers report strong results from their blogging efforts.

Yes! This is encouraging, especially for those of us who are still camera-shy or are not excited about all the Snap-stagram madness. If we keep investing our energy in writing, hiring the right editors, and putting our sights on the promotion engines that produce the highest ROI, we will all be just fine.

Don’t forget to download the full report here. Thanks to Andy and his team for pulling together this helpful research year after year.

http://ift.tt/2yZYRzJ

[byronheeutgm]

Why Today’s Bloggers Spend More Time Writing Less Content

What are bloggers’ biggest challenges, processes, and goals in 2017? What are the trends that bloggers need to be paying attention to in 2018?

Andy Crestodina, my Andy (Andy Tyson), and me, looking crazy as usual

Every year for the last four years, the wonderful Andy Crestodina has been on a quest to answer these questions in his blogger survey. I met Andy a number of years ago at a social media event, and we became fast friends. In fact, one of the weddings I was invited to actually listed “Jess Ostroff & Andy Crestodina” on the invitation because we had so many pictures together on Facebook and the bridesmaid at the wedding got confused about who my boyfriend was. (His name is also Andy—easy mistake to make.)

But I digress.

This year, an impressive 1,377 bloggers answered the call to provide their insights. That’s a lot of bloggers! I’m not surprised, given Andy’s charm and smarts. He is a true data nerd, and I can say for myself that the reason I spent the time filling out the survey was that I knew the output would be interesting, useful, and perhaps even inspiring.

I was right.

Behold: Five major takeaways from the 2017 blogger survey. And please do yourself a favor and download the full survey for more delicious insights. You won’t be disappointed in the time, energy, and work that went into analyzing this data!

1. Writing Time Increases, Publishing Frequency Decreases

Despite the fact that videos, Stories, and Snaps are growing in popularity, it’s clear from these 1000+ bloggers that writing still matters. (Thank goodness!) Bloggers are spending more time than ever crafting high-quality pieces. But the number of hours in the day remains the same, which means that something has to give.

It’s no longer about publishing 500-word articles every day to keep people’s RSS readers topped up. Instead, more and more bloggers are moving to a once or twice per week strategy. Many are culling it back even more to a few times per month.

In 2014, almost 40 percent of bloggers said they were knocking out posts in one to two hours. But when I look back at the content I published in 2014, I can tell you with a straight face that it wasn’t very good. It sounds like other bloggers are reflecting and finding the same results. We didn’t spend enough time researching, looking for unique snippets of information, or injecting our own perspective.

From 2014 to now, I’d argue that many of us were creating content for the sake of content instead of for results. Now, finally, we are taking into account what our audience wants and how blogging fits into our overall marketing strategy.

According to the report, the average blog post takes a whopping three hours and 20 minutes to write. I’m definitely on the longer side—closer to five or six hours per post—especially if you include the time I spend brainstorming in the shower.

This tells me that even if your entire job is creating blog content, the average writer can’t really create more than one or two posts per day, let alone go through the editorial process of editing, graphics-creation, and promotional strategy to get those posts published as quickly.

So that explains the decrease in publishing frequency, but is less really more? According to these bloggers, the answer is, “Perhaps.” 49 percent of bloggers say that spending more time on each post does make a difference in the results they get from those posts.

However, this is not a conclusive finding because bloggers also find a correlation between frequency and success.

This begs the question: How can we keep up with the demand to create more when we don’t have more resources, more budget, or more talent to produce at a high level?

In my humble opinion, if you are stuck with the decision about whether to create more content to keep up with frequency demands or better content with less frequency, creating less content that is of better quality and is more suited to your audience’s needs is the best option.

Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes, agrees:

“The bigger themes here are two. One: Quality matters. And two: We don’t need more content. We need more relevant content.”

Relevancy is the killer app, and writers are reaping the rewards of spending more time making fewer pieces of content better, not creating more pieces that suck.

The average blog post takes a whopping 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. Click To Tweet 2. Quality and Media Matter More Than Ever

When I saw the figure that says that bloggers who have a formal process for edits are 43 percent more likely to report strong results, I did a happy dance.

This goes back to the point I mentioned earlier about timing, however, because adding an editor into the process increases the overall time spent on a blog post. And it’s still true that the majority of bloggers edit their own work instead of going through a formal editing process, but the numbers are slowly rising, so I’ll keep dreaming about the day when all content creators use editors—because it truly does make a difference. After all, no one likes reading blog posts that are riddled with typos, and a poorly written article decreases your credibility as a thought leader.

In addition to the conversation around quality, bloggers are also experimenting with including other types of media within their written pieces of content. Most bloggers are adding more images to their posts, which helps break up the text and provides a visual element for those of us who like to skim.

When it comes to other forms of media, such as audio and video, I found it interesting that the biggest percentage of bloggers are seeing strong results from including audio in their content.

I believe this is related to the increasing number of podcasters out there and may also be related to including an audio reading of the blog post itself, which we have done here on Convince & Convert. People love to have different avenues for consuming content, and audio has proven to be a great one because it allows listeners to multitask while learning.

Still, the most common form of media used among bloggers is images, and 30 percent more bloggers are using multiple images to draw readers into their posts. This increasing use of media is paying off, with the bloggers who do use video, audio, and graphical elements reporting strong results.

3. Long-Form Articles Are Winning

As you may have guessed, while bloggers are spending more time on each post, they aren’t spending more time writing the same amount of words. Blog posts are getting longer. They are trending toward the long-form, 2,000+ word posts.

At Convince & Convert, we’ve seen the positive results that are associated with longer form content. That’s because readers these days are looking for a one-stop shop of information. They don’t want to scour through a bunch of 250-word articles when they can skim through one 3,000 word article to find the answers they need.

Bloggers from this survey agree. In fact, over half of them report strong results when a post is 2,000 words or more.

Today, the average blog post is 1,142 words long, which is 41 percent longer than the average post just three years ago. Plus, six times as many bloggers are writing 2,000+ word posts—six times! It’s no wonder bloggers are spending more time than ever on writing.

I’d be willing to wager that the average word count will increase next year after seeing that longer form posts drive better results. Would you agree?

4. Paid Promotion Plus Influencer Marketing Equals Content Promotion Success

It’s not surprising that using paid advertising tactics to promote blog posts wasn’t very popular in 2014. Back then, social media ad platforms were in their infancy (or non-existent), and most people didn’t know how to leverage them effectively.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have made it easy for anyone to become an advertiser. Combine that with the fact that organic reach continues to decline, and the insane spike in the usage of paid services is hardly a mystery.

According to the survey, paid content promotion has seen a 5X increase since 2014. If this increase in usage continues, we will see half of all bloggers using paid services within the next four years.

Part of the reason paid services are so attractive right now is because their reporting tools help us justify the spend in ways that most other promotional tactics do not. It’s always about proving effectiveness, measuring content marketing efforts against goals, and reaching audiences where they are. Paid advertising services that provide targeted, specific options allow us to do just that.

