Related: Crossposting my reddit comment from this comment thread on r/rational (re: the question of how some particular web fiction author achieved rapid outsized success):
Apparently the advice for YouTube channels (as per Ali Abdaal) is to brainstorm video ideas, find a way to frame the idea with a great thumbnail and title, and only then to actually shoot the video.
I.e. if you can’t think of a way to present a piece of content such that people want to click on it, then they won’t click on it, and then all the work that went into making the high-quality content went down the drain.
Another similar advice I heard along this vein: people bounce off of videos in the first seconds, i.e. there’s lots of attrition early on. So if you’re going to put extra effort into polishing parts of your content (eg via some neat video editing), it’s much better to frontload that. Then more people see it, and are more likely to stick around. I guess the writing equivalent of this advice would be to polish book blurb & first chapter.
The perspective that a title has vastly outsized importance also helps explain other weird things, e.g. that newspaper writers often don’t write their own headlines.
Or, put differently in the parent comment, one can picture outsized success on social media with a swiss cheese model:
There are three gates to get from ‘a person willing to patronize authors’ to ‘one of my patrons’.
A. Do they ever click on your story, that is, advertising quality and prominence.
B. Once there, do they read or bounce, that is, story quality.
C. Once they’ve read and not bounced, do they pledge, call it reward quality.
Similarly, a bunch of things have to line up for an article to go viral: someone has to click on your content (A), then like it (B), and then finally follow a call to action like sharing it or donating (C). From this perspective, it’s important to put a significant fraction of one’s efforts on quality (B) into efforts on presentation / clickability (A).
(Side note: If this sounds like advocacy for clickbait, I think it isn’t. The de facto problem with a clickbaity title like “9 Easy Tips to Win At Life” is not the title per se, but that the corresponding content never delivers.)
Finally, re this part:
For low-information readers, a title helps them decide whether/how much to be angry at you.
Another somewhat related point here is managing expectations. My experience here is from Steam games, where the best-rated video games (i.e. those with a fraction of 98-99% of positive reviews) aren’t necessarily the “best” games (whatever that would mean), but rather very good games which make it crystal clear what they are or are not. (Via trailers, screenshots, descriptions, game demos, …) As a result, people who might otherwise buy the game, not enjoy themselves, and then leave a negative review, can instead discover in advance that the game is not for them. This selection effect increases the rate of positive reviews, and leaves everyone better off.
Related: Crossposting my reddit comment from this comment thread on r/rational (re: the question of how some particular web fiction author achieved rapid outsized success):
The perspective that a title has vastly outsized importance also helps explain other weird things, e.g. that newspaper writers often don’t write their own headlines.
Or, put differently in the parent comment, one can picture outsized success on social media with a swiss cheese model:
Similarly, a bunch of things have to line up for an article to go viral: someone has to click on your content (A), then like it (B), and then finally follow a call to action like sharing it or donating (C). From this perspective, it’s important to put a significant fraction of one’s efforts on quality (B) into efforts on presentation / clickability (A).
(Side note: If this sounds like advocacy for clickbait, I think it isn’t. The de facto problem with a clickbaity title like “9 Easy Tips to Win At Life” is not the title per se, but that the corresponding content never delivers.)
Finally, re this part:
Another somewhat related point here is managing expectations. My experience here is from Steam games, where the best-rated video games (i.e. those with a fraction of 98-99% of positive reviews) aren’t necessarily the “best” games (whatever that would mean), but rather very good games which make it crystal clear what they are or are not. (Via trailers, screenshots, descriptions, game demos, …) As a result, people who might otherwise buy the game, not enjoy themselves, and then leave a negative review, can instead discover in advance that the game is not for them. This selection effect increases the rate of positive reviews, and leaves everyone better off.
Thanks, this is helpful.