The Most Important Sentence Of Your Post

Hello.

When someone asks me why their posts barely get any impressions, nine times out of ten I realize it's because of the same mistake.

Their headline fails to grab people's attention, doesn't clearly convey what's in the post, and overall, it's just not effective.

So in today's post, I want to share my checklist for creating attention-grabbing headlines on X.

You see, it's a well-known fact in copywriting that the headline is the most important sentence of the entire post.

Some even say that 80% of the copy's performance depends exclusively on the headline.

And as I often mention here in this newsletter, copywriting for X is a different kind of beast...

Even though the principles remain the same, their applications are slightly different.

And in this post, I want to clear up any confusion you might have.

So, simply follow this checklist and you'll be on the right track.

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The goal of this mentorship is to take you from 0 to 1k followers and beyond in the shortest time frame possible.

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Now, let's dive into my headline checklist.

What is a "Headline," anyway?

For the sake of this post, let's take a second to clarify what a headline is and what is its underlying goal. Just to make sure we are on the same page.

The headline is the sentence that summarizes everything that is about to be discussed in the post.

And its goal is to draw people in and invite them to read further.

On other platforms, the headline is usually the title or the most prominent phrase.

On X, it's no different. The very first sentence of the post is your headline.

So, when reading the checklist below, keep in mind that:

• The headline is the very first sentence of the post

• Its goal is to get people's attention and make them read further

That's it.

1) It Must Have Less Than 45 Characters

Twitter is a fast-paced platform.

Your followers are bombarded with 60 to 70 new posts per hour.

So, standing out is crucial. If people can't tell what your post is about in a single glance, they will continue scrolling.

Let me repeat: A single glance.

Nobody will take more than that to decide if you will be ignored or it you will be given attention.

Again, people will only glance at your post before subconciouslly deciding whether to read it or keep scrolling.

Therefore, the first sentence must be short and punchy, ideally 45 characters or less.

Always have this in mind: On X, people won't give more than a single glance at your post before deciding to read your post or to continue scrolling.

I know I've repeated myself 4 times already, but this point is that important.

Take the post below as an example:

The first sentence is very short. Even less than 30 characters in this particular post.

Which means people can know what is the topic of the post in a split of a second.

Now, we will revist this post more times during this article. Since it embodied all of the principles we will be talking about here.

And even though the topic of the post was very technical, the post got 100K impressions. Simply because I followed proven guidelines for creating its headline.

So it will serve as a great case study.

2) Spark Curiosity

As we've discussed earlier, having people figure out - in a single glance - what your post is about is only half of the battle...

The other half is to get them to read further.

And of course, no one will read into the post if you don't give them a good reason to.

So on top of being short and punchy, the first sentence of your post has to spark curiosity.

You see, our brains have filters that decide what gets our attention and what gets ignored.

And its first and most important filter is the novelty filter.

For everything that pops into your awareness, your brain asks the following question: Is it something familiar or something completely new?

• If it's familiar, your brain will ignore it.

• If it's new, your brain will pay attention until it can figure it out;

Our brains are ruthless when applying the novelty filter. Especially in today's age where it seems like everything is trying to get to our attention.

So, your headline should be about something new and intriguing.

Ideally, it should be something that the reader hasn't heard about before.

Take that very same post as an example:

The are a few things that made this headline curiosity-inducing:

• At the time I posted it, nobody ever talked about a daily content idea generator. So this topic was novel.

• The way I phrased this particular sentence induces lots of knowledge gaps in the reader: "What is this?" "How does this work?" "How can I build one?" and so on.

Again, the job here is to get them curious enough to read further. Don't kill the curiosity too soon.

PS: Also notice that I induced curiosity in a very subtle way. No hypey adjectives, and it doesn’t look like I am creating intrigue where there is none.

This takes experience, soon you’ll be able to do the same.

3) Useful

Lastly, besides being short and invoke curiosity, your headline should also be useful the reader.

You see, people are always asking themselves: "What's in it for me?"

If they feel they will gain something from reading your post, you will get their full undivided attention.

If not, they will keep scrolling...

So, creating content that the reader perceives as useful and highlighting it in the headline is essential.

This directly appeals to his own self interest, and they will feel intense FOMO if they keep scrolling.

Take that post as an example...

Content creators know deep inside that coming up with content ideas is hard and difficult.

So a content idea generator would be useful for them to solve one of their deepest painpoints.

And because of that, most of them will read further into the post.

If they don’t, they will feel like they are losing out on something that will make their lives better and their business more prosperous.

And this is the checklist I personally use to create attention-grabbing headlines on X.

Apply this filter whenever you are creating and writing your content, and you will notice that people get more engaged, devote more attention to your content, and ultimately you will get more impressions.

Thanks for reading, and until next time.

P.S: I am about to open new spots for the X-Growth one-on-one mentorship.

The goal is to take you from 0 to 1k followers and beyond in the shortest time frame possible.

I will be over your should and guiding you every step of the way, correcting even the tiniest mistakes that might be slowing down your growth.

Interested? Learn more about it here.