The Specificity Principle
Jason Cohen (A Smart Bear, WP Engine founder) distills his single best writing advice into two words: be specific. This applies universally — marketing copy, blog posts, sales pitches, investor decks, and humor.
The progression from generic to powerful writing:
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Eliminate generic words — "usage," "many," "effort," "better" are signs of lazy writing. They span broad concepts instead of conjuring specific images. Generic words are interpreted differently by different readers, making your actual message unclear.
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Move from truth to accuracy — Even after removing obviously generic words, common labels like "expert" can be technically correct but imprecise. An "evangelist" is more specific than an "expert" when describing someone who actively promotes a technology. The more precisely a word captures your intended meaning, the more evocative the writing.
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Add concrete examples — Examples clarify abstract arguments, make them more believable, harder to counter, easier to apply, and easier to research further. Name names. Reference specific products, companies, industries.
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Use specificity for humor — Almost any statement can be made funny by being specific. Techniques: exaggerate to the extreme, exaggerate to banality, invent a vivid example, highlight the absurd, blow something out of proportion, or transfer the concept to another context. In every case, the individual nouns, verbs, and adjectives must be specific.
"Farmers looking for a deal on a new tractor aren't peeling iPhones out of their Wranglers and thumbing out tweets through work gloves." — This is funny because it's specific. The generic version ("Twitter hasn't reached some industries") is forgettable.
Atomic Essays: A Content Format for Audience Building
Dickie Bush built a 438,000-follower X audience and a $20M digital business using a single content format: the Atomic Essay — a 250-word, single-idea essay published as a visual screenshot. It fills the gap between a thread (too long for casual readers) and a single tweet (too short for substance).
The 7-step process:
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Pick a specific topic — Start by answering a question. Prompts: write about what you're consuming, respond to someone else's work, teach a "how to," share a life lesson.
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Decide who you're writing for — Three audience buckets: general, niche, or industry. This determines tone, depth, and framing.
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Craft an intriguing headline — Must answer: who is it for, what is it about, what emotion does it create, what outcome does it promise, and how much information can the reader expect.
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Outline key points — Readers skim before they read. Key points must be relevant to the headline and earn trust in seconds.
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Expand on main points — Build credibility with personal stories (context) and research (proof).
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Edit for the reader — Writing and editing are different tasks. Writing taps creativity; editing steps into the reader's shoes. The core question: "Am I making this easy to read?"
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Publish and gather data — Target: 30 atomic essays in 30 days. Volume generates data on what resonates. Data steers the direction — not guesses.
Connections
Writing craft is a foundational skill for distribution — cold outreach, content marketing, and audience building all depend on clear, specific writing. The cold outreach playbook emphasizes the same specificity principle: subject lines that feel written for exactly one person, openers that show you paid attention, asks that are too easy to say yes to.
The Connection: Specificity Enables Atomic Essays
Cohen's specificity principle and Bush's atomic essays reinforce each other. An atomic essay is a 250-word constraint — every word must earn its place. Generic words waste precious space. Specific words do double duty: they inform and persuade simultaneously. The combination of a tight format and specific language is what makes viral content.