You Know You Want to Click On Me
Ellen Melko Moore
Your LinkedIn Strategy is Hurting My Heart and My Eyeball | "Arguably America's Top LinkedIn Thought Leader" - Forbes | 7 Figure Business Owners: Deliver a "B*tch Slap of Truth" to Your Most Lucrative Target Audience.
Read the line below and tell me: do you want to find out what happens next?
"Her Husband Left Her at 60 to Have a Baby with a Younger Woman. She Was Surprised by What Happened Next."
If you DO want to know what happened next, this is a real title from a Huffington Post article from a few weeks ago!
Now, I don't know about you, but Hell Yeah I clicked to find out what happened next!
This is a great example of what we at Supertight call an "Itchy" title - it demands to be scratched. It's "clickable" instead of "clickbait."
The difference? When you read or watch something "clickable," the article/video/audio rewards the "Clickee" - you feel glad you consumed the content.
Clickbait is a cheap trick.
Clickable is also a trick - it appeals to the part of our brain that hates to be "incomplete" - we want the mystery solved. And we feel good once we've found out.
This "Itchy First Words" principle applies to all forms of content: all titles, all headlines, all first sentences, all thumbnails, all subject lines.
Don't spend 99% of your time writing/creating content and then slap on a title, a headline, a first line of your LinkedIn post.
领英推荐
Figure out the Headline/Title/Subject LIne FIRST
Don't bother creating content unless you've got a bangin' first few words.
Words that make us ITCH to find out what happens next.
The difference between newer content creators and the pros? New creators think in terms of TOPICS. The Pros think in terms of TITLES (or headlines, subject lines, first lines, etc.)
It's easy to scoff about this. I used to do it myself. I used to be one of those misguided fools who said, "MY audience is more educated, sophisticated, and intelligent than that."
Well, sure. Maybe. Once they get to know me, perhaps. But in those first microseconds when they're decided to click or keep scrolling?
According to experts, since the pandemic, our national attention span has declined by 4 seconds.
Smart, educated, sophisticated people are every bit as overwhelmed by the demands of Constant Content as everyone else.
???? Your humble: Thought Leader. Futurist. Visionary. Savant. ??. #GuruRichard says: Thanks for reading my stuff. ????
2 年A guy in a bar catches the eye of some woman, Ellen Melko Moore. In a nano-second, she determines whether or not she's interested in him. And it's not necessarily about looks, but how he hold's himself, what he's wearing, and of course the height, face, etc. still play into it. We now live in an Instant Gratification world. And people deciding to stay or go can hinge on 1 tiny aspect of a photograph, or 1 simple word of a subject line. #GuruRichard says: I dig this. Hope your week is going well. .
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2 年Sometimes clickbait is in the eye of the beholder. I consider the headline you referenced above to be clickbait because I don't care what happened to some random woman I don't know whose hubby left her for a younger woman. Why? Because that story is old and boring and makes me roll my eyes. Unfortunately, Huffington Post is full of those types of stories these days. (I blame BuzzFeed.) Headlines are important. But a good headline is a promise to the reader. It promises that if you click on the article, the writer will tell you what you want to know without wasting your time. Too many itchy headlines are like poison ivy. If I scratch, I'm going to regret it.
Scale Your Impact and Income w/o Sacrificing Your Sanity ?? Business Growth Strategist for Coaches ?? Scalable Genius Method? ??? Podcaster ?? Co-Founder GEM Networking Community
2 年Or is there perhaps the pro who thinks about the topic and value first, then then the title, and delivers on both? My threshold of tolerance for itchy headlines has decreased in recent years after clicking on too many things that failed to deliver.
Empowering Parents to Save Time and Create Financial Security | Specializing in College, Retirement & Lifestyle Planning | Knitter & Dog Enthusiast
2 年4 seconds! sigh, but I'm also guilty of this. Ellen Melko Moore, what did happen to the husband who left his wife to have the baby? :)
New book ?Lead Not Manage“ | Partnering with marketing agencies for advanced email automation | Senior Partner Manager at ActiveCampaign | Partnership & Alliances Advisor | Board Director | Published author
2 年Good approach to spend more time on the title to ensure people click on it - and then fulfil that promise. Well described in a sea of clickbait attention seekers around, Ellen!