How to share a curated list people actually open
A shared list gets opened when it is short, named for what it is about, ordered on purpose, and annotated one line at a time. Nine items is a good ceiling. A link dump with thirty entries and a name like Resources gets closed in four seconds, because nothing in it tells the reader where to start or why any of it was worth their attention.
The steps
- 01
Name it for its subject
Title the list after what is in it, not the container it lives in. Resources tells a reader nothing they can act on.
- 02
Cut to nine
Take out everything you would not defend. A list of nine chosen things is read; a list of forty is skimmed and closed.
- 03
Order it on purpose
Put the entry that proves the point first. Order is the cheapest editing you can do and the most visible.
- 04
Write one line each
Say what the thing is and why it is here. One honest line per entry is the whole difference between a collection and a pile of links.
- 05
Send it to one person
Share it with somebody specific rather than posting it at everyone. A list written for one reader is better than a list written for an audience.
Name it for its subject, not its container
Resources, Links and Useful stuff describe the box. Nobody opens a box.
Name the argument instead. The nine essays that made me rewrite my landing page. Everything I read before hiring my first engineer. Now the reader knows within a second whether this is for them.
Cut to nine
Thirty items reads as a search result. Nine reads as a decision. The reader can feel the difference, and the feeling is what makes them start.
If you cannot get under about a dozen, you have two lists.
Order it on purpose
Date added is not an order, it is an accident of your attention. Choose something: easiest to hardest, most surprising first, the one that changed your mind at the end.
Say the order out loud in the description. In rough order of how much each one annoyed me. That single line does more for the reader than any tag.
One line each
Not a summary. A reason. Read the first three paragraphs and stop. The tables are the point. He is wrong about the conclusion and right about everything before it.
This is the part that cannot be automated, and it is the part that makes the list yours.
Send it to one person
Not to an audience. To a person, by name, with a sentence about why you thought of them.
Lists made for a specific reader are better than lists made for everyone, and they are the ones that get forwarded.
Questions people ask
- How many links should a shared list have?
- Under a dozen, and nine is a good target. Longer lists read as search results rather than as recommendations, and the reader stops choosing.
- What makes someone open a shared list?
- A name that states the subject, a length they can see the end of, and a first line that says why the list exists. In that order.
- Should I annotate every link?
- Yes, with one line, and a reason rather than a summary. The summary is already on the page you are linking to. The reason is the only thing you are adding.