Productivity
Spoken posts sound like a person
The thing that makes most social posts unreadable is that they were typed into a box designed to make you self-conscious. Saying it out loud fixes that before any editing.
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Why typed posts read badly
A composer box is a performance space. People know it is public, so they reach for a register they do not use anywhere else — longer sentences, weaker verbs, and phrases like "excited to share" that nobody has ever said aloud.
Speaking the same idea produces something different, because you cannot perform and explain at the same time for very long. Say it to one imagined person and what comes out is specific, direct and about forty per cent shorter once the filler is cut.
Typed into the composer
Thrilled to announce that we've been doing some deep thinking about the future of on-device machine learning and what it means for privacy-first product development in 2026 and beyond. Would love to hear your thoughts!
Spoken, then cut
We moved speech recognition off the server and onto the laptop last month. It's 40% cheaper to run and I've stopped having the "where does the audio go" conversation in every sales call. Two things broke on the way, and one of them was my own assumption about latency.
The method
- Draft somewhere that is not the composer A notes app. The composer is a bad place to think, and an accidental post is a worse outcome than a lost draft.
- Say it as if explaining to one colleague Not to an audience. Specificity comes from imagining a single listener who will ask "like what?" if you are vague.
- Dictate more than you need Ninety seconds for a post that will be a hundred words. Surplus then subtraction is much easier than expansion.
- Cut to the middle third The first part is you warming up and the last part is you wrapping up. The usable material is almost always in between.
- Write the hook by keyboard The first line or two is a compression task and speaking makes things longer. Write it last, after you know what the post says.
- Add mentions and hashtags by typing They open pickers that need real keystrokes.
Per platform
| Platform | What changes |
|---|---|
| First two lines decide everything — write those by hand. Long-form text posts work; dictate the body | |
| X | Compression matters most. Dictate the thought, then cut ruthlessly. Threads are the exception and dictate well |
| The best fit by far. Long, conversational, explanatory. Read the subreddit's self-promotion rules first | |
| Instagram and TikTok captions | Short. Dictate the idea, type the caption |
| Mastodon and Bluesky | Similar to X, more tolerant of length |
| Comments and replies anywhere | The highest-return use on this page. See below |
Replies are where the return is
Posts get the attention. Replies compound. A specific, useful comment on someone else's post reaches more people than most original posts do — and it costs a typed paragraph nobody has time for.
Fifteen seconds of speaking, read back, posted. Ten of those a week is a different presence from one post a month, and dictation is the thing that makes it survivable.
What not to dictate
- The hook. Compression. Every time.
- Hashtags and mentions. They need real keystrokes to open the picker.
- Anything under about fifteen words. Faster typed.
- Anything written while annoyed. The most important item on this list, for this use case specifically.
Tone
One thing worth being careful about: automatic tidying can flatten exactly what made the spoken version good. A post's value is usually its specificity and its voice, and a "professional" rewrite removes both.
For social, use the lightest tidying available — fillers out, punctuation in, nothing else — or none at all and cut by hand. This is the opposite of the advice for client email, and deliberately so.
Questions
Will people be able to tell a post was dictated?
Only in the sense that it will sound more like you. Spoken drafts are more direct and specific once the filler is cut, which reads better than typed corporate prose on every platform.
Why do hashtags and mentions not work when dictated?
The @ and # pickers open on a real keystroke. A dictation app inserting the character does not trigger them. Type those by hand.
Should I dictate straight into the composer?
No. Draft in a notes app. The composer is a poor place to think and an accidental post is worse than a lost draft.
Should I use automatic tidying for social posts?
Use the lightest setting or none. A rewrite into a professional register removes the specificity and voice that made the spoken version worth posting.