Don’t Look: The Taboo of Click-Bait

Lorna Burge
Jul 21, 2017 · 3 min read

Capturing Attention in Social Media

Journalism is evolving. Substantial headlines seemed to be all a person needed to buy a newspaper or magazine. Present day social media, however, has changed the way people view news and journalistic savvy. Even trendy outlets like BuzzFeed are gaining worldwide attention, thus able to expand their brand (Mitchell and Page, 2014). Why is this happening? Reader interest and response has changed. Before a person clicks on a headline or photo, they are expecting to get just enough information about the article without divulging too much. The key to getting them to read, or click on a post is to get their attention.

Catchy headlines, titles and pictures are great ways to do this. One study focused on headlines and their effect on reader interest. It found that readers were more interested in headlines formatted like tabloids compared with the standard (Blom and Hansen, 2015). In addition, readers want information they can identify with which is why personalizing the title and content are important. The idea of reading something that seems to promise instant results is another reason why users click on articles. This unfortunately means that the information does not have to be factual to be read, but it also changes the way we view misinformation (Lewandowsky, Ecker, Seifert, Schwartz, and Cook, 2012).

Maintaining Engagement in Social Media

Keep it simple. Readers want content that is easy to read, not time-consuming, and that is packed with a lot of information (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). The worst thing you can do is put redundant information in an article or too many words just to fill space.

Keep information fresh and familiar. In the same way readers want easy to understand information, they want the latest news that they can relate to. Headlines, photos, and content that can trigger something in a reader (Konnikova, 2014), whether it is a memory or an emotion, are great ways to amass a faithful following. Most of the information readers are drawn to confirms things they already know or provides answers to piqued curiosity.

Invite feedback. Valuable information like reader interests are in the comments they leave. Creating opportunities for discussion and critique can be great ways to learn what your readers want to know or see. This powerful tool is known as electronic word-of-mouth or eWOM (Daugherty and Hoffman, 2014).

References

Blom, J. N., & Hansen, K. R. (2015). Click bait: Forward-reference as lure in online news headlines. Journal of Pragmatics, 76, 87–100.

Daugherty, T., & Hoffman, E. (2014). eWOM and the importance of capturing consumer attention within social media. Journal of Marketing Communications, 20(1–2), 82–102.

Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business horizons, 53(1), 59–68.

Konnikova, M. (2014). How Headlines Change the Way We Think. The New Yorker. Retrieved 20 July 2017, from http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/headlines-change-way-think

Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K., Seifert, C. M., Schwarz, N., & Cook, J. (2012). Misinformation and its correction: Continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(3), 106–131.

Mitchell, A., & Page, D. (2014). State of the news media 2015. Pew Research Center. Journalism & Media.

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