And while none of the other promotion tactics compared to the massive rise in paid services, influencer outreach has seen its own success over the last couple of years as well.

It’s interesting to note that while influencer outreach is not the most popular form of promotion, it is reported to be one of the most effective. Almost half of bloggers who are collaborating with influencers are seeing strong results.

That’s compared to only about 30 percent from social media marketing, even though social media marketing is by far the most widely used tactic for promotional efforts.

Remember: Just because things like tweeting or sharing a Facebook post are easy doesn’t mean they work. This research suggests that you may benefit more from investing your time and resources in the tactics that are harder but provide better results.

5. Updating Old Posts Is a Worthwhile Strategy

Although only 55 percent of bloggers are updating older posts with new information and links, 74 percent of those bloggers are reporting strong results. This means that the ones who aren’t doing this may simply not know what they’re missing!

I could go on and on about the reasons why updating old content is so important. Here are just a few reasons:

It allows you re-use content you’ve already spent lots of time and energy on.

It signals to Google that you’re maintaining popular content.

It tells your readers that you care about them because you’re consistently providing them with useful information.

Here at Convince & Convert, we have implemented a new strategy where we go through our most popular blog posts based on Google Analytics and update the top 10 posts every quarter. If the top 10 are the same for the next quarter and there are no new updates to make to those particular posts, we move on to the top 20, and so on.

This allows us to continue ranking for the terms that people are searching for and providing them with the information they need.

Lisa Jenkins from Social Media Examiner started using this strategy when she noticed that visitors continued to find and click on older articles through Google, but bounce rates were increasing. Starting with those articles is a great step toward developing an ongoing update strategy that works.

Just remember: “While you can update the text and should include a date stamp at the top of the article to show readers when the last update occurred, you should never change the original URL, or you’ll lose all that search juice,” Lisa cautions.

Bottom Line: Blogging (Still) Works

I might argue that “blogging” is out and “content marketing” is in. This is because bloggers aren’t just writers anymore—they’re strategists, editors, promoters, and data analysts. It’s not enough to spend hours writing a piece of content. The success of bloggers’ creations lies in the quality, relevancy, and promotion.

And as bloggers evolve into content marketers, their success evolves with them. From 2016 to 2017, 20 percent more bloggers report strong results from their blogging efforts.

Yes! This is encouraging, especially for those of us who are still camera-shy or are not excited about all the Snap-stagram madness. If we keep investing our energy in writing, hiring the right editors, and putting our sights on the promotion engines that produce the highest ROI, we will all be just fine.

Don’t forget to download the full report here. Thanks to Andy and his team for pulling together this helpful research year after year.

http://ift.tt/2yZYRzJ

[christinesumpmg]

Why Today’s Bloggers Spend More Time Writing Less Content

What are bloggers’ biggest challenges, processes, and goals in 2017? What are the trends that bloggers need to be paying attention to in 2018?

Andy Crestodina, my Andy (Andy Tyson), and me, looking crazy as usual

Every year for the last four years, the wonderful Andy Crestodina has been on a quest to answer these questions in his blogger survey. I met Andy a number of years ago at a social media event, and we became fast friends. In fact, one of the weddings I was invited to actually listed “Jess Ostroff & Andy Crestodina” on the invitation because we had so many pictures together on Facebook and the bridesmaid at the wedding got confused about who my boyfriend was. (His name is also Andy—easy mistake to make.)

But I digress.

This year, an impressive 1,377 bloggers answered the call to provide their insights. That’s a lot of bloggers! I’m not surprised, given Andy’s charm and smarts. He is a true data nerd, and I can say for myself that the reason I spent the time filling out the survey was that I knew the output would be interesting, useful, and perhaps even inspiring.

I was right.

Behold: Five major takeaways from the 2017 blogger survey. And please do yourself a favor and download the full survey for more delicious insights. You won’t be disappointed in the time, energy, and work that went into analyzing this data!

1. Writing Time Increases, Publishing Frequency Decreases

Despite the fact that videos, Stories, and Snaps are growing in popularity, it’s clear from these 1000+ bloggers that writing still matters. (Thank goodness!) Bloggers are spending more time than ever crafting high-quality pieces. But the number of hours in the day remains the same, which means that something has to give.

It’s no longer about publishing 500-word articles every day to keep people’s RSS readers topped up. Instead, more and more bloggers are moving to a once or twice per week strategy. Many are culling it back even more to a few times per month.

In 2014, almost 40 percent of bloggers said they were knocking out posts in one to two hours. But when I look back at the content I published in 2014, I can tell you with a straight face that it wasn’t very good. It sounds like other bloggers are reflecting and finding the same results. We didn’t spend enough time researching, looking for unique snippets of information, or injecting our own perspective.

From 2014 to now, I’d argue that many of us were creating content for the sake of content instead of for results. Now, finally, we are taking into account what our audience wants and how blogging fits into our overall marketing strategy.

According to the report, the average blog post takes a whopping three hours and 20 minutes to write. I’m definitely on the longer side—closer to five or six hours per post—especially if you include the time I spend brainstorming in the shower.

This tells me that even if your entire job is creating blog content, the average writer can’t really create more than one or two posts per day, let alone go through the editorial process of editing, graphics-creation, and promotional strategy to get those posts published as quickly.

So that explains the decrease in publishing frequency, but is less really more? According to these bloggers, the answer is, “Perhaps.” 49 percent of bloggers say that spending more time on each post does make a difference in the results they get from those posts.

However, this is not a conclusive finding because bloggers also find a correlation between frequency and success.

This begs the question: How can we keep up with the demand to create more when we don’t have more resources, more budget, or more talent to produce at a high level?

In my humble opinion, if you are stuck with the decision about whether to create more content to keep up with frequency demands or better content with less frequency, creating less content that is of better quality and is more suited to your audience’s needs is the best option.

Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes, agrees:

“The bigger themes here are two. One: Quality matters. And two: We don’t need more content. We need more relevant content.”

Relevancy is the killer app, and writers are reaping the rewards of spending more time making fewer pieces of content better, not creating more pieces that suck.

The average blog post takes a whopping 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. Click To Tweet 2. Quality and Media Matter More Than Ever

When I saw the figure that says that bloggers who have a formal process for edits are 43 percent more likely to report strong results, I did a happy dance.

This goes back to the point I mentioned earlier about timing, however, because adding an editor into the process increases the overall time spent on a blog post. And it’s still true that the majority of bloggers edit their own work instead of going through a formal editing process, but the numbers are slowly rising, so I’ll keep dreaming about the day when all content creators use editors—because it truly does make a difference. After all, no one likes reading blog posts that are riddled with typos, and a poorly written article decreases your credibility as a thought leader.

In addition to the conversation around quality, bloggers are also experimenting with including other types of media within their written pieces of content. Most bloggers are adding more images to their posts, which helps break up the text and provides a visual element for those of us who like to skim.

