Give me 5

Yesterday I wrote about the annoying trend of writing articles that educate, explain, convey, predict and share insights by the numbers. It’s the publishing gimmick for today’s attention deficit society.

Today, I decided to monitor my feed from 7 a.m. Central through 10:00 p.m. to see how many posts followed the numbers formula. Here are the results:

23 Reasons Inbound Marketing Trumps Outbound Marketing [Infographic] via @HubSpot
5 Easy Ways to Build Your Writer Platform
2 Straightforward but Underused #Social Program Amplification Strategies
5 Cloud Predictions for 2012
10 Compelling Reasons Why Your Business Should #Blog
5 Step Process to Roll out a Great Content Piece via Social Media
5 IT security breakthroughs ranging from predictive analysis to detection at the silicon level.
5 Brand Benefits of Twitter Brand Pages
34 Social Marketing Predictions for 2012
6 Secrets To Branding, Ripped From "Raiders Of The Lost Ark"
Top 6 Social Media Marketing Trends of 2011
5 Apps Banned From Apple's Store in 2011
9 Things That Motivate Employees More Than Money
4 teams on Dwight Howard's longterm wishlist
10 Biggest Virtualization Stories of 2011
5 Easy Ways to Build Your Writer Platform
3 B2B Uses of Pinned Tweets on New Twitter Brand Pages
140 Predictions About Social Marketing – 34 Experts on 2012
5 HTML5 Editors Developers Should Know
5 Tips for Finding Your Life Purpose

I’m following less than 200 Twitters users and the 80/20 rule definitely applies in my community. So, the most active users who populate my feed seem to have a love affair with articles by numbers. An analysis of the subject matter reveals that these same users aren’t much interested in weighty matters or content that provokes deep thinking.

Some numbers observations:

1. 5 seems to be the magical number leading off 45% of posts
2. 6 was second: 10% of posts
3. <5 must be discouraged; perhaps it implies the article offers too little?
4. 95% had the number in the first position of the headline
5. 95% were tweeted between 8 a.m and 5 p.m. Central

Isn’t that interesting? I ended up with only 5 observations and used the number 5 in three of the 5. This could be a good omen. Subway loves 5, as in 5 dollar foot longs. Subway is ridiculously successful. Perhaps I should quit trying to buck the trend and join the growing numbers who tweet articles by numbers.

Maybe I’ll make 5 my daily limit.

LiveJournal Tags: numbers,articles by numbers,Charles Demuth,I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold,William Carlos Williams,The Great Figure poem,copywriting,precision in communication,ghost writing,ad copy freelance,marketing communications consultant,social media writer,blogging