Top 10 Reasons Why Great Content Fails on Social Media
Can't Fail Cafe - image by pbo31.
Recently I wrote a guest post that took me a long time to write and was well crafted timely pillar content which nonetheless failed miserably on social media, even the site I targeted directly. OK, I may be biased, maybe it was just "great content", or rather a great article as I do not like the fuzzy term "content". It was a how to that grew to be a small tutorial in fact. As this was a guest post and it targeted my favorite community Mixx I was really disappointed. After I overcame the ensuing suicidal tendencies I started analyzing what happened and comparing it to other posts both successful and not.
Now I present you the outcome, the top 10 reasons why great content fails on social media:
The Headline
The headline is crucial, without a proper, intriguing, kick-ass headline the best content will fail. Take a look at this post at SEO ROI which also failed miserably: "The Biggest, Baddest, Resource Bonanza Bar None!"
What the heck is it about? Nobody knew and thus it failed even on Sphinn where otherwise it would have ruled the homepage. I was silly enough to submit it without changing the headline. I should have called it something like "111+ Most Important Online Marketing Resources of All Time" instead.
Basically the original title just does not give you a clue what the post is about and why anybody should care for it.
The Submitter
Now this is something most social media mavens already know and most bloggers hate, being submitted by a nobody. It's often as bad when someone submits who will describe your post as "good post about blogging" where all other posts are outstanding, amazing or must-read, a post that is just "good" will fail. So if you're a blogger and you just provided the best list post of you blogging career make sure someones submits it who can get it the attention it deserves.
The Target Audience
You should know beforehand who you target with a post. Bloggers? Webmasters? The social media crowd? Which social media site? Just today I noticed someone who submitted a post to Digg that used a title targeting web developers. Now the submission to Digg included the word "SEO" instead which equals to self-annihilation on Digg. No story that contains "SEO" in its title makes the Digg front page. So study your audience at least a little. You won't enter the Indian market selling beef either! Each site has specific topical preferences you must take into account.
The Time Submitted
This one is really important. If you write in English, and you should if you want to succeed on social media, you basically write for the US. I have more than 50% US traffic, 10% Canada etc. although my English is far from perfect. So you have to take time zones into consideration and not submit at night but in the morning or during day time.
Also a post submitted on the weekend might get overlooked by many, especially if it's dealing with business stuff. Most other business people also have business hours ;-) Just recently a great post of mine failed miserably after it was submitted on Friday evening to Sphinn. It had 21 votes on Monday when the 3 day "upcoming" phase ended.
The Appearance
Most people decide whether they leave your site in seconds or rather milliseconds. So you have to grip them by their throat. You really need an eye-catcher. Lidija of Blog Well understood it very well when she posted her legendary b00bs/resources post. My guest post which failed had it's images downsized so drastically that they were unintelligible. You couldn't discern anything. They were meant as illustration of the tutorial. A tutorial with useless images is no tutorial.
Of course if the only thing above the fold/scroll are Google or banner ads I will leave immediately. Last but not least: If the page copy is one huge piece of text I won't torture my strained eyes either.
The Source
Now this might not be obvious, but some sites will never succeed on some social media. SEO 2.0 will never ever get to the front page of Digg as the Digg bury brigade does not read SEO posts (posts about SEO) at all, they hit "bury" right away when spotting the term "SEO". The same post might succeed being published elsewhere but not here.
Also some people are persona non grata on some sites, like Jason "SEO is bullshit" Calacanis e.g. on Sphinn. An a-list blogger might succeed even with rather poor content. An unknown blogger must be twice as good to be successful.
The Me Too Factor
Some topics are hot as long as they haven't been covered by dozens of others days, weeks or months earlier. When people are tired of some kind of content it can be the best but it will fail anyways. So not write another me too post when the topic has been already covered to excess.
The Genre
In literature we have poetry and prose and everything inbetween. We also have drama, comedy and horror movies. At the box office or on social media weird experimental mixes won't succeed as people will be confused. So decide if you write a list or a tutorial. If you write an analysis do not make it opinionated etc.