When it comes to other forms of media, such as audio and video, I found it interesting that the biggest percentage of bloggers are seeing strong results from including audio in their content.

I believe this is related to the increasing number of podcasters out there and may also be related to including an audio reading of the blog post itself, which we have done here on Convince & Convert. People love to have different avenues for consuming content, and audio has proven to be a great one because it allows listeners to multitask while learning.

Still, the most common form of media used among bloggers is images, and 30 percent more bloggers are using multiple images to draw readers into their posts. This increasing use of media is paying off, with the bloggers who do use video, audio, and graphical elements reporting strong results.

3. Long-Form Articles Are Winning

As you may have guessed, while bloggers are spending more time on each post, they aren’t spending more time writing the same amount of words. Blog posts are getting longer. They are trending toward the long-form, 2,000+ word posts.

At Convince & Convert, we’ve seen the positive results that are associated with longer form content. That’s because readers these days are looking for a one-stop shop of information. They don’t want to scour through a bunch of 250-word articles when they can skim through one 3,000 word article to find the answers they need.

Bloggers from this survey agree. In fact, over half of them report strong results when a post is 2,000 words or more.

Today, the average blog post is 1,142 words long, which is 41 percent longer than the average post just three years ago. Plus, six times as many bloggers are writing 2,000+ word posts—six times! It’s no wonder bloggers are spending more time than ever on writing.

I’d be willing to wager that the average word count will increase next year after seeing that longer form posts drive better results. Would you agree?

4. Paid Promotion Plus Influencer Marketing Equals Content Promotion Success

It’s not surprising that using paid advertising tactics to promote blog posts wasn’t very popular in 2014. Back then, social media ad platforms were in their infancy (or non-existent), and most people didn’t know how to leverage them effectively.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have made it easy for anyone to become an advertiser. Combine that with the fact that organic reach continues to decline, and the insane spike in the usage of paid services is hardly a mystery.

According to the survey, paid content promotion has seen a 5X increase since 2014. If this increase in usage continues, we will see half of all bloggers using paid services within the next four years.

Part of the reason paid services are so attractive right now is because their reporting tools help us justify the spend in ways that most other promotional tactics do not. It’s always about proving effectiveness, measuring content marketing efforts against goals, and reaching audiences where they are. Paid advertising services that provide targeted, specific options allow us to do just that.

And while none of the other promotion tactics compared to the massive rise in paid services, influencer outreach has seen its own success over the last couple of years as well.

It’s interesting to note that while influencer outreach is not the most popular form of promotion, it is reported to be one of the most effective. Almost half of bloggers who are collaborating with influencers are seeing strong results.

That’s compared to only about 30 percent from social media marketing, even though social media marketing is by far the most widely used tactic for promotional efforts.

Remember: Just because things like tweeting or sharing a Facebook post are easy doesn’t mean they work. This research suggests that you may benefit more from investing your time and resources in the tactics that are harder but provide better results.

5. Updating Old Posts Is a Worthwhile Strategy

Although only 55 percent of bloggers are updating older posts with new information and links, 74 percent of those bloggers are reporting strong results. This means that the ones who aren’t doing this may simply not know what they’re missing!

I could go on and on about the reasons why updating old content is so important. Here are just a few reasons:

It allows you re-use content you’ve already spent lots of time and energy on.

It signals to Google that you’re maintaining popular content.

It tells your readers that you care about them because you’re consistently providing them with useful information.

Here at Convince & Convert, we have implemented a new strategy where we go through our most popular blog posts based on Google Analytics and update the top 10 posts every quarter. If the top 10 are the same for the next quarter and there are no new updates to make to those particular posts, we move on to the top 20, and so on.

This allows us to continue ranking for the terms that people are searching for and providing them with the information they need.

Lisa Jenkins from Social Media Examiner started using this strategy when she noticed that visitors continued to find and click on older articles through Google, but bounce rates were increasing. Starting with those articles is a great step toward developing an ongoing update strategy that works.

Just remember: “While you can update the text and should include a date stamp at the top of the article to show readers when the last update occurred, you should never change the original URL, or you’ll lose all that search juice,” Lisa cautions.

Bottom Line: Blogging (Still) Works

I might argue that “blogging” is out and “content marketing” is in. This is because bloggers aren’t just writers anymore—they’re strategists, editors, promoters, and data analysts. It’s not enough to spend hours writing a piece of content. The success of bloggers’ creations lies in the quality, relevancy, and promotion.

And as bloggers evolve into content marketers, their success evolves with them. From 2016 to 2017, 20 percent more bloggers report strong results from their blogging efforts.

Yes! This is encouraging, especially for those of us who are still camera-shy or are not excited about all the Snap-stagram madness. If we keep investing our energy in writing, hiring the right editors, and putting our sights on the promotion engines that produce the highest ROI, we will all be just fine.

Don’t forget to download the full report here. Thanks to Andy and his team for pulling together this helpful research year after year.

http://ift.tt/2yZYRzJ

[dainiaolivahm]

Why Today’s Bloggers Spend More Time Writing Less Content

What are bloggers’ biggest challenges, processes, and goals in 2017? What are the trends that bloggers need to be paying attention to in 2018?

Andy Crestodina, my Andy (Andy Tyson), and me, looking crazy as usual

Every year for the last four years, the wonderful Andy Crestodina has been on a quest to answer these questions in his blogger survey. I met Andy a number of years ago at a social media event, and we became fast friends. In fact, one of the weddings I was invited to actually listed “Jess Ostroff & Andy Crestodina” on the invitation because we had so many pictures together on Facebook and the bridesmaid at the wedding got confused about who my boyfriend was. (His name is also Andy—easy mistake to make.)

But I digress.

This year, an impressive 1,377 bloggers answered the call to provide their insights. That’s a lot of bloggers! I’m not surprised, given Andy’s charm and smarts. He is a true data nerd, and I can say for myself that the reason I spent the time filling out the survey was that I knew the output would be interesting, useful, and perhaps even inspiring.

I was right.

Behold: Five major takeaways from the 2017 blogger survey. And please do yourself a favor and download the full survey for more delicious insights. You won’t be disappointed in the time, energy, and work that went into analyzing this data!

1. Writing Time Increases, Publishing Frequency Decreases

Despite the fact that videos, Stories, and Snaps are growing in popularity, it’s clear from these 1000+ bloggers that writing still matters. (Thank goodness!) Bloggers are spending more time than ever crafting high-quality pieces. But the number of hours in the day remains the same, which means that something has to give.

It’s no longer about publishing 500-word articles every day to keep people’s RSS readers topped up. Instead, more and more bloggers are moving to a once or twice per week strategy. Many are culling it back even more to a few times per month.

In 2014, almost 40 percent of bloggers said they were knocking out posts in one to two hours. But when I look back at the content I published in 2014, I can tell you with a straight face that it wasn’t very good. It sounds like other bloggers are reflecting and finding the same results. We didn’t spend enough time researching, looking for unique snippets of information, or injecting our own perspective.

