Clickbait is Going Revolutionize Marketing. Here’s How!

I got you off on a hook, right?

In short, this is clickbait. But today, we are here to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly about clickbait. Often seen as a wasteful marketing strategy, clickbait has been this one thing showered with step-motherly treatment in marketing.

But the harsh truth is clickbait is one of the most effective marketing strategies that is tried and tested by marketers over generations.

Clickbait was not born in the 21st century, and the earliest successful clickbait campaigns go as far as the 1800s. The most popular ones came in the 1920s with the Great Depression to give hope to the people.

But why the bad beat?

Established social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have declared war against clickbait after the rise of fake news on their platforms.

Fake news is making a comeback again in 2020, in a whole different way. But clickbait is different.

But clickbait is like the student who gets blamed for the mistakes of his friend.

Often misinterpreted as inefficient and unworthy, clickbait is one of the best ways to get the word across to the people and get their attention.

For marketers, clickbait is one of the most important strategies at the moment to make their content or their product stand out among 1 billion other websites and to take the word out.

Today’s market is complicated, and every single person running a rat race in the digital world to get noticed, to increase sales, and to be the leading platform, you have to adapt to stay on top of the game.

Clickbait done right will bring you that advantage.

Clickbait is everywhere!

It is near impossible to get by on the internet without getting attracted by clickbait titles. You will find them everywhere, no matter what you do, on Facebook, on Google, and even on YouTube.

Even reputed websites use clickbait within reason. The end goal of clickbait is to get someone to click your content and bring you revenue in terms of advertising or proceeded to purchase a product or a service.

The bad-beat on clickbait comes at this point where the clickbait content does not necessarily live up to the expectation but only serves to bring in clicks and level up the advertising revenue.

It also raises several eyebrows among marketers since they need to pick between prioritizing brand reputation or return on investment (ROI).

Or is there a way to balance both?

What goes behind building Clickbait

Take the most recent clickbait headlines you scrolled past on Facebook.

Remember if these titles were something similar.

“25 things that will change the way you eat cereal!”

“This shampoo makes your hair 10x better!”

“Here are 11 secrets about Covid19 that the doctors will not tell you!”

After scrolling for years on your phone, I think most of us know how to differentiate clickbait content from the rest.

A majority learned it the hard way, but now by looking at the title, you can say which is which.

But even with all the understanding, a clickbait title always makes someone stop and stare for a second time.

So why is it so compelling?

According to research, clickbait content appeals in a much more emotional, entertaining, and mysterious manner to get the audience on a hook and tempted to find out what is behind the text.

The headlines are the game-changer. They appeal at different levels to polarize the reader. That is why no matter how much you keep seeing clickbait content, you keep clicking it.

Here are a few of how the headlines are structured to get through.

Unresolved Problems

We are taken into the information gap instantly when we find a piece like this. Humans are curious by nature, and if there is something that we need to fix, even though we did not even have a problem, we are going to end up clicking.

Take the example from the top,

“This shampoo will make your hair 10x better!”

Here watch out for the unresolved problem conveyed through the ‘this’ pronoun.

Creating Suspense

One of the earliest forms of clickbait and also one of the most effective ways to convey a message is by creating suspense. Suspense is the kind of storytelling that makes a reader wonder about the outcome.

The mind is only going to be satisfied by finding out the solution.

The heading, “Here are 11 secrets about Covid19 that the doctors will not tell you!” is one of this nature that will compel you to click to see what the secrets are.

Using numerals

You can not miss these pieces of content on your feed. Take the title, “25 things that will change the way you eat cereal!”

Firstly, you understand that you will be benefiting and know 25 things about your daily cereal in such a short time.

In a time where time is invaluable, getting to know 25 things is a definite yes.

Interestingly odd numbers attract views. 3,5,15 get to the headlines quite frequently.

Reverse Psychology

“Automobile experts recommend only one oil for your engine. Why?”

The above is a fitting example where we apply the case of reverse psychology, changing the structure.

Here, you tell the crux of the issue, and the mind is motivated to find the backstory.

