The Imperfect Science of the Perfect Post

Lately I’ve been reconsidering the way I post. That is, I’m taking a deeper dive into what I post, reading more, and having more opinions. On Twitter, my tweets have taken on a different look, instead of the usual RT @BlabbityBlahBlah, link and hashtag. Now more tweets have a quote in them. In real-time, those tweets are retweets with comments. If they’re scheduled, they start off with a quote, usually, then who said it, the link and maybe a hashtag. On other platforms, such as Facebook, posts are similarly formatted. Twitter itself has advice on what to tweet, which you might like: What to Tweet.

So What?

This format with the quote has resulted in a lot more conversations, I’ve found. Also, people seem to retweet these posts more often. People seem to appreciate the format with quotes more, and the engagement has been different, and more fun. By the way, if you’re struggling with engagement, you might want to look at For Better Social Media Results, Focus on Engagement. Since social is the whole point of social media, getting more engagement is a true win.

Photo by camerazn

SEO or Just More Engagement?

Search Engine Optimization has been getting trickier and trickier. Often posts that are written for the Google bots don’t sound like they’re written by humans at all. Keyword stuffing is rampant, and many of the posts seem like they’re written using Artificial Intelligence. They may have been written by someone whose first language isn’t English or translated using a translation program. Either way, many articles seem stilted and strangely written.

The Human Element

What about the human reading your posts? Don’t they deserve an article written by a real, live, breathing human? I think so. Many of the articles I’ve read recently, even those by big companies such as Forbes, seem to be filled with errors. Are good articles going the way of the dodo, the phone booth, and cursive writing? Let’s hope not! Although I can’t influence everyone all at once, if I could vote for a more human touch in articles and blog posts, I would. And if there are people reading your posts anywhere online, from Facebook to Twitter, why not add your own opinion rather than just being a reposting machine? Even if it’s old-school, I’d like to see that happen. If you’re old school, you might like Yes–Why Not Call Your Friends on the Telephone?

Our Attention Spans are Shortening

We seem to have less time to read these days. Or, as this article from the the New Yorker explains in Why We Don’t Read, Revisited, “…between 2003 and 2016, the amount of time that the average American devoted to reading for personal interest on a daily basis dropped from 0.36 hours to 0.29 hours.” At the same time, people spent more time watching t.v. and possibly watching videos.

What Science Can You Apply to Your Posts?

Is there some science that you can apply to the posts you write yourself or curate? Let me know if you use science or analytics in your posts! And thank you for reading.