From 2014 to now, I’d argue that many of us were creating content for the sake of content instead of for results. Now, finally, we are taking into account what our audience wants and how blogging fits into our overall marketing strategy.

According to the report, the average blog post takes a whopping three hours and 20 minutes to write. I’m definitely on the longer side—closer to five or six hours per post—especially if you include the time I spend brainstorming in the shower.

This tells me that even if your entire job is creating blog content, the average writer can’t really create more than one or two posts per day, let alone go through the editorial process of editing, graphics-creation, and promotional strategy to get those posts published as quickly.

So that explains the decrease in publishing frequency, but is less really more? According to these bloggers, the answer is, “Perhaps.” 49 percent of bloggers say that spending more time on each post does make a difference in the results they get from those posts.

However, this is not a conclusive finding because bloggers also find a correlation between frequency and success.

This begs the question: How can we keep up with the demand to create more when we don’t have more resources, more budget, or more talent to produce at a high level?

In my humble opinion, if you are stuck with the decision about whether to create more content to keep up with frequency demands or better content with less frequency, creating less content that is of better quality and is more suited to your audience’s needs is the best option.

Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes, agrees:

“The bigger themes here are two. One: Quality matters. And two: We don’t need more content. We need more relevant content.”

Relevancy is the killer app, and writers are reaping the rewards of spending more time making fewer pieces of content better, not creating more pieces that suck.

The average blog post takes a whopping 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. Click To Tweet 2. Quality and Media Matter More Than Ever

When I saw the figure that says that bloggers who have a formal process for edits are 43 percent more likely to report strong results, I did a happy dance.

This goes back to the point I mentioned earlier about timing, however, because adding an editor into the process increases the overall time spent on a blog post. And it’s still true that the majority of bloggers edit their own work instead of going through a formal editing process, but the numbers are slowly rising, so I’ll keep dreaming about the day when all content creators use editors—because it truly does make a difference. After all, no one likes reading blog posts that are riddled with typos, and a poorly written article decreases your credibility as a thought leader.

In addition to the conversation around quality, bloggers are also experimenting with including other types of media within their written pieces of content. Most bloggers are adding more images to their posts, which helps break up the text and provides a visual element for those of us who like to skim.

When it comes to other forms of media, such as audio and video, I found it interesting that the biggest percentage of bloggers are seeing strong results from including audio in their content.

I believe this is related to the increasing number of podcasters out there and may also be related to including an audio reading of the blog post itself, which we have done here on Convince & Convert. People love to have different avenues for consuming content, and audio has proven to be a great one because it allows listeners to multitask while learning.

Still, the most common form of media used among bloggers is images, and 30 percent more bloggers are using multiple images to draw readers into their posts. This increasing use of media is paying off, with the bloggers who do use video, audio, and graphical elements reporting strong results.

3. Long-Form Articles Are Winning

As you may have guessed, while bloggers are spending more time on each post, they aren’t spending more time writing the same amount of words. Blog posts are getting longer. They are trending toward the long-form, 2,000+ word posts.

At Convince & Convert, we’ve seen the positive results that are associated with longer form content. That’s because readers these days are looking for a one-stop shop of information. They don’t want to scour through a bunch of 250-word articles when they can skim through one 3,000 word article to find the answers they need.

Bloggers from this survey agree. In fact, over half of them report strong results when a post is 2,000 words or more.

Today, the average blog post is 1,142 words long, which is 41 percent longer than the average post just three years ago. Plus, six times as many bloggers are writing 2,000+ word posts—six times! It’s no wonder bloggers are spending more time than ever on writing.

I’d be willing to wager that the average word count will increase next year after seeing that longer form posts drive better results. Would you agree?

4. Paid Promotion Plus Influencer Marketing Equals Content Promotion Success

It’s not surprising that using paid advertising tactics to promote blog posts wasn’t very popular in 2014. Back then, social media ad platforms were in their infancy (or non-existent), and most people didn’t know how to leverage them effectively.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have made it easy for anyone to become an advertiser. Combine that with the fact that organic reach continues to decline, and the insane spike in the usage of paid services is hardly a mystery.

According to the survey, paid content promotion has seen a 5X increase since 2014. If this increase in usage continues, we will see half of all bloggers using paid services within the next four years.

Part of the reason paid services are so attractive right now is because their reporting tools help us justify the spend in ways that most other promotional tactics do not. It’s always about proving effectiveness, measuring content marketing efforts against goals, and reaching audiences where they are. Paid advertising services that provide targeted, specific options allow us to do just that.

And while none of the other promotion tactics compared to the massive rise in paid services, influencer outreach has seen its own success over the last couple of years as well.

It’s interesting to note that while influencer outreach is not the most popular form of promotion, it is reported to be one of the most effective. Almost half of bloggers who are collaborating with influencers are seeing strong results.

That’s compared to only about 30 percent from social media marketing, even though social media marketing is by far the most widely used tactic for promotional efforts.

Remember: Just because things like tweeting or sharing a Facebook post are easy doesn’t mean they work. This research suggests that you may benefit more from investing your time and resources in the tactics that are harder but provide better results.

5. Updating Old Posts Is a Worthwhile Strategy

Although only 55 percent of bloggers are updating older posts with new information and links, 74 percent of those bloggers are reporting strong results. This means that the ones who aren’t doing this may simply not know what they’re missing!

I could go on and on about the reasons why updating old content is so important. Here are just a few reasons:

It allows you re-use content you’ve already spent lots of time and energy on.

It signals to Google that you’re maintaining popular content.

It tells your readers that you care about them because you’re consistently providing them with useful information.

Here at Convince & Convert, we have implemented a new strategy where we go through our most popular blog posts based on Google Analytics and update the top 10 posts every quarter. If the top 10 are the same for the next quarter and there are no new updates to make to those particular posts, we move on to the top 20, and so on.

This allows us to continue ranking for the terms that people are searching for and providing them with the information they need.

Lisa Jenkins from Social Media Examiner started using this strategy when she noticed that visitors continued to find and click on older articles through Google, but bounce rates were increasing. Starting with those articles is a great step toward developing an ongoing update strategy that works.

Just remember: “While you can update the text and should include a date stamp at the top of the article to show readers when the last update occurred, you should never change the original URL, or you’ll lose all that search juice,” Lisa cautions.

Bottom Line: Blogging (Still) Works

I might argue that “blogging” is out and “content marketing” is in. This is because bloggers aren’t just writers anymore—they’re strategists, editors, promoters, and data analysts. It’s not enough to spend hours writing a piece of content. The success of bloggers’ creations lies in the quality, relevancy, and promotion.

And as bloggers evolve into content marketers, their success evolves with them. From 2016 to 2017, 20 percent more bloggers report strong results from their blogging efforts.

Yes! This is encouraging, especially for those of us who are still camera-shy or are not excited about all the Snap-stagram madness. If we keep investing our energy in writing, hiring the right editors, and putting our sights on the promotion engines that produce the highest ROI, we will all be just fine.

