All We Did Was Remove Two Slides
Our team publishes carousel posts every week in four languages. For a long time, 7 slides per post was the default, on the theory that more explanation is better. Then one day, while looking at the insights screen, we noticed something odd: viewers started dropping off noticeably from slide 5 onward.
The Setup
It was a small experiment, so the rules were simple.
• Build each topic twice, a 7-slide version and a 5-slide version
• Alternate the posting day and time between versions
• Run for 4 weeks, 8 posts in total, tracking completion rate (viewers who reached the last slide) and saves
A bot running on Claude Code wrote the drafts, and the only thing we changed in the instructions was the slide count. Generation ran on a Windows device, and a Mac mini bot handled the per-language review.
Results
• Completion rate: about 31% for 7 slides, about 46% for 5 slides
• Saves: no meaningful difference
• Shares: slightly higher for the 5-slide version
Since saves held steady, trimming did not make the content thinner. The two slides we cut were mostly a recap slide and a once-more-for-emphasis slide, both repeating what the previous slide had already said.
A Bonus Effect
Translation review got faster too. Four languages times two slides means eight slides of work disappeared per post. The time spent checking Traditional and Simplified Chinese separately dropped especially noticeably.
What Is Still Open
Eight posts over four weeks is a small sample for any statistical claim. Some topics will surely fit 7 slides better. Next month we plan to give the bots a rule, 「the content decides the slide count」, and let them make the call.
What we gained was not shorter posts, but readers who made it to the end.