6 tips for writing lists
People look at 70% of lists they encounter online
Think of your bulleted lists as the celebrities of your blog posts, webpages and other pieces.
Short list Lists draw readers, increase understanding and get shared — but only if you present them well. Image by Hope House Press
Lists “are to the web reader’s eye what Brad Pitt is to the paparazzi,” say Kara Pernice, Kathryn Whitenton and Jakob Nielsen, the authors of How People Read on the Web.… Read the full article
Quotes on list writing
What writers and others say
“In the spirit of Ethan’s neurosis, we made a drywall list of keyboard buttons we would like to see: PLEASE, THANK YOU, FUCK OFF, DIE, OOPS … MY MISTAKE, DO SOMETHING COOL AND SURPRISE ME.”
― Douglas Coupland, author, in Microserfs
“The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order.”
— Umberto Eco, renowned Italian author
“The list doesn’t destroy culture; it creates it.
… Read the full articleThree types of list stories
Choose from definitive, listicle and framework lists
Not all list stories are created equal. BuzzFeed’s Jack Shepherd lists three types of lists for Nieman Lab:
Wish list The definitive list — all I want for Easter is a date with a girl with nice eyes, or at least one nice eye and a really cool patch; plus eight other things — is just one type of list that Buzzfeed favors. Image by Ian Muttoo
- Listicles.
Top 10 reasons to write listicles
They’re the most shared type of content
From the beginning to the end, our lives are a series of lists. We start as an entry on a short list of baby names and end trying to fill a bucket list of experiences.
Prize catch Your readers have — almost! — the attention of a goldfish. Listicles attract these highly distracted folks. Image by Indulge Media
Listicles (that’s a portmanteau of list and article) are among the most established, most popular and fastest-growing types of content.… Read the full article
7 tips for tipsheets
How to write how-to articles
When the folks at Topolobampo, Chicago’s cathedral to Mexican cuisine, wanted to sell more syrah, they didn’t put signs on the tables saying “Buy wine!” Instead, they provided nifty little tabletop tipsheets on how to pair wine with Mexican food.
Think outside the beer Want people to drink wine with their tacos? Try a a tipsheet. Image by Masa Assassin
Take a tip from Topolobampo: Instead of always pushing your products, offer your customers news they can use to live their lives better.… Read the full article
Why tipsheets?
Service stories get read, shared, used and acted upon
How-to information is the No. 2 type of content that gets retweeted, according to research by Dan Zarrella (PDF), viral marketing scientist for HubSpot.
Top tips Tipsheets like this one, from tabinspire.com, move further and faster on social media.
Here’s how often six kinds of information get shared on Twitter:
- News: 78%
- How-to information: 58%
- Entertainment: 53%
- Opinion: 50%
- Products: 45%
- Small talk: 12%
When it comes to brand communications, though, I’ll bet how-to information is actually the most shared.… Read the full article
Hit list
Lists top the list of blog posts that get shared
If David Letterman taught us one thing during his tenure as host of Late Night, it’s that people love lists.
Readers insist on lists. Write your content in this format, and watch your social media shares go up. Image by Ana C.
It’s no wonder, then, that when Fractl and Buzzstream recently analyzed more than 200,000 articles from June to November 2014, lists topped the list of top 5 types of blog posts that get shared:
- Lists.
Write by number
Stop reinventing the wheel, use story templates
I once asked fiber artist Jason Pollen how he could be creative under the constraints of designing textiles on assignment for clients like Chanel and Donna Karan.
Mechanical painting Mark Chadwick used remote-control toy cars and power tools to create this painting. He made all decisions — including colors, number of layers, and type of brush — by drawing instructions out of a hat.
… Read the full articleCheck it twice
How to write a good list
“I love lists,” writes Adam Savage. “Always have. When I was 14, I wrote down every dirty word I knew on file cards and placed them in alphabetical order.”
I’ve got a little list Write lists for flippers and skimmers, as well as for real readers. Image by Cakey Hamburger
