MUST READ - How to Sound Human: Data-Backed Keys to Making Your Voice Stand Out Online Every single day, 4.75 billion posts go up on Facebook. To put that number in perspective, there have only been 129 million books published since the beginning of time, with an average word length of 64,000 words. That means we are publishing more content (by number of words) every single day on Facebook than is contained in every single book published since humans have existed! For us marketers, it’s our job to stand out in that absurdly large crowd of content. One way to do this is to have a distinctly human voice. To try and discover the magic formula for conveying that you are in fact a human on the internet, I’ve analyzed and tested over 1,500 quizzes that have been created through interact. My general hypothesis is that human sounding quizzes will get shared more, viewed more, and commented on more because people like them better. Based on that hypothesis I ran various tests and regressions to find out the best ways to sound like a person. Here are the top eight ways to sound like a real human on the Internet. 1. Be sympathetic. Did you know that you can get high by talking to a friend? When two humans are chatting (and it’s not a fight) our bodies release Oxytocin. The reason is a natural defense so that we’ll stick together and not be eaten by lions - if we like hanging out with each other we’ll have the safety of our “pack” to protect us. 2. Keep it simple (don’t use big words). We like things we can understand. It makes us feel smart and simple language creates strong communication because there is less risk of getting lost in interpretation. Speaking like your college professor might make you feel like a genius, but only at the expense of potentially alienating your audience. 3. Follow the tipsy college student rule. “Write drunk, edit sober” was Ernest Hemingway’s mantra. Hemingway didn’t know it but he invented the tipsy college student rule. This “rule” basically states that you should take the edge off of your writing. Speak candidly, qualm your fears about being controversial, say what you want to say. 4. Follow the pub rule. The Irish post created a quiz that reached a full 20% of the Irish people living in London, almost entirely through Facebook. In comparison, only 57% of all Irish people in London voted in 2010! How did they manage to pull that off? 5. Use your own vernacular. I like to use the word “howdy” when greeting people. I’m not from the south, but it just seems so much friendlier than “hi.” One time when I was hiking in Mammoth California on a busy trail I tested the two words against each other to see which got better responses from passers-by. To some people I would say “howdy” and to others I would say “hi.” In this very unscientific test I found that folks I said “howdy” to were much more responsive and friendly. read on: entrepreneur/article/238010
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 06:58:48 +0000
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