Here’s the brutal truth about writing online in 2025: Nobody reads your blog posts.

The Numbers Are Against You

If you share this article on X or LinkedIn, let’s do a very optimistic “back of the envelope calculation” and see what typically happens.

Visibility: About 10% of your audience will even see the post in their feed. The other 90%? Gone. Lost to the algorithmic void, trapped between cat videos and “thought leader” threads.

Clicks: A strong click-through rate (CTR) on LinkedIn or X is 1-2%. That means for every 1,000 followers, only 10-20 peoplewill click the link.

The Skim & Bounce: Of those precious few who doclick, about 70% will bounce within 15 seconds—meaning they saw the first paragraph, sighed, and went back to scrolling.

Completion Rate: The remaining survivors—the true warriors of the internet—face one final test: actually finishing the article. Based on unverified data, only 20-30% of them will make it to the end. That means 1-2 people per 1,000 followers will fully read this article.

Final Approximate Read-Through Rate: 0.1% to 0.2% of your original audience.

Why Do We Keep Writing?

At this point, you might be asking why even bother. Maybe it’s delusion. Maybe it’s stubborn optimism. Or maybe it’s because of those one or two people who actually finish reading? They’re the only ones who really matter. Because in a world drowning in content, getting one person to truly engage—to pause, think, and maybe even respond—is a victory.

The Ultimate Irritation: The Non-Reading Commenter

But here’s the real kicker—the final insult to any writer’s existence. The comment section.

You know, the one someone replies with a hot take, a smug correction, or an outright criticism—and it’s painfully obvious they didn’t read a single word of the article. They reacted to the headline. Maybe the first sentence. Maybe just the vibe.

These folks will confidently dismiss your argument, misrepresent your points, or demand that you address something you already covered—all without actually engaging with what you wrote. And the worst part? Their comment will likely get more engagement than your actual post.

And sometimes, that’s enough to make a writer consider giving up writing completely

A Tiny Spark in the Void

But sometimes, that one engaged reader is all it takes. As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Perhaps your words, buried in digital obscurity today, are quietly kindling a much bigger discussion. The spark may not be instant, but it only takes one ember to start a fire.

So, if you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You’re one of the 0.2%.

And for that, I appreciate you even if no one else will ever see this. (And if you decide to comment without reading, well… I’ll know.)

The post No One Will Read This Article appeared first on Medika Life.

Imagine a medical grand rounds, where doctors and healthcare professionals from around the world come together to discuss cases, share insights, and learn from each other. Now, imagine being able to attend this grand round from the comfort of your own home, using nothing but your phone and a Twitter account.

This is the potential of Twitter Spaces.

Traditionally, grand rounds have been in-person events, often held at hospitals or medical schools. They can be an invaluable source of education and collaboration for medical professionals, but they can also be difficult to attend due to time and location constraints.

Twitter Spaces allows anyone with a Twitter account to host or participate in an audio conversation, bringing the benefits of a grand round to a wider audience. It’s easy to use and requires no additional software or downloads.

In a medical context, Twitter Spaces could be used to discuss cases, share research findings, or even provide continuing medical education. It could bring together experts from different specialties, enabling them to share their knowledge and experiences with a global audience. Further, the “event” can be held at any time or in association with breaking medical and scientific news or urgent matter.

Of course, there are potential challenges to using Twitter Spaces for medical discussions. Ensuring the accuracy and reliability of information shared is crucial, and it will be important for hosts to carefully moderate their Spaces to ensure that only credible sources are cited. But that’s the nature of an open dialogue—expect conflict and controversy.

Overall, Twitter Spaces has the potential to be a valuable tool for medical professionals looking to share knowledge and collaborate with their peers. By bringing the grand round experience to a digital platform, it has the power to connect doctors and healthcare professionals in a way that was previously impossible. So, it can be a new medical grand rounds where facts meet, insights collide, and medicine is advanced.

The post Is Twitter Spaces The New Medical Grand Rounds? appeared first on Medika Life.