Don’t forget to download the full report here. Thanks to Andy and his team for pulling together this helpful research year after year.

http://ift.tt/2yZYRzJ

[kraussoutene]

Why Today’s Bloggers Spend More Time Writing Less Content

What are bloggers’ biggest challenges, processes, and goals in 2017? What are the trends that bloggers need to be paying attention to in 2018?

Andy Crestodina, my Andy (Andy Tyson), and me, looking crazy as usual

Every year for the last four years, the wonderful Andy Crestodina has been on a quest to answer these questions in his blogger survey. I met Andy a number of years ago at a social media event, and we became fast friends. In fact, one of the weddings I was invited to actually listed “Jess Ostroff & Andy Crestodina” on the invitation because we had so many pictures together on Facebook and the bridesmaid at the wedding got confused about who my boyfriend was. (His name is also Andy—easy mistake to make.)

But I digress.

This year, an impressive 1,377 bloggers answered the call to provide their insights. That’s a lot of bloggers! I’m not surprised, given Andy’s charm and smarts. He is a true data nerd, and I can say for myself that the reason I spent the time filling out the survey was that I knew the output would be interesting, useful, and perhaps even inspiring.

I was right.

Behold: Five major takeaways from the 2017 blogger survey. And please do yourself a favor and download the full survey for more delicious insights. You won’t be disappointed in the time, energy, and work that went into analyzing this data!

1. Writing Time Increases, Publishing Frequency Decreases

Despite the fact that videos, Stories, and Snaps are growing in popularity, it’s clear from these 1000+ bloggers that writing still matters. (Thank goodness!) Bloggers are spending more time than ever crafting high-quality pieces. But the number of hours in the day remains the same, which means that something has to give.

It’s no longer about publishing 500-word articles every day to keep people’s RSS readers topped up. Instead, more and more bloggers are moving to a once or twice per week strategy. Many are culling it back even more to a few times per month.

In 2014, almost 40 percent of bloggers said they were knocking out posts in one to two hours. But when I look back at the content I published in 2014, I can tell you with a straight face that it wasn’t very good. It sounds like other bloggers are reflecting and finding the same results. We didn’t spend enough time researching, looking for unique snippets of information, or injecting our own perspective.

From 2014 to now, I’d argue that many of us were creating content for the sake of content instead of for results. Now, finally, we are taking into account what our audience wants and how blogging fits into our overall marketing strategy.

According to the report, the average blog post takes a whopping three hours and 20 minutes to write. I’m definitely on the longer side—closer to five or six hours per post—especially if you include the time I spend brainstorming in the shower.

This tells me that even if your entire job is creating blog content, the average writer can’t really create more than one or two posts per day, let alone go through the editorial process of editing, graphics-creation, and promotional strategy to get those posts published as quickly.

So that explains the decrease in publishing frequency, but is less really more? According to these bloggers, the answer is, “Perhaps.” 49 percent of bloggers say that spending more time on each post does make a difference in the results they get from those posts.

However, this is not a conclusive finding because bloggers also find a correlation between frequency and success.

This begs the question: How can we keep up with the demand to create more when we don’t have more resources, more budget, or more talent to produce at a high level?

In my humble opinion, if you are stuck with the decision about whether to create more content to keep up with frequency demands or better content with less frequency, creating less content that is of better quality and is more suited to your audience’s needs is the best option.

Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes, agrees:

“The bigger themes here are two. One: Quality matters. And two: We don’t need more content. We need more relevant content.”

Relevancy is the killer app, and writers are reaping the rewards of spending more time making fewer pieces of content better, not creating more pieces that suck.

The average blog post takes a whopping 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. Click To Tweet 2. Quality and Media Matter More Than Ever

When I saw the figure that says that bloggers who have a formal process for edits are 43 percent more likely to report strong results, I did a happy dance.

This goes back to the point I mentioned earlier about timing, however, because adding an editor into the process increases the overall time spent on a blog post. And it’s still true that the majority of bloggers edit their own work instead of going through a formal editing process, but the numbers are slowly rising, so I’ll keep dreaming about the day when all content creators use editors—because it truly does make a difference. After all, no one likes reading blog posts that are riddled with typos, and a poorly written article decreases your credibility as a thought leader.

In addition to the conversation around quality, bloggers are also experimenting with including other types of media within their written pieces of content. Most bloggers are adding more images to their posts, which helps break up the text and provides a visual element for those of us who like to skim.

When it comes to other forms of media, such as audio and video, I found it interesting that the biggest percentage of bloggers are seeing strong results from including audio in their content.

I believe this is related to the increasing number of podcasters out there and may also be related to including an audio reading of the blog post itself, which we have done here on Convince & Convert. People love to have different avenues for consuming content, and audio has proven to be a great one because it allows listeners to multitask while learning.

Still, the most common form of media used among bloggers is images, and 30 percent more bloggers are using multiple images to draw readers into their posts. This increasing use of media is paying off, with the bloggers who do use video, audio, and graphical elements reporting strong results.

3. Long-Form Articles Are Winning

As you may have guessed, while bloggers are spending more time on each post, they aren’t spending more time writing the same amount of words. Blog posts are getting longer. They are trending toward the long-form, 2,000+ word posts.

At Convince & Convert, we’ve seen the positive results that are associated with longer form content. That’s because readers these days are looking for a one-stop shop of information. They don’t want to scour through a bunch of 250-word articles when they can skim through one 3,000 word article to find the answers they need.

Bloggers from this survey agree. In fact, over half of them report strong results when a post is 2,000 words or more.

Today, the average blog post is 1,142 words long, which is 41 percent longer than the average post just three years ago. Plus, six times as many bloggers are writing 2,000+ word posts—six times! It’s no wonder bloggers are spending more time than ever on writing.

I’d be willing to wager that the average word count will increase next year after seeing that longer form posts drive better results. Would you agree?

4. Paid Promotion Plus Influencer Marketing Equals Content Promotion Success

It’s not surprising that using paid advertising tactics to promote blog posts wasn’t very popular in 2014. Back then, social media ad platforms were in their infancy (or non-existent), and most people didn’t know how to leverage them effectively.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have made it easy for anyone to become an advertiser. Combine that with the fact that organic reach continues to decline, and the insane spike in the usage of paid services is hardly a mystery.

According to the survey, paid content promotion has seen a 5X increase since 2014. If this increase in usage continues, we will see half of all bloggers using paid services within the next four years.

Part of the reason paid services are so attractive right now is because their reporting tools help us justify the spend in ways that most other promotional tactics do not. It’s always about proving effectiveness, measuring content marketing efforts against goals, and reaching audiences where they are. Paid advertising services that provide targeted, specific options allow us to do just that.

And while none of the other promotion tactics compared to the massive rise in paid services, influencer outreach has seen its own success over the last couple of years as well.

