Everyone wants content that informs, stimulates and inspires people to share. Nobody wants to be that guy at the party who bores anyone within his orbit, or the writer blogging to the muffled vacuum of cyberspace, lonely for comments, sharing or engagement.
What is the honey test?
Imagine a couple making dinner after work, enjoying a glass of wine as they dice the carrots and stir fry the chicken. One partner says to the other, “Honey, did you hear about…”
That’s what we call the honey test. It marks something as interesting enough to stir conversation and sharing – exactly like social media.
Is your topic new, controversial or relevant enough for people to talk about?
Another version of this test is the pub test. Imagine standing around at the pub. Could you bring up the topic with friends, colleagues or people typical of your target audience? If you did would the topic fall flat, or would it stir debate? Try it out and see.
When you break it down there are three elements needed to pass the honey test. Your information should be new, controversial, relevant or a mix of the three.
Here are three steps to test if your content passes the “honey test”.
Is the information new?
If you have read about it before chances are your readers will have too. And that’s ok as long as you have something new to add to the topic. Tell people something they don’t know. So by all means write about a topic that is current, but only if you have something new to add.
Is it controversial?
Are there opposing trains of thought? Is there any conflict, disagreement or tension about your topic?
There is a reason journalism thrives on controversy, it’s because controversy leads to interesting and often shared and discussed posts.
Is it relevant?
When we say relevant we mean relevant to your target audience.
You know the old break up line –“it’s not you it’s me”?
Well in this case the line is “it’s not me – it’s them” – it’s all about your readers.
You need to be able put yourself in the readers’ shoes and understand what matters to them.
Of course what is important to one person can be meaningless to another, that’s why you are really asking: what impact does the topic have on my target audience? How will it affect them? Are there consequences the readers need to know about, right now or in the future? Why will it matter to them?
How do you know when you content is good? Do you have your own “honey test”?