As social media has grown in importance and become a go-to source for information, there have been persistent calls from lawmakers and regulators for owners and managers to be responsible for tagging the misinformation that has often been spread on their platforms and moderating it.  Does this ask exceed our abilities to monitor and engage and corral dangerous deniers?

Long before one of the world’s wealthiest people slapped down $44B to buy Twitter, the public was in the grip of a misinformation pandemic. Whether on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or any of several platforms, communication and public discourse have been partisan, ideologically informed and slanted.  During the pandemic, when this “Tower of Babel” was combined with inaccurate, non-authoritative and often conflicting pronouncements from those in authority, the public’s trust in elected officials, health authorities, drug companies and public institutions was broadly undermined.  By the time Elon Musk got to Twitter, in terms of trust, the horse had long fled the stable.

During the COVID-era, social media discourse has already enabled our nation to self-divide into tribes.  Whatever Musk’s intentions are, we are already in the midst of a perfect storm of “trust deregulation.”

TRUST TAKES YEARS TO EARN – IT’S LOST IN A MOMENT

Trust in institutions, it turns out, is short-lived and can be fragile.

Despite the great success of COVID vaccines, which are medical miracles, public health officials’ overstatement of their benefits contributed to reduced trust. Designed to protect and guard against viral transmission, vaccines were not all they were promised to be. Their protection turns out to be individual, not societal, and they guard against disease severity, like the flu shot, but not transmission.

As variants come onto the stage, we are encouraged to get another booster shot.  But the variant that now reigns supreme has no vaccine. It’s the “I don’t give a damn” adaptation. When the scientific story changed, it became hard to maintain confidence in the system.

Public health officials aren’t alone; there is a documented, dramatic trust decline in government and science, in addition to public health. Institutional trust diminishes as anxiety resulting from emotional (and social) isolation rises. Many blame social media for ratcheting that anxiety, as it’s often difficult to differentiate fact from fiction. But while Twitter is accountable for much chaos, it’s not responsible for the drop in consumer confidence in institutions.

Trust is personal, earned through consistent action over time. How institutions and companies — embodied by their CEOs, marketers, and communicators — engage transparently and honestly defines the quality of relationships and earns them trust.

While trust must be carefully earned, it can more easily be squandered. Public health institutions proved this.

The CDC needed to improve when it came to consumer mobilization. Masks work. Social distancing was effective. Vaccines and booster shots reduce disease severity. But are people continuing to wear masks, take precautions or get boosted? The Centers for Disease Control failed to establish itself as the go-to source for information and direction, and no longer enjoys the level of public trust it once did.

THE ERA OF VERIFY, THEN TRUST

And that takes us back to Twitter. While many point the finger at Twitter and other social platforms like Facebook as primary culprits in the mess we face, the causes of the current distrust go deeper. Poor communication and indecisive action from those in authority, a willingness to exploit crises for political and personal gain, coupled with news networks and media platforms that long ago moved from reporting facts to reflecting the tribal beliefs of their audiences’ ideological alignment contribute mightily to the loss of objective truth and the normalization of passing misinformation.

If quashing misinformation is to have any positive impact, consumers need to have a well-regarded, apolitical home base they can trust, which does not currently exist. How can Twitter alone be held accountable without this beacon of accuracy being seen as a go-to source?

Whether we advertise or not on this platform, there are right now 450 million monthly active users on Twitter!  Most do not register what Elon Musk says or represents.  If the billionaire throws his hands up and shuts off the lights, who wins the final round of this debate?

Many pundits sound Twitter’s death knell. Some are couching it as retribution for being a home for misinformation – or worse, hate.  But, if Twitter – with its global town square positive aspects still intact — collapses, does anyone win?

Without a trusted, objective source, it becomes critically important for consumers of information to adopt a more skeptical mindset to review information carefully to determine its value and truth.  And that means verifying the accuracy of information before sharing our trust.

MOVING FORWARD TO BUILD TRUST

Platforms like Twitter have a responsibility to their users, including protecting them from fiction that could lead to dangerous decisions regarding their health. Whether Elon Musk can be appealed to or not to reverse this decision to step back on quashing misinformation, regulators, corporate leaders and communicators must be reminded that creating and maintaining trust with the public is a micro-building community activity that happens house-by-house, person-to-person, and eye-to-eye.

We must recognize that Twitter is a microcosm reflecting people’s diversity, beliefs, and opinions. If Twitter fails, the plurality of opinion it has revealed over time doesn’t go away.  To build trust with that broad, diverse crowd of users, communicators need to make their cases with facts, convincingly, with authority and evidence, over and over.  It isn’t going to be simple to navigate these chaotic waters, but when it comes to combatting misinformation, we are all in the same boat.

The post Twitter’s Decision to Stand-down on COVID Misinformation Highlights a New Symptom — “Trust Deregulation” appeared first on Medika Life.

Tweet, retweet, and tweet again. A single tweet is fine, but you need to retweet your own post too.  Typically, I’ll retweet my post in about two hours.  It’s also very effective to tweet the post again over the course of days as long as the information is still relevant or part of emerging news or discussions.  

Content over timing. I like to post in the morning EST, and I try to keep a flow during the day. But I don’t think timing is nearly as important as content. Craft your tweet carefully and make sure your thought is clear and well-articulated.

Use your analytics page.  Twitter offers powerful analytics to help you see what tweets are getting activity.  I use this page to see what tweets are getting traction.

Remember hashtags.  This will help define you and your brand.  As a health tech influencer, I commonly use #digitalhealth.  But sometimes I’ll include #AI, #technology, #healthtech, #IoT, #HIT, etc.  It’s important to select key hashtags that “connected” you with a topic—from #rockandroll to #elonmusk. This will help focus your tweet and even begin to trend in some of the hashtag lists. But remember, the hashtag must connect you with an audience or topic.  Using a campaign or slogan (that no one knows about) is generally ineffective.

Don’t forget to add people / profiles to the tweet. You can tag people or add their name to the body of the tweet.  Compliments and friendly comments always get a big engagement.  But you can also add people for their legit opinion or to “cc them.”  

Brilliant tweets are rarely noticed.  Sad but true—but keep doing them because it’s a reflection of your brand and can sometimes punch into the mainstream conversation.

Visuals can be critical.  Cut and paste images to your tweets.  There are also various free sources, like Pixabay, that I used for the image in this blog post.

Use DMs to build relationships.  Connecting directly to other people can be powerful.  These messages can help evolve and focus a discussion.  They can also build relationships.  But, don’t overdo it.

Read it.  Post it.  I read articles all day from various sources.  If I like it—even a little—I’ll usually post it.  Make sure you read the entire article, check the date (sometimes articles can be years old!), and post it.  For twitter, the article headline usually works for the tweet, but think about making it more interesting by putting it in your own words or reframing the topic closer to your topic of interest. 

Remember to include those hashtags!  This process helps you “read” and educate yourself on current topics. Also, when you see a good link on a tweet, go to the story, read it yourself, and tweet it as a new tweet in your timeline. A good trick is to cut and paste a few sentences from the actual story and add it to the body of the tweet.  This adds direct content and gives you a bit of an “author’s authority” rather than simply a retweeter.

Customize and find your voice!  Develop some key words and language that can help evolve your twitter style.  CAP, “My POV” or other stylistic components can be helpful.  Use these devices regularly to reinforce your brand.

Silly posts commonly get more engagement. I get more traffic with a silly cartoon or photo.  People like this.  And as long as you use hashtags, it will help drive your stats and mindshare. Remember, it’s your brand.  So, excessively funny or silly posts will establish you in this context.

Twitter can be a daunting exercise.  But building a voice and an audience should follow these basic steps. After a while, you can see what works best for you and establish a routine that optimizes your workflow and resonates with your audience.  And remember, follow me on Twitter and say hello!

The post The Secrets Of A Twitter Influencer appeared first on Medika Life.