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Listicles work. Period.

If you write an article which is divided in 7 or 10 items, and then you put the same information in a linear setup, without the listicle titles, more people will read the first one. That's not peer reviewed research, by the way, it's just my own 9 years of experience blogging. This is how things are working for me.

Top 5 articles on my blog, with hundreds of visitors each day, are listicles. No matter if I wrote them last week or 8 years ago. They just work.

Over the years, I came to a few conclusions regarding the causes for this obvious preference of the average internet user.

1. The first and the most important one is about time: people have less and less time and more and more stimuli. Every month you read about a new social network, or blog or project. Skimming the article just to get the gist of it became the norm. The easier you make this skimming for the user, the higher the chances for him to consume your content.

2. The second cause for the list preference is the obvious ease of presentation. Breaking out big content in smaller, more palatable chunks, will help the reader to understand it better. We learn by bullet lists.

3. And the third one is rooted in some of the cognitive biases we're applying all the time, unconsciously. A content split into a list will seem more credible. One of the most common public speaking tips I heard goes like this: "If you want to make a point, tell your audience 2 real, verifiable facts, and then in the third place slip your own agenda. They'll buy it." If you don't believe me, try it out: start with 2 real facts and then put some bogus in the third place. Most of the time, people won't realize. There are many factors at play here, but probably the most important is that we don't verify everything we see, we just do some quick checks and if the information passes these checks, we let it on. If the first two items were true, then we assume the third one will pass the check. Of course, I'm not telling you this so you can manipulate your readers. I'm telling it because it's an effective technique to create engagement. It's up to you to use it ethically.

I'm sure you already saw that this post was organized as a list itself. Try to remove the numbers from the paragraphs and reformulate the first sentence so the "list" part of it goes away. You'll see for yourself that the content becomes a little more difficult to digest.

Small Lists, Big Lists, Huge Lists

A small list is usually between 3 and 10 items. Something that can be consumed in about 10 minutes or less. Your reader is in the subway or on the lunch break.

A big list is usually between 10 and 50 items. This is something that can be read on the spot, if it's really interesting (lists with funny pictures are doing great here) or it gets bookmarked and consumed in smaller chunks. Usually, the reader is at his computer, working.

A huge list is something between 50 and 100 items. These lists are very difficult to make and usually you work at one of these a few weeks. They are more like mini ebooks and, truth to be told, two of my books, the ones that have been translated to Korean and Farsi, were created on top of 2 huge lists. These lists, surprisingly, are the most viral ones and they get readers months or years after you made them. I even wrote a huge list about how to create a huge list, check it out if you have time.

Here are a few tips (relax, there are just a few, not a huge list):

• try to use equal sizes for each item, it helps with readability (the minimum should be 2 sentences, maximum 5 sentences, for a small list)
• don't put in the title exactly what you put in the list, don't start the first sentence of the paragraph with a replay of the title. Use contrast.
• use separate paragraphs (not bullets, like I do here)
• try to mention some of the previous items ("like you saw at number 4, but different")
• don't try to build the entire list at once, give yourself some space, it will get better :)

Assignment: write a small list about your most effective Steemit routine. Something like "How to consume Steemit in 7 easy steps". Don't forget to leave me a comment here, as I may overlook the article if you're just tagging it with challenge30 and story. You have 24 hours.

Looking forward to read your stories!

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This is a 15 sessions story telling crash-course I'm doing on Steemit, the goal being to improve the writing skills of all members of this community. You can see the list of the sessions here. Each session contains an assignment for which you have 24 hours. I will read and review all the assignments, and award a symbolic prize of 1SBD to the "winner".

Let's tell some stories and have some fun!

image source - Pixabay

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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You can also vote for me as a Steemit witness here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses