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“Smart clickbait“ for Telegram

“Smart clickbait“ for Telegram

Owned by Kseniia Kit
May 26, 2022
2 min read

 

  • The projects of Genesis Media Emerging Markets are producing content that is 100% free of clickbait headlines on Facebook, and that may occasionally have ‘smart clickbait’ headlines in Telegram or in our newsletters.

  • Nevertheless, our competitors still often use ‘forbidden methods’. The ideas below will show how we can even benefit from such a situation:

  • always insist that we are a credible media. It can be reflected both in headlines and in the text;

  • emphasize that other media houses mislead their readers, exaggerate, sensationalize, misrepresent facts. It can sometimes be done indirectly, without finger-pointing;

Possible structures and situations: Uhuru calls Raila an idiot, and TUKO.co.ke know the truth… various media accounts claim/mislead... Legit.ng gathered all the factshttps://prnt.sc/j0w1mc  - one more example from TUKO.IVShocker! Monkeys swallow N70m belonging to Northern senators   In reality, an official joked about monkey eating money, but everybody did such headline. In this case, we should claim in our headline:

Various media shares hoax about ...

Monkey did not eat the money, it is the media misleading people about it

Here’s what actually happened in the monkey’s story

Top takeaways: 

Since we impose a self-ban on clickbait and other harmful practices, it gives us the full right to declare that we are better than others. All the media houses are playing ‘dirty’, so that’s why we should remember and should remind our readers that we are providing correct and fair information.

3 things should be presented in our headline: we go straight to the topic, we tell about others misleading the audience, we claim that we have the correct information. But no finger-pointing!

What we will potentially achieve: better brand recognition and improved credibility. It may result in higher shares and audience engagement for us.

  1. The length of headlines with the highest engagement levels is 16-18 words.

  2. When a writer says “this is what,” he or she is making a definitive statement about something. A statement like that also asserts the author’s authority on the subject matter. We can do such kind of 'smart clickbait' on social and as one of the variations of A-B.

  3. Write content that explains “how to” do something, and use that phrase — “how to” — in the title.

  4. Write some titles in the form of questions, especially questions that include “do you,” “can you,” “is the,” and “do you agree.”

  5. Create a title that contains a controversial issue.

  6. Whenever possible, base articles on the unique photo(s), or screenshots & videos. Include (photo, video) in the title.