Article
A follow is not a blank cheque
Your follower count records who said yes once. It says nothing about who is still paying attention, and the gap grows silently.
Every post costs your reader time.
Make it worth the price.
Ask yourself: After reading my post, my audience will have something of value that they didn’t have before.
For example: information, education, tools, entertainment, inspiration or an offer.
Attention is paid. Value is owed.
Before you publish anything, fill the blank above. If it’s hard to fill, the post isn’t ready. If the honest answer is “our news” or “a reminder we exist”, the post is about you, not them.
Time is money. When someone stops scrolling for your post, they pay attention, with time they can’t earn back. Every engagement is a series of microtransactions: their time for something of value, one step at a time. In any contract, the side that pays is owed what they paid for. A post that takes attention and gives nothing in return isn’t a fair deal. It’s a broken contract.
This isn’t a rule against promotion or a demand that every post be educational. A useful discount is value. A good joke is value. A post that exists to fill Tuesday’s slot is not.
The electronically induced technological extensions of our central nervous systems … are immersing us in a world-pool of information movement. Marshall McLuhan, “The Playboy Interview”, Playboy, March 1969
Marshall McLuhan said that about television and radio, decades before the first social feed. The Social Media Contract starts from his point: when everyone is immersed in the stream, attention is the scarce currency, and every post asks people to spend it.
The 12 principles
Each principle comes with one question. If you can answer it with a confident yes, the draft keeps that part of the contract.
1. Audience benefit first
Can I name the benefit in one sentence, from the reader’s side?
2. Say something new
What does this add that the last several posts on this topic did not?
3. Deliver on the promise
Does the post itself contain everything the first line implies?
4. Respect attention
If I cut the first sentence, would anything be lost?
5. Earn each escalation
Would the post still be worth reading if no one clicked the link?
6. Quality before distribution
Would I publish this if it were the only post this month?
7. Choose the medium deliberately
Was this written for this platform, or copied onto it?
8. Universal method, contextual execution
Is this choice based on my audience, or on what another brand does?
9. Useful promotion is allowed
Can I rewrite the opening honestly so it starts with “you”?
10. Make non-promotional content meaningful
For this non-promotional post, which benefit am I delivering: inform, educate, equip, entertain or inspire?
11. Separate theory, evidence and tactics
Is every number in this post sourced, and every opinion labelled as one?
12. Practise what you preach
Would this page pass its own test?
Articles
All articlesArticle
The medium is the message, and the feed’s message is interruption
In 1969, McLuhan described a world-pool of information that reads like a social feed. Its message to your audience: you’re interrupting.
Guide
The SLOPP Test: five checks before you publish
Five pass/fail checks that catch content that wastes your audience’s time, with examples that pass and fail.
Attention is earned in stages
| You ask for… | You must first… |
|---|---|
| A glance | Signal the benefit in the image, headline or first line. |
| A read, click or watch | Pay off what the hook promised, in the post itself. |
| A follow or a sale | Have already been worth their time, more than once. |
A follow is not a blank cheque. Every post after it still has to earn the time it asks for.
Check a draft in two minutes
The SLOPP Test is five pass/fail questions that catch content that wastes attention: posts any competitor could have written, unedited AI copy, the obvious, promotion with nothing in it for the reader and hooks that don’t pay off.
The SMC Value Score rates a draft from 1 to 5 on six criteria, including novelty and whether it keeps its promise. Use it once a post has passed SLOPP.
Start here
- What is the Social Media Contract?: the idea, why attention is a payment and how it is earned in stages.
- The 12 principles: the working rules, each one short enough to apply today.
- The SLOPP Test, explained: how each check works, with examples that pass and fail.
- Articles: essays on why the contract matters and guides on how to apply it.
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