Stop Drop and Roll: How and When to Share Your Work Online

The first time I was accidentally on fire was in Chicago. As the finale of a nightclub performance of fire-dancing and fire-eating, I blew a fireball. The air conditioning kicked on and blew the fire back. I’d heard since childhood to “stop, drop and roll,” but I didn’t. Instead, I frantically brushed my body with both hands, trying to whisk the fire off. A patron shoved me down and rolled me, and after a trip to the emergency room, I was basically OK. The scar on my chest is in the shape of a chain—my outfit had chains on it, and one seared into me.

Years later, accidentally watching NASCAR, I saw a driver pull over mid-race and jump out of the car, urgently brushing at his jumpsuit. Clear blue flame doesn’t show on TV, but I knew he was on fire. Someone tackled him and rolled, and a crew member blasted them both with an extinguisher.

We all know “stop, drop and roll”—but it’s not our instinct to do it when we’re on fire. Someone else must shove us down. Just like our instinct isn’t to assume our words are worthy. When we publish, we feel lucky, excited, and a little bit embarrassed—I’m on fire, should I share this? Will anyone be interested? On social media, we post the link and scuttle away, terrified people will think we’re bragging, or worse, boring.

Lately, a Facebook group I administer has seen a flurry of links to blogs and newsletters. Too often, links are dropped “naked” into the group, or with the briefest of definitions: “Here’s a piece from my memoir.” “This is what I wrote about pandas this week.” But links without context are largely meaningless. In Canada, people won’t even see them on Facebook. On social media, links may read only as an image from the destination, or are punished by the algorithm, ranked lower so readers won’t leave the site. We’d rarely email a link with no text—that feels like spam, if not an out-and-out scam.

Yet sharing our work is important. So what makes links a service to readers rather than an ineffective wave at I did something over there?

Sharing your work with context.

Each time you share your work, add a teaser quote, meaningful in itself and intriguing. Then tailor your post to each audience:

• Writers group? For self-controlled publishing (newsletter/blog), share some process, maybe a craft element you finally understand, or new way you approached the story. For publications, tell the group whether you pitched or submitted the essay, what the editorial process was like, whether they pay writers.
• Your own social page? Tell us why you’re excited to appear in that venue, or what part of your cause or topic everyone should know about.
• Share the context those particular readers need. Do they have a problem your writing helps solve? Are they interested in an issue where you have expert knowledge? Will your experience help others experiencing a similar situation?

Then roll with it. Here’s what I’m shoving you to do, when you publish anything, anywhere (for the venues you use):

• Short-text social media (Twitter, Threads, Instagram): Share a different quote from the article 3 times on publication day, twice on the 3 days following, and once daily for the next week. Repost to Stories/Shorts each time.
• Long-text social media (Facebook, LinkedIn): Share on your personal page and once in every relevant group you’re in. Each time, write new context to serve that group’s interests and change up the quote. Ideally, people should gain insight from your post even if they never click the link.
• Newsletter: Share the link once, with “insider info” for your readers.
• Personal emails to friends and colleagues: Share once, with a quick note about why they might find it interesting/useful, and never speak of it again. Definitely do not ask if they read it—they’ll tell you.

And then…

Share it again on short-text media and your personal social media in six months, and again in a year. You can title this “Blast from the past!” or give new information, with the quote.

Share it again any time your work connects to something newsworthy.

I know this sounds like a lot. But the way social media—and attention spans—work, is that 80% of the people who are actively interested in what you do, who clicked follow, who genuinely like you, will see perhaps 20% of what you post. By stopping, dropping the link with context, and rolling out your posts over days or weeks, the readers who your work will help, inspire and entertain may actually see it.

Tailoring the context of what we share to the interests of the intended audience matters for everything we put into the world—our essays, our books, our newsletters, our social media posts, and eventually, the pitches and press releases that promote our work.

Stop—write some context.

Drop that link!

And roll out your work through your world.

Because when you’re on fire, we all want to know.

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*Originally published on the Brevity Blog

https://brevity.wordpress.com/2024/08/22/stop-drop-and-roll/