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REVEALED: EVERY TRICK IN THE BOOK TO WRITE A MAGNETIC HEADLINE
JONATHAN RICK THE JONATHAN RICK GROUP
Print vs. Pixels
Virality
Headlines
Headings
Aberrational
Behavior and the
Causal Effect of
Incentives
Freakonomics: A
Rogue Economist
Explores the
Hidden Side of
Everything
PRINT VS. PIXELS PART 1
“BuzzFeed wasn’t just hiring brand names
to serve as lustrous hood ornaments
connoting credibility, the way Tina Brown
and Arianna Huffington have. The hires at
BuzzFeed were more like maypoles:
young writers native to the web who
become pivot points for content because
they are bathed in both the ethos and
practice of social media.”
—David Carr, New York Times
LEAN FORWARD LEAN BACKWARD
This is how we read
scan online.
Nielsen Norman Group (2006)
Why Do Magazines Look So Terrible on the New iPad?
Print vs. Pixels
When reading online, we lean _______.
We don’t read online. We ____.
THE NATURE OF
VIRALITY
PART 2
“We basically found our guts were
worthless.”
—A senior member of Obama’s 2012 campaign email team
“Writing … for social media is an actual skill
that people can learn … It’s not mechanical,
but it is reproducible.”
—Ezra Klein, Washington Post
HEADLINES PART 3
HEADLINES PART 3
IN ACTION
HEADLINES PART 3
BY THE NUMBERS
8/10 That’s how many people will read your headline.
2/10 That’s how many people will read the rest of your article.
25 That’s how many headlines Upworthy tests for every article.
1. Hey White Guys! I Got Your Back
2. Do You Know How Hard It Is Being a White Guy?
3. Being a White Guy Is Harder Than You Think
4. You Don’t Know What It’s Like Being a White Guy
5. White Guys Don’t Have All the Luck
6. If You Knew What It Was Like for White Guys, You’d Keep Complaining
7. Seriously, Who Is Watching Out for the White Guys
8. This White Guy Thing Is Pretty Rough
9. You Don’t Know What It’s Like Being a White Guy
10. Imagine You Were a White Guy. You Know How Hard That Is?
11. Why Are White Guys Always Being Picked On?
12. Seriously, White Guys Can’t Catch a Break
13. White Guys Have So Many Problems, if Only You’d See That
14. An Open Message on Behalf of All White Guys Everywhere
15. This Is What a White Guy Has to Deal With
16. Put Yourself in a White Guy’s Shoes. Comfy, Right?
17.The Life of White Guys Is Way Harder Than You Realize?
18. This Is Why You Should Feel Sorry for White Dudes
19. An Open Letter From White Dudes to America
20. A Public Service Announcement on Behalf of All White Dudes
21. White Dudes Have It Really Hard
22. Being a White Dude Is Harder Than Being Not a Woman or Not a Person of Color
23. Do You Know How Hard It Is Being a Woman? Try Being a White Dude
24. It’s Pretty Hard Out There for a Dude
25. Your Life Is Hard? Try Being (1) A Dude and 2. White
104 That’s how many drafts it took David Ogilvy to perfect his Rolls Royce copy.
“At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce
comes from the electric clock.”
500% That’s how much a headline can boost an article’s traffic.
Numbers
_ out of 10 people will read your headline.
_ out of 10 will read your article.
Upworthy tests __ headlines per article.
HEADLINES PART 3
CASE STUDIES
Chicken Nuggets
Uma Thurman
Ice Cream
PULL OUT YOUR
MEATIEST NUGGETS
THE WASHINGTON POST
Business Coach Anne
Loehr Tries to Bridge
Diverse Generations:
X, Y, Baby Boomer
GAWKER
“Generational
Consultant” Holds
America’s Fakest
Job
• Ian Shapira
• 1,568 words
• 1 hour to interview; 30
minutes to drive; 2 hour
to attend a session; 4
hour to transcribe; 1 day
to write
• Hamilton Nolan
• 436 words
• 1 hour to write
“Nearly every day … a Washington Post
staffer not only sends us links to its
expensive reporting, but even pulls out the
most interesting quotes so as to make it
easier to pirate.”
—Gabriel Snyder, Gawker
VEN YOU GOT IT, FLAUNT IT.
