Continuing my series of Facebook data points, this time I looked at the readability of titles and how that was related to the number of times articles were shared on Facebook.
What I found was that as the reading grade level required to understand the title of an article increased, the number of times it was shared on Facebook decreased. The takeaway? Use simple language if you want to get shared on Facebook.
If you’re curious about my methodology, start by reading this page.
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April 29th, 2010 at 6:35 am
How does this compare to twitter? Is the case that simple language generally gets shared more or that facebook users are especially fond of the simple?
April 29th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Been checking out your recent research posts – all very interesting, nice work!
I’m intrigued to know how you graded the ‘readability’ in this study? I ask because I wonder if you incorporated whether formal/informal language was used? I imagine that this could well affect the results.
April 29th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Great article – totally in line with things I've thought but never been able to prove. I'd love to see something on length of Facebook posts v. shareability. Facebook will *allow* 420 characters, but at some point it cuts it off and puts in the “more” link. My thesis is that if the update stays within the 1-3 line range it's more digestible to fans and they're more likely to comment, like or share. But of course brands want their WHOLE message contained in one update so it'd be great to have some data to show why they shouldn't try to do that. Just wondering if it's on your agenda
Keep up the great work, this information is so helpful, I really appreciate you publishing it here.
April 29th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Informed!
April 29th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Dan- Hello and thanks… “Use simple language if you want to get shared on Facebook.” We consume some much data, folks want a KISS “keep is simple stupid”… Now that I am a raving customer of Hubspot, I am even more inclined to keep a simple (HUB) approach!
Blessings, Brian-
April 29th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
I feel the reason is that Facebook has so much going on. When the user scans the news feed, short and sweet will register faster. Any thing that requires too much thought is likely to be missed. The user can, almost by osmosis, be up to speed on today's goings on without reading to deeply in to posts.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
I wonder if this is because success in spreading a message on the web (Facebook, specifically) calls for the ability to be concise and simple. Lots of people still treat blogs and the web as an academic forum. While there is a time and place for that, most people don't have the time to sit down and read novels. Facebook is a “social” site and operates much like a giant gathering of friends- corporations and marketers would do well to learn what that means instead of just treating it as a readily available captive audience.
The new marketing campaign for the KIN is a great example of “what to do” I think.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
In my opinion, it has everything to do with attention span and what is easily translatable to a user/reader as “interesting.” Short and sweet is always easier.
April 30th, 2010 at 3:27 am
Are we really breeding that much ignorance in this country? I hope then, that Facebook might someday become a vehicle to improve language skills.
However, I will stick to the most basic assumption for these statistics and say that it must be due to the average length of posts. People aren't necessarily going onto Facebook to read articles, but rather share glib comments with each other as a way to decompress.
There is an interview series of social media experts discussing a wide range of current social media trends and practices, that you might find very interesting.
http://www.ourblook.com/topic/social_media.html
May 4th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
[...] at the overall themes in titles and headlines, Mr. Zarrella has found that headlines written at a second-grade reading level — as determined by the length of the words — are most likely to be shared. The majority of [...]
May 5th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
[...] From DanZarrella.com [...]
May 10th, 2010 at 7:29 am
[...] In Twitter, we learned that there is indeed an art to ReTweets and to increase the likelihood for tweets to spread, the words and times we choose dictate their lifespan and ultimately, fate. To examine social objects and how they affect sharing in Facebook, I once again reached out to my friend and social scientist, Dan Zarrella. [...]
May 11th, 2010 at 9:23 am
[...] In Twitter, we learned that there is indeed an art to ReTweets and to increase the likelihood for tweets to spread, the words and times we choose dictate their lifespan and ultimately, fate. To examine social objects and how they affect sharing in Facebook, I once again reached out to my friend and social scientist, Dan Zarrella. [...]
May 11th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
[...] to a recent posting by Dan Zarrella, to increase the likelihood that your Facebook postings will be shared, you need to [...]
May 12th, 2010 at 2:01 am
[...] In Twitter, we learned that there is indeed an art to ReTweets and to increase the likelihood for tweets to spread, the words and times we choose dictate their lifespan and ultimately, fate. To examine social objects and how they affect sharing in Facebook, I once again reached out to my friend and social scientist, Dan Zarrella. [...]
May 12th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
From what I've I've been able to tell, Facebook cuts posts with the “more” link at 320 characters. It also cuts off the title of the link you're posting after 100.
May 12th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Interesting stuff. Any idea why there's that drop from 6-8? And what was the average grade level?
May 13th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
[...] In Twitter, we learned that there is indeed an art to ReTweets and to increase the likelihood for tweets to spread, the words and times we choose dictate their lifespan and ultimately, fate. To examine social objects and how they affect sharing in Facebook, I once again reached out to my friend and social scientist, Dan Zarrella. [...]
May 13th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
[...] In Twitter, we learned that there is indeed an art to ReTweets and to increase the likelihood for tweets to spread, the words and times we choose dictate their lifespan and ultimately, fate. To examine social objects and how they affect sharing in Facebook, I once again reached out to my friend and social scientist, Dan Zarrella. [...]
May 13th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
[...] In Twitter, we learned that there is indeed an art to ReTweets and to increase the likelihood for tweets to spread, the words and times we choose dictate their lifespan and ultimately, fate. To examine social objects and how they affect sharing in Facebook, I once again reached out to my friend and social scientist, Dan Zarrella. [...]
May 14th, 2010 at 1:32 am
[...] In Twitter, we learned that there is indeed an art to ReTweets and to increase the likelihood for tweets to spread, the words and times we choose dictate their lifespan and ultimately, fate. To examine social objects and how they affect sharing in Facebook, I once again reached out to my friend and social scientist, Dan Zarrella. [...]
May 17th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
[...] In Twitter, we learned that there is indeed an art to ReTweets and to increase the likelihood for tweets to spread, the words and times we choose dictate their lifespan and ultimately, fate. To examine social objects and how they affect sharing in Facebook, I once again reached out to my friend and social scientist, Dan Zarrella. [...]
May 20th, 2010 at 10:03 am
[...] can see a full chart of this effect at Dan’s blog but here is a quick [...]
May 20th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
[...] out Dan’s fantastic blog for a nice graph of this [...]
May 23rd, 2010 at 12:47 pm
So fukkin wot? (This is so I get shared lots, according to the logic)
May 25th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
I agree you Katie that they must try to workout as you said.Everybody wants his message to be updated on a single page.
Facebook is one of the best in social media and they should increase the value of characters.
May 28th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
[...] Simple Language Gets Shared More on Facebook | Dan Zarrella (tags: data facebook metrics research socialmedia socialnetworking statistics networking) [...]
June 10th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
[...] Share this on Facebook [...]
June 10th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
[...] promised here’s another post in my Facebook sharing data [...]
June 16th, 2010 at 10:37 am
[...] proportional to the number of times your content will get shared on Facebook. In other words, the more you write like a second grader, the more likely someone else will pass along your content to their network. With few exceptions, [...]
July 7th, 2010 at 10:47 am
[...] fact, as Zarrella illustrates in a rather amusing graphic, the pinnacle to strive for in terms of Facebook shareability is a second-grade reading level. (By [...]
July 14th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
[...] there is an art to how you say it, and how you craft each individual post. Blogger Dan Zarella has some suggestions for the words you use on Facebook, if you want to get really [...]