Apr '24 (edited) • 💭 Other
3 Steps to Write a High Value Post (and level up more quickly!)
Want to know how you can provide value to this community and start unlocking all those valuable resources mentioned on the leaderboard? I've got you covered – this guide is for you.
Step one is to pick a topic for your post. If you're looking for inspiration, do one of the following:
1️⃣ Share wisdom from your own experience.
What key learnings have helped you level up the most in your career as a SWE? What truths have stood the test of time that others might benefit from understanding?
Often drawing our own successes and failures is an easy way to provide value. You're the expert on your own journey, all you have to do is share that expertise with the community!
2️⃣ Connect insights from other people's experience.
Are there any books, articles, or podcasts that made an impact on you recently? Any key learnings from other disciplines that you've successfully applied to software engineering?
Wisdom is valuable no matter who shares it, but don't go passing off other people's ideas as your own. You can borrow their insights in your posts, just make sure to give them credit somehow. It can be as simple as a link to the source material or mentioning them by name.
3️⃣ Spark an engaging discussion.
This is the often the simplest method, because the real value of your post lives within people's responses, not your own content. It's like crowd-sourcing a high value post. You have two options:
👉 If you have an open-ended question and you're curious to hear other people's answers, ask it! Then provide your own response as the first comment to kickstart the conversation. Here's a discussion thread I started using this approach.
👉 If you have a multiple-choice question, post a poll and ask people to vote with their answers. When it makes sense, you can prompt voters to engage in the comment section too.
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The second step is to capture people's attention. They have to click on your post before they can receive any value from it.
Clickbait is the enemy though, which means your post needs to actually deliver on the promises it makes at first glance. Over-promise to get more clicks, and soon people will learn to ignore you altogether.
Follow these 3 tips get people's attention the right way:
1️⃣ Choose a title that sparks curiosity within the reader. For example:
"How I 10x'd my Team's Code Coverage in 3 months" will make people more likely to read your post than "Writing better tests for your code".
Here's a fantastic blog post explaining how to effectively spark curiosity in all facets of your writing.
2️⃣ Attach a photo or video that invites readers to uncover the value you have to share.
I often make simple cartoon images for my posts using the free version of Excalidraw, but you can reuse relevant photos, videos, or gifs from the internet too. This post of mine uses "???" in its cartoon to suggest there's a valuable secret worth discovering inside.
3️⃣ Make your first couple of sentences engaging, because readers will see these before even clicking on your post.
These sentences should introduce your idea while communicating that you have valuable information worth learning. For example:
✅ "Most engineers hate writing tests, and for good reason. But I figured out how to flip this paradigm on its head for my team."
❌ "I never liked like writing tests, because it was so boring and time consuming. Achieving 100% code coverage always seemed like a waste of time even though my manager disagreed."
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If you decided to spark a discussion in step 1, you're done!
For all other High Value Posts, the final step is to retain the reader's attention and reward them for spending time. Understand that your ability to (over)deliver on the promises made by your post's title will dictate how many likes and comments it receives.
The best posts are jam-packed with value throughout, so readers can't help but continue until the end. But thankfully, Alex Hormozi teaches a few tactics we can use to organize that value and pull the reader along on our journey:
1️⃣ Steps
Structuring your content into sequential steps focuses the reader's attention. If they receive value from one step, they'll be itching to read the next one, and they won't want to miss any of the others – bingo.
Steps are also intended to be followed in a specific order. Get the order wrong, and you might not achieve the desired result.
2️⃣ Lists
Lists are different from steps in that they don't have to be performed in a specific order, and they don't need to be consumed in totality. Your list can be unordered or ordered, like for ranking your top 5 book recommendations.
If one list item is good, you'll want to read another, but you don't HAVE to read them all. They're a bit more flexible as a result, but sometimes they don't retain attention as well as steps.
Notice that at this moment, you're reading a list within a step! 😉
3️⃣ Stories
Telling a captivating story is perhaps the best retention tactic, but it can also be more challenging to implement. It's easy to lose the reader's attention if your story meanders off course, so start by writing shorter stories to mitigate this risk.
The crux of any great story is a single 5 second moment. In this moment, the protagonist undergoes some kind of pivotal transformation – big or small. Everything else in the story serves to amplify the importance and meaning of this 5 second moment: Anikan Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, the narrator of Fight Club discovers Tyler Durden's true identity, etc.
For more on how to write a compelling story, checkout the book Storyworthy. Or read this quick synopsis from ChatGPT.
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In exchange for adding value to the community, you'll be rewarded in one or more of the following ways:
1️⃣ People will “like” your post, helping you level up more quickly and unlock valuable rewards.
2️⃣ Your post will be featured in our community's High Value Posts course, for everyone to benefit from.
3️⃣ You'll make a connection with a new acquaintance, who just might become a valuable friend.
4️⃣ You'll build goodwill in the community and be more likely to receive value from others in the future.
"Give, give give" is one of the 3 guidelines in this community for a reason: the more value you provide to others, the more they'll give back to you. That's why the best way for you to benefit from being in this community is to contribute to its success.
Sitting on the sidelines and only consuming what others have written is a surefire way to remain a ghost forever. I strongly believe that you have to put your name out into the world for good things to come back to you. And you might be surprised just how remarkable those good things can get!
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3 Steps to Write a High Value Post (and level up more quickly!)
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