Hive Posts Length | What is the average word count? | Are longer posts rewarded more?

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(Edited)

Let’s take a look at Hive posts length, word count and the correlation with payouts. I have made a posts like this more then a year ago, so it is a time to revisit.

Maybe you can draw some conclusion what the length of your posts should be.

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There are a lot of things that are up for debate on Hive. Posts quality for example. What is it? How to determine is a post a good one or not? Do quality posts get rewarded enough etc.

Here we will be looking at the number of characters and words per post, what is the average and how does daily numbers fluctuate. Then we will be taking a look at the payouts for the posts according to their body length.

The period that is analyzed here is from start of 2021 till today.

Total Number Of Posts

First an overall look at the number of posts per day in 2021. These are post only, comments not included. Here is the chart.

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The number of posts per day has been in the range of 3k to 4.5k post per day, with some spikes here and there. In the last months this number is around 4k per day.

We can say that this is the number of posts that are “competing” for the reward pool.

Total Number Of Characters From Posts

Here is a chart for the daily number of characters from posts.

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The blockchain has a data of body length, or number of characters per post. When we sum those up, on a daily level we get the above. This chart follows the post chart trend. More then 10M characters are printed every day on the blockchain from posts only.

The number of characters by itself doesn’t tell us much.

Let’s take a look at the average words per posts.
Here is the chart.

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An average of 593 words per posts!

Overall, the average words per post have been quite steady with some small increase in the summer, then a decrease and growth again in the last month.

As mentioned above, the blockchain only has data for number of characters per post, not word count. I have converted the numbers of characters in words based on an average of 5 characters per word. Its not a 100% exact number but close enough.

Note that videos are usually short on characters, that doesn’t represent their length.

Posts Length And Payouts

If we categorize the number of posts according to their word count we get this chart. This is a data for the last 30 days.

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This is quite interesting. I have double checked the data, but it seems that most of the post are quite lengthy ones, 2500 words and above. Not sure how legit are they though 😊.

From the other categories, the less then 500 words is on the top, then the 500 to 1000. The 1000 to 1500, and 1500 to 2000 have similar numbers as well. 2k to 2.5k are a bit lower.

Example query:


SELECT
CONVERT(NVARCHAR, created, 101) as date,
COUNT(author) as posts,
SUM(total_payout_value+curator_payout_value+pending_payout_value) as payout

FROM Comments (NOLOCK)
WHERE
CONVERT(DATE,created) BETWEEN '2021-10-24' AND '2021-11-24'
AND depth = 0
AND body_length >= 2501

GROUP BY CONVERT(NVARCHAR, created, 101)
ORDER BY CONVERT(NVARCHAR, created, 101) asc

What about the payouts?

Here is the chart for payouts according to posts word count.

image009.png

The longest post, 2500 plus words, have the biggest payouts with average of 17$ earned per post.
On the second place are the 2k to 2.5k words posts with almost 10$ per post. The 1k to 2k word count post have a similar payouts around 7$ to 8$.

The table looks like this.

Words per postNumber of postsAverage earning [$]
< 50027,8511.35
500-100015,0555.96
1000-150012,5717.72
1500-200013,2297.41
2000-25009,1439.71
2500 +51,99617.09

The posts under 500 words on average earn 1.35$ and the posts with 2500+ words earn on average 17$.

So, there you have it. Want to earn a bit more on Hive. Make longer posts. After one year this still holds.

Who Is Making The Longest Posts?

Here is the chart for authors who are making the longer posts.

image011.png

The @hiq and the @hiq.magazine on the top! Some other popular names in the top as well. A compilations posts tend to be longer so there is a few of those in the top.

All the best
@dalz

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51 comments
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This is something I have been curious about. I personally don’t see why a post should be 1.5k+ long. We have short attention span lately, any post that’s above 900 automatically makes me not interested. I just feel that you should know how to captivate your audience in the best way possible, no need to have lengthy post.

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I agree to some extent .... a 1k word post should be enough, but it seems that the largest stakeholders and curators for now prefer longer ones. At least for hive ... in tribes tokens the situation might be different.

Note that some longer posts might be double language posts, like ENG/ESP, I have seen those situations.

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Yeah I have seen those situations too and I love it because if you check the total length, it’s going to be 1200 words meaning it’s probably 60/40 or 55/45 words.

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Yes. Sometimes the less is more. And the length does not necessarily mean quality. We can make a meaningful post with even less than 100 words, but we can also talk about nothing with more than 500 words. The choice is ours. Some people intentionally make their posts unnecessarily lengthy.

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Apart from @hiq and some others the accounts making long posts aren't totally owned by singular bloggers, but project accounts to some extent.
I think posts with more engagements and reblog are rewarded more, at least to my underspending.
Good to see some of these stats.

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Yes, there is projects accounts there.

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Interesting.
Does it mean we should lengthy posts? Well not importantly if you can convey your message ina shorter post.

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The data says that more lengthy posts get rewarded more ... that said, its about what you like to post really and sometimes frequency, number of posts is also important.

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Who is writing the longer posts? In one case, it's an online magazine with followers/subscribers. In other cases its people who have built a large following after several years (including pre-Hive). In yet another set of cases, it could be people who have made references such as glossaries, tutorials, or how-to posts.

In all those cases, word length will be long as a matter of necessity. On top of that, any of these could also include the dual language scenario (EN/RU, SP/PT, IN/PK, etc.).

The trick is writing long posts plus achieving broad outreach to attract more readers.

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This is a very interesting topic to discuss. The way I see it is sometimes extremely long posts tends to be boring especially if its just all text. And I think it's not about the lenght of the post but more on the content the post have. People tent to value the thing they could get from the blog and not it's number of words. Maybe some it's basis of their upvoting but personally, it the quality for me.

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People tent to value the thing they could get from the blog and not it's number of words.

Or at least this is how it should be.

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Interesting stats, not surprising that longer posts earn more, but surprising that there are so many longer posts.

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That was surprise for me as well

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The data are somewhat skewed by the fact that many people here just add all previous post links, banners and all kind of stuff to ANY of their post, so this blows the word count up.

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Yes that might be the case for some, dual language posts as well

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I still feel, longer posts attract better rewards - of course it should have quality as well.

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(Edited)

What i find a lot is that shorter posts with minimum text implies laziness, unless there is an original video or original photos etc that add the value. For me, I definitely tend to reward longer clearly structured and thought out posts more. Some great examples are @tarazkp and @galenkp, who are two excellent posters I like to support. They write engaging well thought out structured posts and always engage by reading and replying to people's comments. They also show up everyday with something usefull or interesting to say and never a short post that could be construed as lazy.

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@ablaze I agree with you as both @tarazkp and @galenkp are my favorite reads for a long time and I am surprised that they are not in here. If both of them have to do dual language posts, they will certainly appear in these stats.

But that should never be the aim, as quality and well thought out structured posts in my mind is the way to go.

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Thank you Zac, it's always a pleasure to hear I provide some value to others on the blockchain.

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You know me @galenkp, and I give credit where it is due.
If you were to do "wonky" posts I would be a stranger to you :)
Value is as value goes and so many are here just for the bucks.
Instead we are building the future and quality is paramount.

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Thanks for the mention and your interaction on my posts, you always do so with validity and interest. I appreciate that.

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A longer post is good and deserves more reward but I think that it should not be too long that people don't read it all. People like to spend 5-7 minutes and if one post takes 40 minutes to read then I Think very less people would stop by. This is what I think.. may be people have different opinion.

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I'll reply to everyone from the comments, read you all):
These are just numbers. That is, we get a kind of average value. That is, there are people who write 300-word posts as well and get paid more for it. And some on 2000+ get paid half as much as the average.

We have an anecdote on the subject:
The average salary in Russia is when one
person gets 2000000, and 100 others for 8000 rubles. Then on average they get
27000 rubles. And now in simple terms: Peter has 10 apples, and Vasya 0, on average they both have 5 apples. Officials eat meat and I eat cabbage, on average we eat stuffed cabbage rolls. The collective farm director's wife Manya sleeps with everyone and the milkmaid Luda does not give it to anyone, but on average they are both whores. That's how we live.

Have a good day, everybody!

