This Facebook Style Guide, the basis for which was borrowed from an prominent publication, was developed to guide editorial staff at online publications to make consistent creative that remains effective across multiple algorithm updates.
Post Text
Capture people’s attention by leveraging 📝Open Loop (method) in the post text in order to drive people to read the post headline. Leave subtle gaps that people are seduced to fill.
- NO — Drug education is most effective when it prioritizes radical honesty.
- YES — The prioritization of radical honesty in drug education.
- NO — Driving internet traffic is easy. Making something of it is the hard part.
- YES — Presence is more powerful than pageviews.
- NO — American yoga is worse than inauthentic: it’s commercial exploitation, and spiritual plagiarism.
- YES — Spiritual plagiarism.
Headline
In terms of both language and visual design, create easily consumable headlines. The most effective are those that are easy to understand and align with the expectations of its intended audience. Read aloud to ensure text is quickly grasped and understood.
Leverage ‘double whammy’ headlines wherever possible. Begin with a slightly abstract open loop to hook the reader, follow with a colon, and a more logical clarification.
The tail of the headline should provide a logical clarification, but not be so logical as to become an analytical description of the content which is being linked. By providing too much information, even as it regards one particular element of the content, the curiosity of the viewer is satiated enough that they feel as though they don’t need to click.
Do this...
Tulpamancy: Imagining Companions Into Existence
Alex is a 6-foot-tall young woman with vibrant red hair living in England. She's a vegetarian, and an extroverted tomboy who loves to travel. She spends most of...
Not this.
Tulpamancy: Tibetan Buddhism Meditation Practice
Alex is a 6-foot-tall young woman with vibrant red hair living in England. She's a vegetarian, and an extroverted tomboy who loves to travel. She spends most of...
Keep headlines to a single line as much as possible, avoid using headlines that create negative space above the description of Facebook placements. Reformat if necessary.
Turn this...
**Three Dads: Challenging The Concept of a Nuclear
Family**
I recently completed my second play by escaping to a quiet area outside of the city
for a few days. On Instagram, I snapped a picture of myself soaking in some...
Into this.
Three Dads: Breaking The Concept of a Nuclear Family
I recently completed my second play by escaping to a quiet area outside of the city
for a few days. On Instagram, I snapped a picture of myself soaking in some...
Within both titles and headlines, do not capitalize conjunctions, articles, and prepositions of
four or fewer letters: The words the, a, an, of, but, for, from, with, etc. are not in caps, while the
words above, within, about, however, etc., are capped.
Use first-person headlines-Did X," "We Spoke to Y"-sparingly, as they're cheap and lazy
The same goes for headlines beginning with "This Guy Did Z."
Descriptions
Descriptions for Facebook placements should be the first text of the article, without
modification, and fill exactly two lines when viewed in the desktop news feed.
Conclude the description with an ellipsis () that is connected to the last word used without a
space (i.e. 'She spends the most of...' or 'soaking in some..')
Tulpamancy: Imagining Companions Into Existence
Alex is a 6-foot-tall young woman with vibrant red hair living in England. She's a
vegetarian, and an extroverted tomboy who loves to travel. She spends most of...
The rare exception to ending with an ellipsis will be descriptions that serendipitously end a
sentence on, or extremely close to, the second line of text. If the following sentence has less
than 15 characters to hook the viewer, do not include it and cut with an ellipsis.
Psychedelic Parenting: Resolving Cognitive Dissonance
When Jonathan Thompson reflects upon his life before the first time he took the
hallucinogenic breW Ayahuasca, it seems like a redundant, meaningless existence.
Destination Links
Destination links shown within facebook ads are to be all caps, all the time. The blockiness of the caps is cleaner and blends in better. This focuses the attention on more important elements.
- BUTTSEX.COM—n*ot *buttsex.com or BUTTSEX.com