It’s fair to say that the @blowingfact project, which was founded all the way back in 2015, has been a huge success on social media.

A jaw-dropping 3.8 million users follow the account on Instagram. Meanwhile, the project has 62k followers on Facebook and has garnered 12.8k fans and nearly 170k likes on TikTok. 

It’s not difficult to see why the social media project has seen so much success over the years. For one, when you post anything online consistently, you’re going to get some attention sooner or later.

By sharing new content daily, you remind your existing followers that you exist and also increase your chances of popping up on strangers’ feeds.

Besides, when you post regularly, with a very clear schedule, you create a reputation for being trustworthy and dependable. Reputation means everything on social media. And having a strategic outlook here really helps.

If your followers know that you’re reliable, then they’re more likely to keep engaging with your content and recommending your posts to their friends. 

On top of all of that, you’ve got the type of content itself to consider. For instance, @blowingfact focuses on sharing niche facts about science, history, and the world. So there’s the element of surprise and entertainment there that captures people’s attention, alongside the whole educational aspect of the posts.

Whoever decides to base their social media accounts entirely on sharing interesting and mind-blowing facts has a far bigger responsibility than you might think. There’s a lot of work that goes into making even a simple post.

For one, you have to do proper research and ensure that the information you share is valid. The very worst thing you can do is post pseudo-facts and fake news that then end up being reshared by your followers.

On a similar note, you then have to condense all the information that you learned into a teeny-tiny post. You’re tasked with finding the right balance between being informative by providing enough context and keeping everything condensed enough for modern audiences to enjoy.

The fact of the matter is that bite-sized information has a better chance of being noticed and absorbed than massive walls of text. Unfortunately, that’s why TikToks and Instagram shorts are so much more popular than in-depth analyses in the news.

In this day and age, our attention spans have shrunk so much, it’s actually scary. CNN reported on the research conducted by Dr. Gloria Mark from the University of California, Irvine.

“In 2004, we measured the average attention on a screen to be 2½ minutes. Some years later, we found attention spans to be about 75 seconds. Now we find people can only pay attention to one screen for an average of 47 seconds,” Mark, the author of ‘Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity,’ said.

Keeping that in mind, it makes sense to make your content more approachable by reducing the amount of text and choosing an image that captures people’s attention. That way, the information you share is more likely to be read. On the flip side, ignoring visual aids altogether and writing paragraph upon paragraph of educational content, even if accurate, might get sidelined on social media.

However, it’s not like we can’t increase our attention spans again. According to Dr. Mark, it’s essential to be mindful of how you use technology. Considering that the average American spends a whopping 10 hours a day on screens, it’s absolutely vital to block distractions so you can focus on your work and other projects.

Dr. Mark suggests creating artificial barriers if you’re constantly distracted by social media sites. “Take the icons off your desktop and bury the apps on your phone inside folders, where it takes an extra effort to find them. Leave your phone in another room or put it in a drawer and lock it,” she told CNN. Meanwhile, if you’re exhausted, take a break, go for a walk, and give your mind some rest.

We weren’t built to spend so much time looking at glowing screens... even if social media's full of so many interesting new facts to learn. It's important to control your screen time.

For some more mind-blowing facts, feel free to take a look at Bored Panda's previous feature about the @blowingfact account.