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I was excited when I saw the headline but the post has been a letdown. The above sums it up pretty well. Not much to learn from looking at the averages.

Also, the words per post brackets are clearly inappropriate for the dataset and both 0-500 and 2500+ need to be broken down further.

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The 2500+ might need some more segragation yes.... wasnt expecting so many of those :)

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0-500 is still double size of the commons and I am pretty sure 250 is nowhere close to median in that bracket (25 could be). Actually, there is a decent chance that breaking it in half can reasonably differentiate video content (under) from tweet-sized texts (over). Both seem underrewarded in case someone feels like reopening the box of worms).

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Ha! That Rubles analogy made me smile.

Cg

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Yes, I think of her every time I talk about statistics and smile.)

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If I had been posting lately, I would have gotten my own category. :-)

Quill

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Brevity is perhaps not your strong point!

Cg

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(Edited)

Brevity is over-rated. Long live the loquacious. :-)

Quill

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Statistics is always wrong :)

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Hi, excellent post, from my point of view I have noticed that not all of us are lucky to receive excellent rewards, no matter how important and the message you convey with your post. I think it is a matter of luck that a whale is attentive to your publications.
Hola, excelente publicación, desde mi punto de vista he notado que no todos tenemos suerte de recibir excelentes recompensas, sin importar cuan importante y el mensaje que trasmites con tu publicación. Creo que es cuestión de suerte que una ballena este atenta a tus publicaciones.

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Some videos earn quite good amount of money. They usually have short description. How about them? Are the included in the statistics?

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500-1000 words are appropriate with lots of stats as you shared as fig reflects all stories.

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I aim for at least 400 words a post, mainly due to the way Hive is monetised. There isn't much incentive to put a heap of effort into a post that can only be rewarded for only a week. However, this is also an interesting finding so I may have to put some effort in.

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long, yet quality posts deserve the lager payouts.I feel they are the back bone of the community and speak a level of seriousness to Hive. But that deosnt mean the short ones done have there place...Eye opening data thank you for the post it was an amazing read

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I can create a long post going on about nothing or I could condense massive value into 400 words... Some people find lengthy posts impressive. Personally, if I am able to convey a thought or an idea with minimal words, I consider it effective. Strange how Einstein's approach doesn't receive recognition... "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough"

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In my limited personal experience, I guess that quality photographs/images have a big impact on payouts, too. I am intrigued that longer posts pay best. On regular social media people are often advised to stay around 500 600 words. Looks like readers on Hive might have better attention spans? Can't tell from the data, although I think the average Hive user is more intelligent than the average user of the big social media platforms. !BBH

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Because this is such an awesome post, here is a BBH Tip for you. . Keep up the fantastic work

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Love your examples, learning SQL :)

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Well posting should be precise to me because excessively long post can be boring for me to read.I prefer the short but not too short post.time matters alot in hive.

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I am astounded that so many posts are in the 2500+ category. I wonder what would happen if you pulled a random sample of 20 of them to see how valid these data are. Specifically, as was already mentioned, are the posts really 2500 words or are they 2500 with translations and/or links to previous posts, etc?

While I am sure that some of my posts exceed this length, I have been making a concerted effort to cap posts at about 1500 words. 800 is better.

Sometimes, if someone is covering an interesting topic in depth, 2500 words might well be warranted, but I hope people won't think they should add length for its own sake.

The reason I try to keep my posts shorter (and people who actually read my posts might laugh at the idea that I am even making an effort) is because usually this means editing my work, making it clearer, and saving people time.

I truly believe that with longer posts, sometimes, all people have time for is skimming. That being said, you didn't invent these numbers, but are reporting them.

I suppose the question is: does this mean we ought to try to write longer articles for a bigger payout?

One question that springs to mind: some of the larger accounts tend to get bigger payouts per article (which I feel is usually fair considering the content). Is this skewing the payout data? I wonder what would happen if you considered the modal or median payout rather than the average. (Like you need more work, right?) I am just curious.

In all honesty this is fascinating, but I will probably continue to do what I am doing: try to write short articles and frequently transgress, writing longer ones. I couldn't even keep this comment short (sorry).

!LOLZ
!PIZZA

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