The Categorization
I see this mistake every day on StumbleUpon. SU is very dependent on it's categories/tags. Without adding the right categories nobody potentially interested will even see your post. Just recently my "Flagship Blogging" post has been submitted in the "Internet" category to SU. This is a very broad category which deals with many topics, but just because blogs are part of the Internet does not make this category the right one. StumbleUpon has the weblogs/blogs category for this, also writing is fitting in this case. This is just one of dozens examples of miscategorization at StumbleUpon.
The Initial Push
The initial push means making your friends and peers online aware of your post. Did someone submit your post? Now you have to contact people of your social network on the Web to ask them to vote for you. Without the initial push of a 12 votes by your peers you won't even get noticed at most social sites. You will end up as a bleep among thousands. So rally for your post if you truly believe it's worth it.
So by now you may already sense that it's not just about content is king on social media. It depends. A king is nothing without a kingdom or an army. The good news is: You can overcome most of these 10 reasons why great content fails on social media. So try not to make these mistakes next time.
Ironically I published this post on a Friday night so any submission will fail ;-)
Nonetheless, do not wait, submit it, it's my bad this time. Also I need some proof for my theories.
ReadWriteWeb linked to an article recently about the timing of social media submissions. I did a quick post about it as well (it’s in my website link). This research suggested that social media submissions can do well in late morning and early afternoon, much as you say. It also said that Tuesday was the best day to submit.
However, you do have to keep in mind that there are multiple time zones across North America: there can be a 4.5 hour time spread between time zones across Canada and the US, including a three hour span between East Coast US (e.g. New York, Washington DC, Atlanta…) and West Coast US (California, Oregon, Washington State).
All good ideas, Tad.
[...] Top 10 Reasons Why Great Content Fails on Social Media :: SEO 2.0 – some pointers why that perfect post you wrote might not make the top of the pile. [...]
This is a great concise post about ways to avoid the pitfalls of writing and submitting to a social media audience.
I think it’s interesting to think about how people submit content. Should they take it more seriously? After all, SU and the rest of the social news and bookmark sites are intended to be easily used by the general public.
Most people don’t consider the benefits for for a website by submitting content from it. They don’t think about which category that fits best with it. It can be frustrating to have a post you spent a lot of time on about free jazz submitted into sport, but.. how do you make sure everything is submitted in the right places by the right people? Maybe there is some sort of universal balance system in place that sets everything right in the long run…
Or I guess you can beat the system by identifying your best posts and giving a heads up to your friends on twitter? Does this have a negative impact on the community by creating an elite group of users who make it more difficult for newbies to get going?
Oops, forgot to say thanks for the link!
Good post about how or how not to publish articles. I’ll gladly keep this in mind for the next time. And you are slowly but surely becoming one of my favourite SEO’s;).
Just my own two cents but I think what hurt that Mixx post, which was a great resource, was the fact that it was so long. For social media people want something short, about 500 words, that they can quickly digest and move on. In the long run the guest post will continue to hold value, but for the short burst of social media love it’s simply to much for socialites to soak up.
Tad, you’re totally right. That headline was massive suckage. I thought that the partial alliteration would work, but obviously it’s not as impressive as a three digit resource post title. Lesson learned!
That said, until my $(@T#(* Click Audit stats went AWOL (click my name to see more), SU had made it a top subscription builder for my blog. Last I checked, there were 68 subscribers earned from that post!
This is a really great article, Tad. You’ve got all the important points mentioned. Normally I like to add something to the conversation. In this case, you’ve got it all. I think timing coupled with giving an initial boost are the most important, but they’re all good.
Hi,
Just wanted to say these are some good guidelines you set up for us! I’ll definitely keep them handy for the future..
Clear, precise, easy-to-use.
thanks for the insight!
[...] reports on his home blog SEO 2.0 in his post Top 10 Reasons Why Great Content Fails on Social Media that he suspects that the wording of the headline played a significant factor in the failure of a [...]
Timing is definitely crucial. One thing that we’ve observed is its a good thing to submit a post Thursday end of day, or Friday morning so that if it goes hot on Sphinn it stays up there longer as less people are blogging outside of work hours, but lots of people are still catching up on their week of news.
