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Are you tired of “insane” headlines?
Do other way over the top types of titles put you off?
I feel your pain. I’ve been there many years ago already. How come?
Ever since the inception of social media I was trying to attract their audiences.
Writing for social media sucks as you have to create clickbait or get ignored.
What else can you do then? Accept zero-click outcomes? No.
From link bait to click bait
OK, I admit it! I’m part of the problem here.
It all started with link bait a mere twenty years ago.
Then blogging for a social media audience has become common place.
Thus it was not just about the links anymore.
You really wanted to make the people click through to your site and generate traffic that way.
Hence the click bait approach many social media driven publications still practice these days.
Just say something like “THIS SEO Technique Changed my Life!” and everybody wants to know what “THIS” is.
Sometimes it seems there is not a single sane blog post out there anymore.
I’m guilty of popularizing blogging for social media as well.
Yeah, I’ve written lists for years and I used “top 10” and “10 reasons why” lists all over the place.
Over the years I have been rethinking my blogging approach though.
I was on the look out for alternatives to click bait ever since.
First let me explain though the top 10 most insane reasons why blogging for social media sucks:
1. “Ultimate, Awesome, Creative, Funny, Insane Headlines”!
These and other adjectives are so widely overused.
Content thieves with basic English skills love such exaggerations or meaningless over-generalizations.
I already bounce once I discern one of these terms in a headline.
I don’t need insane software, funny architecture or even creative design.
I don’t like them especially if they are the most insane, funniest and amazing or creative. Just make
- software helpful
- architecture sustainable
- and design usable.
I don’t even need “the ultimate guide to tie my shoelaces”. Just provide quickly digestible solutions.
No wonder quick and dirty solutions like the ones found on Reddit show up on top of most search engines.
2. Top 10 this, Top 10 that.
There are already blogs that offer only top 10 lists.
While numbers in posts work, 7 is my favorite. Yet such posts are random.
Also down the road they are difficult to maintain when some items are not available anymore.
Thinking in lists makes your posts shallow and just an overview without deep insight.
Sometimes it’s better to focus on one issue in depth instead. Your subscribers will honor that.
3. Tips, Tools, Resources Lists.
I use Raindrop for bookmarking almost daily and do you know what? In most cases I never return to the lists I bookmarked.
I always think: “Well, great list; I’ll save it for later and look it up once I need it.” I rarely do.
In most cases I don’t have the time to check the posts I saved for later.
All the tips, tools and resources just get thrown away and stink in data nirvana without ever getting read.
Considering the long time during which “social bookmarking” traffic is non-existent I’m not the only one.
4. Social Media Focus.
Blogs that are geared towards social media like Buffer or Social Media Examiner still work well.
Sometimes it seems they already have covered everything at least twice and they attempt to venture into new fields of expertise.
The broader the less targeted though. I end up seeing the same ultimate, awesome, creative here and there again and again.
The content thieves make it extra redundant so that everything gets recycled at least half a dozen times.
New platforms emerge, hypes come and go and building audiences all over the place is exhausting.
A blog that tells you “focus on yourself” instead of pushing the next ultimate guide to Instagram marketing would be more helpful.
5. The Next BIG Thing.
Consider Ello, Foursquare, Google+. They’re all gone by now!
Do you even remember them and the hypes they were?
Sure, some hypes like the above mentioned Instagram have worked.
The hype around them didn’t make them the next YouTube or Facebook though. The attention economy can’t be fooled.
The two are still the number one and two top social media venues.
People have only a limited time to spend online and they get used to old services no matter how basic or bad they are.
The next big thing can’t be a thing that takes away more of my life time while adding workload.
In case it’s better then the last one I need at least a way to export my data.
In the best case I can move my network (aka “friends”) to the new one. As fast as I know only sites like Mastodon allow that.
Just because I buy a new car I don’t throw away my clothes and family either and search for a new one.
6. Make Money Online with Whatever.
It worked for a few people with hard work and the unique selling proposition of being the first.
