About
Why this exists
Most social media advice is about getting more: more reach, more engagement, more posts. Very little of it asks what the audience gets.
The Social Media Contract is a free resource for people who plan and publish content: creators, marketers, business owners and communications teams. It treats the reader’s attention as something you are given, not something you take. It turns that idea into rules and tools (SLOPP Test, Value Score) you can apply to the next post.
Mission
To change the relationship between creators and their audiences by treating attention as an exchange of value. Creators earn their audience’s time by delivering something worth it, every time they ask for it.
Vision
Social media where audiences feel their time is respected, and every piece of content is a fair part of that exchange.
How this site follows its own rules
- Free, no email wall. If you never come back, you should still leave better equipped.
- Useful on arrival. The homepage opens with a test you can use, not an introduction.
- No padding. Every page is checked against the SLOPP Test and must score at least 4.0 on the SMC Value Score before it is published.
- Evidence labelled as evidence. Where we cite a figure, we name the source. Where we have not found good evidence, such as for universal attention-span thresholds, we say so instead of repeating the folklore.
- One call to action at most, after the value.
A work in progress
The Social Media Contract is a working method, not a finished doctrine. Parts of it, including the value score criteria, are still being tested against real content. When something changes, we update the page and note the date.