Do you already use Listly as a tool in your content marketing program?
I don't need to tell you that lists and list posts are popular all over the web. There's already a ton of great insights out there on why people like lists and how they work inside our brains, and I'll share some of that below.
Listly is a tool that I use to save time curating, growing and using lists here on nateriggs.com as well as on my other platforms.
This post is about why I think you should use Listly too.
First, if you want some historical background on lists and 'to-do lists' in particular, start at this post first.
For some of that, you might want to check out this post by Andrew Hanelly that's in defense of using lists on the web.
I'd also recommend checking out this interview with Professor Shelly Jain at Washington University. He has an interesting take from his research lists from a consumer psychology perspective.
The BBC ran a really interesting article on the psychology of lists. Totally worth a read and your favorite bookmarking service.
You might also learn a few new things from reading up on Chris Anderson's best selling book The Long Tail. He spends a lot of the chapters discussing how lists play into economics, marketing and business.
A while back, I even wrote a post on how to play with lists in your content marketing.
Another authority on lists is my friend Nick Kellet. If you want to get to know him and understand how he thinks, watch Robert Lavagine interview him in this Hangout on Air.
Nick loves lists so much that he decided to co-found a software company that makes it easier and more effective for all kinds of folks online to create, share and embed lists in their content.
My opinion?
Listly can be an amazingly helpful tool that you regularly can use in content marketing program.
Here's 7 reasons why believe that:
No joke.
Writing those seven items and dropping in three links was fairly easy, but also took some time. If I commit this same effort on 2 posts a week, by the end of a month I'll have logged about nearly and hour and a half in building lists.
Now consider the list you see below. I set it up once, which took me about 10 minutes with writing descriptions. To embed it here? Less than thirty seconds.
Keep in mind as well that each blog post can be considered a homepage in that it may in fact be a visitors first time on your site. You can bet that as I grow my Social Business Habits Resource list on Listly, I'll embed it in other posts and pages as well.
[listly id="6R5" layout="full"]
I think you'll like these too ... and since each of the lists is just as valuable as the others, there's not much of a need to rank order them.
How you do your lists is completely up to you. As for me, you'll see me using Listly a lot more. If anything, it's a nice time saver for business content marketers.
And, here's the quick quiz for the comments -- can you identify how many lists are actually in this post and what styles they follow?
I know my Ohio University students could. What about you?