It’s interesting to note that while influencer outreach is not the most popular form of promotion, it is reported to be one of the most effective. Almost half of bloggers who are collaborating with influencers are seeing strong results.

That’s compared to only about 30 percent from social media marketing, even though social media marketing is by far the most widely used tactic for promotional efforts.

Remember: Just because things like tweeting or sharing a Facebook post are easy doesn’t mean they work. This research suggests that you may benefit more from investing your time and resources in the tactics that are harder but provide better results.

5. Updating Old Posts Is a Worthwhile Strategy

Although only 55 percent of bloggers are updating older posts with new information and links, 74 percent of those bloggers are reporting strong results. This means that the ones who aren’t doing this may simply not know what they’re missing!

I could go on and on about the reasons why updating old content is so important. Here are just a few reasons:

It allows you re-use content you’ve already spent lots of time and energy on.

It signals to Google that you’re maintaining popular content.

It tells your readers that you care about them because you’re consistently providing them with useful information.

Here at Convince & Convert, we have implemented a new strategy where we go through our most popular blog posts based on Google Analytics and update the top 10 posts every quarter. If the top 10 are the same for the next quarter and there are no new updates to make to those particular posts, we move on to the top 20, and so on.

This allows us to continue ranking for the terms that people are searching for and providing them with the information they need.

Lisa Jenkins from Social Media Examiner started using this strategy when she noticed that visitors continued to find and click on older articles through Google, but bounce rates were increasing. Starting with those articles is a great step toward developing an ongoing update strategy that works.

Just remember: “While you can update the text and should include a date stamp at the top of the article to show readers when the last update occurred, you should never change the original URL, or you’ll lose all that search juice,” Lisa cautions.

Bottom Line: Blogging (Still) Works

I might argue that “blogging” is out and “content marketing” is in. This is because bloggers aren’t just writers anymore—they’re strategists, editors, promoters, and data analysts. It’s not enough to spend hours writing a piece of content. The success of bloggers’ creations lies in the quality, relevancy, and promotion.

And as bloggers evolve into content marketers, their success evolves with them. From 2016 to 2017, 20 percent more bloggers report strong results from their blogging efforts.

Yes! This is encouraging, especially for those of us who are still camera-shy or are not excited about all the Snap-stagram madness. If we keep investing our energy in writing, hiring the right editors, and putting our sights on the promotion engines that produce the highest ROI, we will all be just fine.

Don’t forget to download the full report here. Thanks to Andy and his team for pulling together this helpful research year after year.

http://ift.tt/2yZYRzJ

[rodneyevesuarywk]

Why Today’s Bloggers Spend More Time Writing Less Content

What are bloggers’ biggest challenges, processes, and goals in 2017? What are the trends that bloggers need to be paying attention to in 2018?

Andy Crestodina, my Andy (Andy Tyson), and me, looking crazy as usual

Every year for the last four years, the wonderful Andy Crestodina has been on a quest to answer these questions in his blogger survey. I met Andy a number of years ago at a social media event, and we became fast friends. In fact, one of the weddings I was invited to actually listed “Jess Ostroff & Andy Crestodina” on the invitation because we had so many pictures together on Facebook and the bridesmaid at the wedding got confused about who my boyfriend was. (His name is also Andy—easy mistake to make.)

But I digress.

This year, an impressive 1,377 bloggers answered the call to provide their insights. That’s a lot of bloggers! I’m not surprised, given Andy’s charm and smarts. He is a true data nerd, and I can say for myself that the reason I spent the time filling out the survey was that I knew the output would be interesting, useful, and perhaps even inspiring.

I was right.

Behold: Five major takeaways from the 2017 blogger survey. And please do yourself a favor and download the full survey for more delicious insights. You won’t be disappointed in the time, energy, and work that went into analyzing this data!

1. Writing Time Increases, Publishing Frequency Decreases

Despite the fact that videos, Stories, and Snaps are growing in popularity, it’s clear from these 1000+ bloggers that writing still matters. (Thank goodness!) Bloggers are spending more time than ever crafting high-quality pieces. But the number of hours in the day remains the same, which means that something has to give.

It’s no longer about publishing 500-word articles every day to keep people’s RSS readers topped up. Instead, more and more bloggers are moving to a once or twice per week strategy. Many are culling it back even more to a few times per month.

In 2014, almost 40 percent of bloggers said they were knocking out posts in one to two hours. But when I look back at the content I published in 2014, I can tell you with a straight face that it wasn’t very good. It sounds like other bloggers are reflecting and finding the same results. We didn’t spend enough time researching, looking for unique snippets of information, or injecting our own perspective.

From 2014 to now, I’d argue that many of us were creating content for the sake of content instead of for results. Now, finally, we are taking into account what our audience wants and how blogging fits into our overall marketing strategy.

According to the report, the average blog post takes a whopping three hours and 20 minutes to write. I’m definitely on the longer side—closer to five or six hours per post—especially if you include the time I spend brainstorming in the shower.

This tells me that even if your entire job is creating blog content, the average writer can’t really create more than one or two posts per day, let alone go through the editorial process of editing, graphics-creation, and promotional strategy to get those posts published as quickly.

So that explains the decrease in publishing frequency, but is less really more? According to these bloggers, the answer is, “Perhaps.” 49 percent of bloggers say that spending more time on each post does make a difference in the results they get from those posts.

However, this is not a conclusive finding because bloggers also find a correlation between frequency and success.

This begs the question: How can we keep up with the demand to create more when we don’t have more resources, more budget, or more talent to produce at a high level?

In my humble opinion, if you are stuck with the decision about whether to create more content to keep up with frequency demands or better content with less frequency, creating less content that is of better quality and is more suited to your audience’s needs is the best option.

Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes, agrees:

“The bigger themes here are two. One: Quality matters. And two: We don’t need more content. We need more relevant content.”

Relevancy is the killer app, and writers are reaping the rewards of spending more time making fewer pieces of content better, not creating more pieces that suck.

The average blog post takes a whopping 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. Click To Tweet 2. Quality and Media Matter More Than Ever

When I saw the figure that says that bloggers who have a formal process for edits are 43 percent more likely to report strong results, I did a happy dance.

This goes back to the point I mentioned earlier about timing, however, because adding an editor into the process increases the overall time spent on a blog post. And it’s still true that the majority of bloggers edit their own work instead of going through a formal editing process, but the numbers are slowly rising, so I’ll keep dreaming about the day when all content creators use editors—because it truly does make a difference. After all, no one likes reading blog posts that are riddled with typos, and a poorly written article decreases your credibility as a thought leader.

In addition to the conversation around quality, bloggers are also experimenting with including other types of media within their written pieces of content. Most bloggers are adding more images to their posts, which helps break up the text and provides a visual element for those of us who like to skim.

When it comes to other forms of media, such as audio and video, I found it interesting that the biggest percentage of bloggers are seeing strong results from including audio in their content.

