Discovering the ripple effect of borrowed brilliance
What Happens When You Copy a Top Medium Influencer’s Headlines? Check It Out
Duplicating Success: A Medium Headline Experiment
I’ve already spoken about how I’ve been winging my articles daily for the past 8 months.
One morning, as I woke up, an idea struck me. I wanted to experiment with the headline of one of my favourite creators Eve Arnold.
To do this, I copied this headline and wrote this article.
To date, it is by far my most successful article.
Successful in terms of engagement. At the time of writing this, the article has…
- 2383 claps from 260 people.
- 84 new followers.
- 73 comments.
- 2400+ views.
The Experiment Design
The experiment was designed to run for 3 weeks.
Why 3 weeks?
In my product management career, we used to typically run experiments for 3 weeks. It is neither too short nor too long.
I picked up a piece that resonated with me, my journey and my writing style.
I wanted to pick up a newly published article. So that I could have an apples-to-apples comparison.
The article I copied was about 15 hours old when I saw it.
These were some of the conditions I had in mind before I started writing.
Starting With the Why
The biggest reason was to experiment.
I find Eve’s work irresistible. She inspires me and is one of the most prolific creators I know of on Medium.
In 3 years, she’s published 1000+ articles. It fills me with hope for my journey.
I wanted to know if creators who write regularly truly have a knack for writing things that appeal to people.
This shows me the power of consistency.
In 3 years, by repeating the act of writing she has strengthened her writing muscle.
In some ways, this provides me with the validation I’ve been looking for in my journey.
It helps me quieten my mind and provides the evidence to keep going.
The Numbers That Matter
On October 12, the day I published the article…
Eve had 40K followers. I on the other hand had 452.
That’s 8750% more followers than I have.
Her baseline is way different than mine. But this is an experiment, so why not?
At the time of writing this,
She has 2545 claps from 185 people Vs. 2383 claps on mine from 260 people.
She has 52 comments Vs. 73 on mine.
I’ve shared my observations below.
The Tweaks
With our follower difference, I knew I had to put in a lot more effort in the headline I was going to write.
To do this, I tweaked my headline and made sure it ranked better than her headlines on 2 different tools.
I couldn’t leave anything to chance so I wanted to make sure I’ve nailed the headline.
Because headlines determine whether your piece is going to be read or not.
Want to write effective headlines? Check this article out.
Learnings
This experiment has been phenomenal for my growth and learning.
Here are my observations.
- I guess the reason we both got the same amount of engagement is that I had a higher-ranking headline but she had a much bigger baseline. Plus, I was engaging with most of my readers while she wasn’t.
- Had I written this article at the start of my journey, I don’t think it would’ve received this kind of reception. I wrote this at the right time and the right moment.
- For her, this might be just an article but for me, it was “The Article.” I was paying a lot more attention to it.
- She’s got more claps from fewer clappers. Why? Maybe because she’s been around longer. People trust her more and it is some kind of a bias against newer creators.
- The sample size is small. Success in one article doesn’t mean it will always happen.
Ethical Considerations
For those of you wondering whether this is an ethical practice or not — this section is for you.
I love drawing inspiration from those who are ahead of me. Imitation is the biggest teacher. We all learn fastest by imitating.
Besides, if you notice, the headline and the content of the article are original pieces.
It was an experiment and I cannot wait to run more such experiments as long as they teach me and do not harm anyone.
Conclusion
The cat’s out of the bag.
I’ve learned a lot. It has put me on a new trajectory and infused life into my writing journey.
So far, this year alone I’ve run a couple of experiments and they’ve all been pretty successful.
Does copying someone else's headline replicate success?
I honestly don’t know. I will have to run a few more experiments to know for sure.
What do you think of this experiment? Did you observe something I didn’t? Do you think I should be conducting more such experiments?
P.S. — If you enjoyed this, below are links to my 100-day experiment.