Emotional Appeal

Let us say you want to let your audience know about the negative aspects that you find in an airport. For this, you word your headline to be something like this:

“9 things you did not know about Airports!”

Adding to that, you add in a photo of a disappointed person, feeling disgusted. From this, you appeal in two ways.

First, you are motivated to find out what the headline and the image have to do in common, and then are drawn emotionally to find out why the individual in the photo is feeling disgusted.

Clickbait is Good

Now that you understand the psychological aspect of clickbait, it is crucial to know how to apply clickbait to your brand.

The underlying principle behind clickbait is to tease the reader and force them to a conversion. But instead of trying to dupe the consumer, marketers need to exploit the “Curiosity Gap!”

The curiosity gap is where you provide just the right bit of information to your readers to make them curious but not enough to fulfill their curiosity.

This way, they will end up clicking the linked content.

Force people to watch content that is meaningless after you amplified the content with your headline — they are going to exit your platform at the same pace as they arrived.

Incomplete and misleading content is disastrous for your brand.

Engaging in ethical practices when you use Clickbait is as essential as writing creative captions. Remember that Clickbait can make or break a brand in a matter of hours.

So here are three strategies that you can ethically use clickbait! (saved the best for the last!)

1 — Have a mix of content

As always, too much of one thing is not going to be great. Differ the types of content that you have in store, do not go full-on chasing one content angle.

Learn targeting from your content and how you can use different tones on each of these content pieces.

Where appropriate, it is always okay to bring out a less formal tone.

See how you can mix up your content. You do not need to write near-perfect researched content pieces all the time.

Sometimes, quick fixes and infographics might be more effective than the standard options.

2 — Do not be afraid to make it humorous and entertaining

Let us put it out there. No matter what different way you put it out or what new content style you write it in, 90% of the audience knows that it is clickbait content.

But the beauty of it is that they will continue to proceed with it as long as it is appealing.

Humor is a great way to get your audience to go ahead with the click. See how your brand tone can add in a little bit of humor, and this works 80% of the time.

3 — Use Clickbait responsibly!

Learning from Uncle Ben from Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility,” do not send clickbait to overdrive.

Understand that no “amazing” things happen every single day for you to bring out headlines with amazing on it.

Neither is every content piece a “must-watch.”

Always use clickbait content in moderation so that your brand image stays intact while you get your clicks.

BuzzFeed and Clickbait

When you talk about clickbait, you will have to include Buzzfeed in it.

From starting as an average platform, today BuzzFeed is among the top 50 websites in the USA.

The website received a whopping 64 million unique visitors during February alone.

Clickbait is behind BuzzFeed’s exponential success. For BuzzFeed, their content is written in a way to encourage users to click on the article.

The catchy headlines on BuzzFeed do most of the work from the ground up, but they did not do anything extra.

They just used the age-old tool, but better.

Their topics are very intriguing, covering various avenues, but all of them have the trait of being clickbaity.

For example, look at recent BuzzFeed publications.

According to a study conducted by Keyhole, 63% of the BuzzFeed content were clickbait content out of 1500 posts that they shared on Twitter during the given time.

In other words, 2/3 of the titles did not have all the information but encouraged users to click to find out the answers.

But BuzzFeed follows the principle of bridging the gap. Even with their catchy titles, they end up providing a valuable bit of information from their link.

Although clickbait, the articles serve as a source of information.

That has been the reason why BuzzFeed is dominating the viral content industry in the US and worldwide.

Clickbait is here to stay! (for many more years to come)

Imagine the competition today to get noticed on the 1st page of Google? Yes, SEO exists, but a standard product description would not cut you a deal.

Including words such as “ultimate” and “amazing” will provide you a better reach than offering simple guides.

Content marketing is getting harder by the day. Everyone wants to run ads and their PPC campaigns to bring in growth.

Sometimes the effort you take in drawing up 10–15 different ads can be reallocated better to create high-quality clickbait content that will generate way better results.

But most importantly, it is essential to identify the principle of clickbait — create great headlines leaving people on a hook, and provide them with quality content when they click.

Thanks for reading.