I believe this is related to the increasing number of podcasters out there and may also be related to including an audio reading of the blog post itself, which we have done here on Convince & Convert. People love to have different avenues for consuming content, and audio has proven to be a great one because it allows listeners to multitask while learning.

Still, the most common form of media used among bloggers is images, and 30 percent more bloggers are using multiple images to draw readers into their posts. This increasing use of media is paying off, with the bloggers who do use video, audio, and graphical elements reporting strong results.

3. Long-Form Articles Are Winning

As you may have guessed, while bloggers are spending more time on each post, they aren’t spending more time writing the same amount of words. Blog posts are getting longer. They are trending toward the long-form, 2,000+ word posts.

At Convince & Convert, we’ve seen the positive results that are associated with longer form content. That’s because readers these days are looking for a one-stop shop of information. They don’t want to scour through a bunch of 250-word articles when they can skim through one 3,000 word article to find the answers they need.

Bloggers from this survey agree. In fact, over half of them report strong results when a post is 2,000 words or more.

Today, the average blog post is 1,142 words long, which is 41 percent longer than the average post just three years ago. Plus, six times as many bloggers are writing 2,000+ word posts—six times! It’s no wonder bloggers are spending more time than ever on writing.

I’d be willing to wager that the average word count will increase next year after seeing that longer form posts drive better results. Would you agree?

4. Paid Promotion Plus Influencer Marketing Equals Content Promotion Success

It’s not surprising that using paid advertising tactics to promote blog posts wasn’t very popular in 2014. Back then, social media ad platforms were in their infancy (or non-existent), and most people didn’t know how to leverage them effectively.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have made it easy for anyone to become an advertiser. Combine that with the fact that organic reach continues to decline, and the insane spike in the usage of paid services is hardly a mystery.

According to the survey, paid content promotion has seen a 5X increase since 2014. If this increase in usage continues, we will see half of all bloggers using paid services within the next four years.

Part of the reason paid services are so attractive right now is because their reporting tools help us justify the spend in ways that most other promotional tactics do not. It’s always about proving effectiveness, measuring content marketing efforts against goals, and reaching audiences where they are. Paid advertising services that provide targeted, specific options allow us to do just that.

And while none of the other promotion tactics compared to the massive rise in paid services, influencer outreach has seen its own success over the last couple of years as well.

It’s interesting to note that while influencer outreach is not the most popular form of promotion, it is reported to be one of the most effective. Almost half of bloggers who are collaborating with influencers are seeing strong results.

That’s compared to only about 30 percent from social media marketing, even though social media marketing is by far the most widely used tactic for promotional efforts.

Remember: Just because things like tweeting or sharing a Facebook post are easy doesn’t mean they work. This research suggests that you may benefit more from investing your time and resources in the tactics that are harder but provide better results.

5. Updating Old Posts Is a Worthwhile Strategy

Although only 55 percent of bloggers are updating older posts with new information and links, 74 percent of those bloggers are reporting strong results. This means that the ones who aren’t doing this may simply not know what they’re missing!

I could go on and on about the reasons why updating old content is so important. Here are just a few reasons:

It allows you re-use content you’ve already spent lots of time and energy on.

It signals to Google that you’re maintaining popular content.

It tells your readers that you care about them because you’re consistently providing them with useful information.

Here at Convince & Convert, we have implemented a new strategy where we go through our most popular blog posts based on Google Analytics and update the top 10 posts every quarter. If the top 10 are the same for the next quarter and there are no new updates to make to those particular posts, we move on to the top 20, and so on.

This allows us to continue ranking for the terms that people are searching for and providing them with the information they need.

Lisa Jenkins from Social Media Examiner started using this strategy when she noticed that visitors continued to find and click on older articles through Google, but bounce rates were increasing. Starting with those articles is a great step toward developing an ongoing update strategy that works.

Just remember: “While you can update the text and should include a date stamp at the top of the article to show readers when the last update occurred, you should never change the original URL, or you’ll lose all that search juice,” Lisa cautions.

Bottom Line: Blogging (Still) Works

I might argue that “blogging” is out and “content marketing” is in. This is because bloggers aren’t just writers anymore—they’re strategists, editors, promoters, and data analysts. It’s not enough to spend hours writing a piece of content. The success of bloggers’ creations lies in the quality, relevancy, and promotion.

And as bloggers evolve into content marketers, their success evolves with them. From 2016 to 2017, 20 percent more bloggers report strong results from their blogging efforts.

Yes! This is encouraging, especially for those of us who are still camera-shy or are not excited about all the Snap-stagram madness. If we keep investing our energy in writing, hiring the right editors, and putting our sights on the promotion engines that produce the highest ROI, we will all be just fine.

Don’t forget to download the full report here. Thanks to Andy and his team for pulling together this helpful research year after year.

http://ift.tt/2yZYRzJ

[mariasolemarionqi]

Why Today’s Bloggers Spend More Time Writing Less Content

What are bloggers’ biggest challenges, processes, and goals in 2017? What are the trends that bloggers need to be paying attention to in 2018?

Andy Crestodina, my Andy (Andy Tyson), and me, looking crazy as usual

Every year for the last four years, the wonderful Andy Crestodina has been on a quest to answer these questions in his blogger survey. I met Andy a number of years ago at a social media event, and we became fast friends. In fact, one of the weddings I was invited to actually listed “Jess Ostroff & Andy Crestodina” on the invitation because we had so many pictures together on Facebook and the bridesmaid at the wedding got confused about who my boyfriend was. (His name is also Andy—easy mistake to make.)

But I digress.

This year, an impressive 1,377 bloggers answered the call to provide their insights. That’s a lot of bloggers! I’m not surprised, given Andy’s charm and smarts. He is a true data nerd, and I can say for myself that the reason I spent the time filling out the survey was that I knew the output would be interesting, useful, and perhaps even inspiring.

I was right.

Behold: Five major takeaways from the 2017 blogger survey. And please do yourself a favor and download the full survey for more delicious insights. You won’t be disappointed in the time, energy, and work that went into analyzing this data!

1. Writing Time Increases, Publishing Frequency Decreases

Despite the fact that videos, Stories, and Snaps are growing in popularity, it’s clear from these 1000+ bloggers that writing still matters. (Thank goodness!) Bloggers are spending more time than ever crafting high-quality pieces. But the number of hours in the day remains the same, which means that something has to give.

It’s no longer about publishing 500-word articles every day to keep people’s RSS readers topped up. Instead, more and more bloggers are moving to a once or twice per week strategy. Many are culling it back even more to a few times per month.

In 2014, almost 40 percent of bloggers said they were knocking out posts in one to two hours. But when I look back at the content I published in 2014, I can tell you with a straight face that it wasn’t very good. It sounds like other bloggers are reflecting and finding the same results. We didn’t spend enough time researching, looking for unique snippets of information, or injecting our own perspective.

From 2014 to now, I’d argue that many of us were creating content for the sake of content instead of for results. Now, finally, we are taking into account what our audience wants and how blogging fits into our overall marketing strategy.

