It’s 2014 and the internet runs on clickbait. Clickbait is the somewhat derogatory term for links that encourage you to… well… click on them. A lot of hay has been made about Buzzfeed and Upworthy style links with ambiguous, hyperbolic titles like:
“This Amazing Fact Will Change Your Life!”
“48 Pictures That Will Make You Cry”
“You Won’t Believe What This Dog Did for His Owner”
The main complaint about clickbait is that the titles are misleading, and the content behind them is generally threadbare. They play on our base emotions to get you to clickthrough and share the links. Despite complaints, these tactics continue because they work. Buzzfeed is the 42nd most popular website in the US. Upworthy is 297th.
Still the complaints continue. Enter “Saved You a Click.”
Saved You a Click refers to two things: One is a sort of unofficial movement where people re-tweet a clickbait headline, but include more information in the RT. For instance:
“You Won’t Believe What This Dog Did for His Owner”
Turns into:
‘He pulled him from a fire. #SavedYouAClick RT You Won’t Believe What This Dog Did for His Owner”
Now, one Twitter user, Jake Beckman, has taken SavedYouAClick a step further and created @SavedYouAClick. Beckman seeks out articles that look clickbaity, and tweets information with those links to give the headlines more context. The account was launched earlier this year and already has 139,000 followers.
So what’s a content marketer to do? We know that “clickbait” links work. What good is content, after all, if you can’t get people to click-through to it?
Here are some quick tips to make your links less clickbaity.
Include more context.
Your links should describe exactly the type of article a person is clicking through to. Specificity kills ambiguity.
Use hyperbole sparingly.
Hyperbole is the lifeblood of journalism, marketing, a million other things (do you see what I did there?) but it can be too much sometimes. When crafting a headline, maybe use less hyperbolic adjectives like “great” instead of “amazing.”
Don’t say “You Won’t Believe…”
We will believe.
To watch Clickbait get its hilarious comeuppance, check out our article on the satirical website Clickhole.