Yet hundreds of thousands of bloggers can’t get rich by blogging and most of them don’t.
The whole MMO niche became a parody of itself soon.
True, I earn money blogging by now yet I get paid for writing for other blogs.
Also it is mostly due the fact that it’s connected to my SEO business.
It was somehow a smooth transition from SEO to blogging for clients. Empty sites don’t rank.
A blog is still one of the best ways to get written content on your site.
Websites often make money by ecommerce, that is selling stuff online or helping other sell stuff online.
A blog by itself is not really a wise career choice. Only blog when you love it! It won’t make you rich in most cases!
7. Best Hosting, Ebook, Premium WordPress Theme.
Come on guys, I won’t buy that
- Bluehost is the best hosting on the planet
- your ebook makes me rich quick
- the Genesis WordPress theme will blow my mind.
Even the most trustworthy bloggers tend to become low level gray hat marketers when they try to sell you something.
The blog itself is not a sales channel. It provides helpful content that works by itself ideally.
Then people trust you based on that and buy your product or pay for your service.
I don’t believe you because I know myself what the best hosting is for me and other people.
I can’t even find the time to read all the free ebooks I downloaded.
A new WordPress theme doesn’t have to be pushed and shoveled down my throat. I know there are commissions for them.
8. Friends, Fans and Followers.
Who are all these people who want to be friends, are my fans or followers?
On some services like X/Twitter I almost stopped checking who is befriending me.
It might sound antisocial nowadays but I like to know my friends. Yes, I’m quite conservative,
I must have at least some eye contact with you before befriending you.
People whose avatar I have never seen before (or after) want to or are my friends, fans and followers. Give me a break.
Don’t ask me to be a friend, behave like one, at least a virtual one.
Do something with or for me, contact me, vote for me.
9. Selling Your Friends.
Social media like Facebook tend to become quite antisocial once they become big enough to wield power.
You are social capital for them.
They want to sell your relationships with other people and the work you did for free for them for years.
You are not allowed to have a too much financial gain out of those services without paying though.
That’s why Facebook sell back your friends to you by way of advertising.
At the same time they are limiting the so called organic reach with new algorithms.
I don’t even mean large brands. Your profiles get fewer views and clicks now even as an individual.
Social media is like slavery: You work for nothing and they can do whatever they want with you. You have no rights.
10. Amorphous Masses.
Who are the thousands of visitors that flock to your site to disappear in seconds or minutes if they stay reaaaally long?
These people are similar to the audience in a subway station.
You’re the street musician. They enter the trains and you’ll never see them again.
Even if you play again and again in the same place daily, most of them won’t become your true fans.
They will recognize and forget you in the same minute.
The subway or the Web is not TV and you’re not Madonna or Micheal Jackson.
Is this a doom and gloom post? Nope.
What’s the alternatives, the solution?
I repeat: It’s the 1000 true fans mantra as of now. I’m not sure myself yet. I guess it works. Even the numbers work.
When 1000 people spend 100$ per year for you it’s 100k dollars you earned. That’s enough for a decent living in most countries.
Also 100$ means less then a 10$ subscription per month for instance.
Would you spend $10 for your favorite singer in a month?
You probably already do by going to one concert per year.
The information should become deeper not broader, easier digestible without being shallow.
Make it useful and unique instead of “lowest common denominator and extremist”.
You could argue that I don’t need social media anymore because I have lots of subscribers.
I already have an audience yet most subscribers stopped visiting me by way or feed readers.
Anyway, exaggerating doesn’t work that well anyway and it will less and less.
Google already demotes click bait algorithmically the algo leak of 2024 has revealed.
The audience is already well saturated and tired of the same headlines and postings over and over.
So don’t just bait! Provide value. Add something unique.
Give the advice you’d want to received.
Sometimes it’s just not to do something!
Are you my true fan? Come on! You need to become one then!
* (CC BY 2.0) Creative Commons image by Will Brown
