As promised here’s another post in my Facebook sharing data series.
This time, I applied the two linguistic algorithms (RID and LIWC) that power TweetPsych to my Facebook sharing data set and found an interesting, if not entirely surprising phenomenon.

Articles in my dataset that include sexual references in their titles, are shared on Facebook far more than the average story. Additionally, positivity is more shared than negativity. If you want to your blog post or article shared on Facebook, it’s a trying writing (positively) about sex.
If you’re curious about my methodology and dataset, read this page.
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May 3rd, 2010 at 9:06 am
I am not surprised at all, it is easily predictable.
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:38 am
same story on twitter: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/cgi-bin/print?id=6156
http://www.mydecision.eu/1000-green-ideas/index...
May 3rd, 2010 at 11:41 am
Nice post but TweetPsych doesn't work right now
May 3rd, 2010 at 12:47 pm
[...] Imagery Dictionary (RID) and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) methods to arrive at the conclusion that, “Articles … that include sexual references in their titles are shared on Facebook [...]
May 3rd, 2010 at 12:58 pm
[...] Imagery Dictionary (RID) and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) methods to arrive at the conclusion that, “Articles … that include sexual references in their titles are shared on Facebook far [...]
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:12 pm
[...] DanZarrella Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Valencia Comments [...]
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:13 pm
[...] share your articles, here’s a tip: write about sex. That’s the finding of a new report published by Dan Zarella, the “social media scientist”. While not completely surprising, it’s interesting [...]
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:24 pm
[...] No way! This can’t be real… they’re lying surely. Now, let me just go share that Three Busty Blondes vid on Facebook. [...]
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:36 pm
[...] Imagery Dictionary (RID) and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) methods to arrive at the conclusion that, “Articles … that include sexual references in their titles are shared on Facebook far [...]
May 3rd, 2010 at 1:43 pm
When was the last time you tried it?
May 3rd, 2010 at 2:48 pm
[...] Second, there is a wrong way to use every platform. Reddit has different etiquette than Digg, Facebook has different etiquette than Myspace, and every platform has a different group that are their power users. The background and important issue for the power user group creates a clear set of negative actions on the platform; Dan Zarrella just shared why you don’t bash Twitter on Facebook. [...]
May 3rd, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Just tried again now. http://tweetpsych.com/?q=arisrock > returns “there was an error”. Strangely if I click on someone elses profile however from the ones you have on the page – like http://tweetpsych.com/?q=poetrymagazine – it works fine…
May 3rd, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Dan,
Sex might always be the hot topic, but you always have to balance that against what it does for your brand. Often, any exercise that overextends itself on sexual intrigue reduces its reputation and ability to make a conversation.
Hey, Edwards might fit the bill as an example. He is at his peak of popularity in terms of a topic. But he is at his low point in credibility.
Best,
Rich
May 3rd, 2010 at 6:04 pm
[...] share your articles, here’s a tip: write about sex. That’s the finding of a new report published by Dan Zarella, the “social media scientist”. While not completely surprising, it’s interesting [...]
May 3rd, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Nature supports sex, and anything that promotes it. You may not be able to see apparent link all the time but you can predict the success and failures in many cases if you could directly or indirectly relate to it. It is not related to humans alone but entire biosphere. You might expect some extra pull/push if your headlines are sexy. Darwin's Theory can be rephrased, “Sexiest will survive and rest will Die” – Survival of the Sexiest
May 4th, 2010 at 12:15 am
[...] Hier is meer van Dan Zarrella te vinden. [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 4:34 am
[...] sexo no es una cuestión de páginas webs o revistas de adultos. Así lo corrobora un estudio del investigador de los medios sociales, Dan Zarrella, donde se llega a una conclusión bastante [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 5:54 am
[...] compared with the average, while ones with negative headlines fall below the average by about 10%, according to Dan Zarrella, a social-media consultant at Boston marketing firm HubSpot. By far the biggest jump in sharing [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 10:39 am
[...] Imagery Dictionary (RID) and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) methods to arrive at the conclusion that, “Articles … that include sexual references in their titles are shared on Facebook [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 11:08 am
[...] social media scientist Dan Zarrella breaks down Facebook sharing behaviors, revealing that Facebook articles that include sexual references in their titles are shared far [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
[...] compared with the average, while ones with negative headlines fall below the average by about 10%, according to Dan Zarrella, a social-media consultant at Boston marketing firm HubSpot. By far the biggest jump in sharing [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
[...] informações: Dan Zarella.com, Mashable. [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
[...] Imagery Dictionary (RID) and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) methods to arrive at the conclusion that, “Articles … that include sexual references in their titles are shared on Facebook [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
[...] Imagery Dictionary (RID) and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) methods to arrive at the conclusion that, “Articles … that include sexual references in their titles are shared on Facebook far [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
[...] 1. Sex does sell. After doing some research, Dan Zarrella, a social media researcher, says, “Articles in my dataset that include sexual references in their titles, are shared on Facebook far more than the average story.” Read more about Dan’s findings here. [...]
May 5th, 2010 at 8:34 am
[...] Imagery Dictionary (RID) и Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), чтобы прийти к выводу, что «статьи, которые включают сексуальное ссылки в [...]
May 6th, 2010 at 1:22 am
[...] 根據Dan Zarella最新報導的研究結果,若想使Facebook使用者分享你的文章,秘訣為:寫一些以性愛為主題的文章吧!其實這並不令人意外,性愛本來就是最受人們歡迎的議題。 [...]
May 7th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
[...] The results are not surprising, even to Zarrella, who charted his findings. [...]
May 9th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
[...] Data Shows: On Facebook, Sex Sells http://danzarrella.com/data-shows-on-facebook-sex-sells.html [...]
May 14th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
[...] can imagine how amused we were then when we saw Dan Zarrella’s data regarding what users are sharing on the social [...]
May 20th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
[...] recently found out that sex sells on Facebook, well we probably could have guessed that, but it is important to make your e-mail titles sexy and [...]
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:55 pm
[...] recently found out that sex sells on Facebook, well we probably could have guessed that, but it is important to make your e-mail titles sexy and [...]
May 26th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
[...] not discovered their VSPOT yet, take a look here. And sorry guys, I know sexs sells on Facebook- thanks to this post by Dan- but our VSPOT is very social, but not very [...]
May 28th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
[...] Data Shows: On Facebook, Sex Sells | Dan Zarrella (tags: data facebook metrics research socialmedia socialnetworking statistics networking) [...]
June 4th, 2010 at 12:17 am
[...] not discovered their VSPOT yet, take a look here. And sorry guys, I know sexs sells on Facebook- thanks to this post by Dan- but our VSPOT is very social, but not very [...]
June 10th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
[...] Share this on Facebook [...]
June 15th, 2010 at 3:38 am
Sex already sells everywhere else, from print to electronic media, and now we're all supposed to act baffled when it works on Facebook? Maybe they should just devote a Facebook JUST for when you want sex- oh wait, that's already happened: http://www.pointsincase.com/columns/casey-freem... Something tells me there's going to be a “surprise” Twitter version of this data set soon too.
June 25th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Coming from me I guess you know where I stand. Sex is the oldest profession in the book, as well as the very first commodity. It doesn't matter race or creed, we have the most experience as a people selling sex!
July 7th, 2010 at 4:47 am
my little page on facebook definitely gets alot of referrals
July 16th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Of course it is! Sex or 'porn' for that matter is the most searched term on .
July 16th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Of course it is! Sex or 'porn' for that matter is the most searched term on Google.