According to the report, the average blog post takes a whopping three hours and 20 minutes to write. I’m definitely on the longer side—closer to five or six hours per post—especially if you include the time I spend brainstorming in the shower.

This tells me that even if your entire job is creating blog content, the average writer can’t really create more than one or two posts per day, let alone go through the editorial process of editing, graphics-creation, and promotional strategy to get those posts published as quickly.

So that explains the decrease in publishing frequency, but is less really more? According to these bloggers, the answer is, “Perhaps.” 49 percent of bloggers say that spending more time on each post does make a difference in the results they get from those posts.

However, this is not a conclusive finding because bloggers also find a correlation between frequency and success.

This begs the question: How can we keep up with the demand to create more when we don’t have more resources, more budget, or more talent to produce at a high level?

In my humble opinion, if you are stuck with the decision about whether to create more content to keep up with frequency demands or better content with less frequency, creating less content that is of better quality and is more suited to your audience’s needs is the best option.

Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes, agrees:

“The bigger themes here are two. One: Quality matters. And two: We don’t need more content. We need more relevant content.”

Relevancy is the killer app, and writers are reaping the rewards of spending more time making fewer pieces of content better, not creating more pieces that suck.

The average blog post takes a whopping 3 hours and 20 minutes to write. Click To Tweet 2. Quality and Media Matter More Than Ever

When I saw the figure that says that bloggers who have a formal process for edits are 43 percent more likely to report strong results, I did a happy dance.

This goes back to the point I mentioned earlier about timing, however, because adding an editor into the process increases the overall time spent on a blog post. And it’s still true that the majority of bloggers edit their own work instead of going through a formal editing process, but the numbers are slowly rising, so I’ll keep dreaming about the day when all content creators use editors—because it truly does make a difference. After all, no one likes reading blog posts that are riddled with typos, and a poorly written article decreases your credibility as a thought leader.

In addition to the conversation around quality, bloggers are also experimenting with including other types of media within their written pieces of content. Most bloggers are adding more images to their posts, which helps break up the text and provides a visual element for those of us who like to skim.

When it comes to other forms of media, such as audio and video, I found it interesting that the biggest percentage of bloggers are seeing strong results from including audio in their content.

I believe this is related to the increasing number of podcasters out there and may also be related to including an audio reading of the blog post itself, which we have done here on Convince & Convert. People love to have different avenues for consuming content, and audio has proven to be a great one because it allows listeners to multitask while learning.

Still, the most common form of media used among bloggers is images, and 30 percent more bloggers are using multiple images to draw readers into their posts. This increasing use of media is paying off, with the bloggers who do use video, audio, and graphical elements reporting strong results.

3. Long-Form Articles Are Winning

As you may have guessed, while bloggers are spending more time on each post, they aren’t spending more time writing the same amount of words. Blog posts are getting longer. They are trending toward the long-form, 2,000+ word posts.

At Convince & Convert, we’ve seen the positive results that are associated with longer form content. That’s because readers these days are looking for a one-stop shop of information. They don’t want to scour through a bunch of 250-word articles when they can skim through one 3,000 word article to find the answers they need.

Bloggers from this survey agree. In fact, over half of them report strong results when a post is 2,000 words or more.

Today, the average blog post is 1,142 words long, which is 41 percent longer than the average post just three years ago. Plus, six times as many bloggers are writing 2,000+ word posts—six times! It’s no wonder bloggers are spending more time than ever on writing.

I’d be willing to wager that the average word count will increase next year after seeing that longer form posts drive better results. Would you agree?

4. Paid Promotion Plus Influencer Marketing Equals Content Promotion Success

It’s not surprising that using paid advertising tactics to promote blog posts wasn’t very popular in 2014. Back then, social media ad platforms were in their infancy (or non-existent), and most people didn’t know how to leverage them effectively.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest have made it easy for anyone to become an advertiser. Combine that with the fact that organic reach continues to decline, and the insane spike in the usage of paid services is hardly a mystery.

According to the survey, paid content promotion has seen a 5X increase since 2014. If this increase in usage continues, we will see half of all bloggers using paid services within the next four years.

Part of the reason paid services are so attractive right now is because their reporting tools help us justify the spend in ways that most other promotional tactics do not. It’s always about proving effectiveness, measuring content marketing efforts against goals, and reaching audiences where they are. Paid advertising services that provide targeted, specific options allow us to do just that.

And while none of the other promotion tactics compared to the massive rise in paid services, influencer outreach has seen its own success over the last couple of years as well.

It’s interesting to note that while influencer outreach is not the most popular form of promotion, it is reported to be one of the most effective. Almost half of bloggers who are collaborating with influencers are seeing strong results.

That’s compared to only about 30 percent from social media marketing, even though social media marketing is by far the most widely used tactic for promotional efforts.

Remember: Just because things like tweeting or sharing a Facebook post are easy doesn’t mean they work. This research suggests that you may benefit more from investing your time and resources in the tactics that are harder but provide better results.

5. Updating Old Posts Is a Worthwhile Strategy

Although only 55 percent of bloggers are updating older posts with new information and links, 74 percent of those bloggers are reporting strong results. This means that the ones who aren’t doing this may simply not know what they’re missing!

I could go on and on about the reasons why updating old content is so important. Here are just a few reasons:

It allows you re-use content you’ve already spent lots of time and energy on.

It signals to Google that you’re maintaining popular content.

It tells your readers that you care about them because you’re consistently providing them with useful information.

Here at Convince & Convert, we have implemented a new strategy where we go through our most popular blog posts based on Google Analytics and update the top 10 posts every quarter. If the top 10 are the same for the next quarter and there are no new updates to make to those particular posts, we move on to the top 20, and so on.

This allows us to continue ranking for the terms that people are searching for and providing them with the information they need.

Lisa Jenkins from Social Media Examiner started using this strategy when she noticed that visitors continued to find and click on older articles through Google, but bounce rates were increasing. Starting with those articles is a great step toward developing an ongoing update strategy that works.

Just remember: “While you can update the text and should include a date stamp at the top of the article to show readers when the last update occurred, you should never change the original URL, or you’ll lose all that search juice,” Lisa cautions.

Bottom Line: Blogging (Still) Works

I might argue that “blogging” is out and “content marketing” is in. This is because bloggers aren’t just writers anymore—they’re strategists, editors, promoters, and data analysts. It’s not enough to spend hours writing a piece of content. The success of bloggers’ creations lies in the quality, relevancy, and promotion.

And as bloggers evolve into content marketers, their success evolves with them. From 2016 to 2017, 20 percent more bloggers report strong results from their blogging efforts.

Yes! This is encouraging, especially for those of us who are still camera-shy or are not excited about all the Snap-stagram madness. If we keep investing our energy in writing, hiring the right editors, and putting our sights on the promotion engines that produce the highest ROI, we will all be just fine.

Don’t forget to download the full report here. Thanks to Andy and his team for pulling together this helpful research year after year.

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