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5 Reasons Why Clickbaiting Is Killing You

Posted on:August 24, 2015

I have received some criticism lately about the way I title my blog posts. And I got accused of clickbaiting the readers in order to get more views. But you have to understand now that with social media , writers have to get interested in a story in just 60 characters and a picture while you’re scrolling. In fact you have to get you interested enough to stop scrolling, click the link and read a portion of the content.

1- The title is important

This titling process is very important, in fact sometimes it is more important than the article itself. I have to start with a number, this way you can expect something instructive but short (because you’re too busy scrolling and refreshing your Facebook NewsFeed all day long). Then I have to say something that you didn’t expect but tend to agree on, after that I have to say “You” just so you could stay involved and feed your ego.

2- The title > the content

Most of the time, the quality of the post doesn’t really matter, what resides is the message of the title. This doesn’t mean in any case that the text is bad, but just that most people will barely read it.

3- The people are actually the problem

The issue is that people remember headlines and not facts or arguments. And clickbaiting is just giving to the people a version of a truth that satisfies their laziness.

I mean when was the last time average Joe read an article longer than 300 words?

4- It all makes sens

We were not all born as evil clickbaiters it is just that you readers won’t click on anything else, and if my articles stop getting hits (even though I don’t use any Ads network) I will stop writing for lack of interest. The average readers shapes the way we write and by giving them what they want we train the average readers to be 300 words material.

5- Some reason I was too lazy to write

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