Great Article! We have been trying to accomplish many different things within the social bookmarking sites and to be perfectly honest it has been nothing more than just stabs in the dark. Your post has provided a much needed insight to the inner workings of these sites and how to approach them to be successful. We have done a few of the exact things that you have said not to do and that alone helps us understand the logic of submitting posts. Thanks again….Annie.
[...] An SEO perspective on why great content might fail on social media. [...]
[...] Top 10 Reasons Why Great Content Fails on Social Media [...]
Amen
[...] either of these it’s likely that your content will be submitted by nobody’s, one of the main reasons why great content fails on social media. Many of the top bloggers in your niche will be power users and writing a post for them is a [...]
[...] Top 10 Reasons Why Great Content Fails on Social Media SEO 2.0 [...]
This is an excellent list! It is very easy to forget some of these elements if the industry is a non-tech or social media type of audience. Thanks again for these helpful tips, I will be sure to mention it on our blog and to our new social media staff as we take on new clients.
These are excellent points you have posted. This will help a lot to blog readers.
I really never thought about submitting things during certain times.
Twitter convos obviously slow down, but social bookmarks do too
Great post. Just to edit slightly, there was ONE post I saw that had “SEO” in it, but not what you might think. It was “10 Reasons Not to Hire an SEO”. :)
Great article… I think this is second time when I read the article, and maybe will
be a third time when I’ll read with pleasure this article…
[...] post está inspirando en la versión original en inglés procedente de uno de mis blogs favoritos Seo2.0, espero que puedas utilizar los puntos expresados [...]
I find it amazing that many people in some of the social networks are out for themselves and that’s it. They play the system well and ruin it for others. Sorry your hard work didn’t get better results, keep trying though! You are welcome to guest post with us :)
[...] Top 10 Reasons Why Great Content Fails on Social Media: In case you’re still emphasizing submissions on social sites, here’s why your content … uh, appears to suck. [...]
[...] Top 10 Reasons Great Content Fails [...]
I ended up here from Twitter…there are some good points here. I do give alot of thought to the timing of submissions. Picking a topic that hasn’t been done to death is important too. Even statistics can be reflected in different and interesting formats.
These has covered great insights about proper way how to best optimize the content you are posting on social media. We tend to forget some of these concepts sometimes.
Been working heavily on SEO for my site for green…you’d be surprised at what a hard project this is especially with social media! No one wants to read about whales and melting ice caps…but that’s what everyone talks about!
I have read your another post regarding that why SEO fail for Social Media. Now this post this is great you have provided important tips to focus on.
I’ve been working in the odd land of Google News this week, which is one part SEO, one part news and one part what ever anyone is talking about and looking at.
We broke a story about the brand new michael jackson songs that were found in the motown vaults and will be released in November. You would think that never before heard Michael Jackson songs (not just rehashes of previously released stuff) might make some decent wake in the news, but this gets to my point, we got completely stomped on by the whole Kanye West is a jackA$$ thing, buried and didn’t pick up the reblog/rewrites we were expecting.
Point here is look for a lull in the stream before you launch! :)
good article!
i try to think of a good submitting time myself also, when it concerns such a mailing.
cheers,
Levi
twitter.com/palominded
Very good article, very useful, i know what to do and what to not do, it seems that a lot of people like article like “top 10″ (for example) article, i will surely make one during this week. ^^
that cafe is owned by tre cool, the drummer for greenday
I’ve used social media such as Digg to submit my content I always fail every step of the way. The reason that great content fail is because of the fact that not all topic do well in those sites.
Now this is something most social media mavens already know and most bloggers hate, being submitted by a nobody. It’s often as bad when someone submits who will describe your post as “good post about blogging” where all other posts are outstanding, amazing or must-read, a post that is just “good” will fail. So if you’re a blogger and you just provided the best list post of you blogging career make sure someones submits it who can get it the attention it deserves.
I’ve used social media such as Digg to submit my content I always fail every step of the way. The reason that great content fail is because of the fact that not all topic do well in those sites.
[...] How can you overcome the 10 top reasons why great content fails on social media.Tadeusz Szewczyk shares his ideas on Top 10 Reasons Why Great Content Fails on Social Media. [...]