BrumPod Ep61 – When Do Enticing Headlines Become Clickbait?
We found an article from Foundation Inc that was all about how to write better headlines from the pros at LinkedIn.
Needless to say, our interest was piqued, as getting better at anything has to be a good thing, and if it helped our combined LinkedIn activity, then that’s always good, no?
But after finding a couple of useful bits, like keeping things succinct etc, the ‘tips’ went on to be more and more….well….ludicrous – to the point that these ‘tips’ were no longer useful, and were encouraging people to write more and more in a clickbait style.
Now, clickbait, as we know, is designed more often than not, to be deceptive in some way. Maybe the article the headline is for isn’t quite what it the article is all about, maybe it’s a ludicrous or sensationalised headline to make the article more appealing, whereas in reality it’s pretty mundane, and/or obvious – leaving the reader distinctly NOT shocked, entertained or informed. Clickbait has become the scourge of the internet, so we’re quite sure that LinkedIn pros SURELY aren’t endorsing such practices?
So we delved a little deeper into the world of clickbait, what it’s for, who does it, and how to combat it so you don’t make the same mistakes in your LinkedIn posts, blogs, articles or indeed any content you produce.
So have a listen, and hopefully it’ll be useful for you in your own business, being able to write enticing headlines, without it sounding like pure, unadulterated clickbait. (Because you won’t BELIEVE what happens next!)
(Joke!)
References mentioned in this episode: