Clickbait is one of the most controversial and misunderstood digital advertising concepts. It's any content written with the goal of drawing clicks and may range from newspaper articles to blog entries, infographics, videos, interviews, and anything else online.
The language of "clickbait" is more emotive than informative. Headlines such as "Unbelievable facts" or "Myths Debunked," are designed to pique curiosity or elicit strong emotions, resulting in a click. The content that follows - on the other hand - is rarely instructive or verifiable.
Clickbait has either positive or negative connotations, but it can also be considered an advertising technique designed specifically for social media. This advertising style enables companies to market their product in the shortest time possible by using short videos or images.
As a marketer, here's how you can master this technique to drive unbelievable traffic to your blog.
Take the Help of Emotions
Emotions play a very important role when it comes to clickbait headlines. When you're writing an enticing headline, all your focus should be on triggering strong emotional responses for better engagement levels. Six major emotions can be used in Clickbait Titles:
· Anger
It would be best if you evoked the feeling of anger in the target audience so that they read the story immediately. When combined with curiosity, anger is one of the most effective tools in generating clicks.
· Joy
If you are using a catchy headline, the chances of triggering this emotion are more. People will engage with your content if they find it entertaining or humorous.
· Fear
One of the classic marketing techniques is to use fear as one of the emotions for clickbait titles. Images that build up stress and tension are usually paired with texts that end on a scary note which makes people curious about what exactly happened next. This form of creating curiosity is called the "curiosity gap" where readers are given just enough information to spark their interest but not enough to satisfy them completely, which leads them to want more information due to a gap in their knowledge.
· Surprise
You need to create a feeling of surprise for people to feel compelled enough to read your article. In this type of headline, instead of the usual beginning used in all clickbait titles, you start with an ‘ending or an afterthought’ that presents a twist to what you've been expecting from the title. This usually creates curiosity as readers try to piece together how these two items are related and want to know more about it.
· Nostalgia
This is very similar to the tactic used by Buzzfeed, where they create slideshows containing nostalgic images of 80s movies, old toys, etc. The idea is to create the feeling of longing in people to read the article.
· Desire
This emotion is very popular with fashion and beauty bloggers as they create headlines that showcase their desired objects, such as "Get Your Dream Lips Like These Celebrities" or "Look Sexy This Summer." The use of power words adds to the desire factor of these titles.
Inspire Action By Creating a Sense of Urgency
It's important for you, as a marketer, to inspire your target audience to take immediate action instead of procrastinating about it. You need them to feel like there are limited opportunities available for grabbing, which will force them into making quick decisions without thinking much. The following are sometimes based on false assumptions and can be used as a form of clickbait:
· Only a few people can read this post.
· Only X days left for the promotion to end.
· You can't afford to miss this offer.
Use Power Words
Clickbait headlines use powerful words to add an interesting twist to the title, creating a sense of urgency and giving more meaning to the text. The best way to achieve this is by using strong verbs that are unique in nature. Here are some examples of power words you can use for your headline:
· Act now
· Breakthrough
· Confirm
· Discover
· Establish
Conclusion
Clickbait can be a powerful tool for generating more traffic to your online content, but only if the promotional tactics are used ethically. The trick is to create something interesting enough without being misleading so that people actually take the time to read your post. Only then will you be able to achieve success with clickbait titles.