FREEENTERPRISE.COM
Entitlements: Face
the Truth or Face
the Consequences
FREEENTERPRISE.COM
10 Entitlement Truths
That Will Blow Your
Mind
895 views 26,627 views
THEPOSTGAME (YAHOO)
Deaf Seahawks
Running Back
Derrick Coleman
Stars in New
Campaign
FTW (USA TODAY)
Deaf Seahawks
Fullback Stars in
Commercial That Will
Give You Chills
201 shares 2 million shares
IOWA HOUSE DEMOCTATS
Zach Wahls
Speaks About
Family
MOVEON.ORG
Two Lesbians Had a
Baby and This Is
What They Got
2.8 million views 17.4 million views
SERVE UP YOUR SCOOP
THE NATION
The Hunted and the
Hated: An Inside
Look at the NYPD’s
Stop-and-Frisk
Policy
UPWORTHY
Meet the 17 Year Old
Who Blew the Lid Off
Racial Profiling With
His iPod
40,000 views 2.5 million views
DEALBOOK
Realities Behind
Prosecuting Big Banks
• Andrew Ross Sorkin
• 970 words
• 82 comments
• Mark Gongloff
• 509 words
• 4,591 comments
• 2,300 likes
THE HUFFINGTON POST
Eric Holder Admits
Some Banks Are Just
Too Big to Prosecute
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Spy Agencies Tap
Data Streaming From
Phone Apps
REALCLEARTECHNOLOGY
How the Government
Uses Angry Birds to
Spy on You
THE WASHINGTON POST
FBI’s Search for “Mo,”
Suspect in Bomb
Threats, Highlights
Use of Malware for
Surveillance
• Craig Timberg and Ellen
Nakashima, with Julie Tate
• 1,987 words
• 173 comments
• Casey Chan
• 193 words
• 577 comments
• 297,624 views
GIZMODO
FBI Can Secretly
Turn on Laptop
Cameras Without the
Indicator Light
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
How Companies
Learn Your Secrets
FORBES
How Target Figured
Out a Teen Girl Was
Pregnant Before Her
Father Did
• Charles Duhigg
• 6,800 words
• 60 likes
• Kashmir Hill
• 1,200 words
• 13,000 likes
“I was stunned. It was an amazing
anecdote that crystallized so much anxiety
we feel about corporate data collection,
how much ‘they’ know about us, and how
they’ll use it … I couldn’t believe it was
buried nearly 5,000 words into the story
rather than being the lede or broken out on
its own.”
—Kashmir Hill
“The New York Times article is a delicious
nine-course dinner; mine is an equally
tasty, bite-sized snack for readers on the
go. Most readers online are looking for
something quick and easy to digest, so my
version worked better for them.”
—Kashmir Hill
Case Studies
Pull out your meatiest ______.
When you got it, _____ it.
Don’t serve up your summary. Serve up your
_____.
HEADLINES PART 3
THE ART
You Will Not
Believe What Mitt
Romney Wants
to Do to You
Just right: I can’t help
but click.
Mitt Romney
Says Something
Bad, Again
Too vague: I don’t want
to click.
Mitt Romney
Says, “I Want the
Middle Class to
Be Tied to the
Roof of My Car”
Too specific; I don’t
need to click.
Adorable
Chimpanzee
Does Something
Rather
Unexpected
Just right: I can’t help
but click.
This Is an
Amazing Video!
Too vague: I don’t want
to click.
Chimpanzee
Sniffs Own Butt,
Passes Out From
Doing So
Too specific; I don’t
need to click.
“Headlines now are a strange cross
between imperative and inviting. The tone
is soothing, seductive and at least a little bit
demanding, like every character ever
played by Linda Fiorentino.”
—Choire Sicha, The Awl
Bold
Fun
Contrarian
Be Bold
You’re Doing It Wrong: Poached Eggs
This Awesome Ad, Set to the Beastie Boys,
Is How to Get Girls to Become Engineers
Why the FBI Director Is Wrong About Encryption
All the Problems at Bloomberg Come Down to One Stat
Bill Gates Makes Over $1 Million
Every Day Doing Almost Nothing
Be Fun
Why Infographics Are Terrible, in One Terrible Infographic
Demand Media’s Bold New Strategy for eHow: Suck Less
What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage
22 Dogs Who Are Just Really Excited to Be Dogs
Headless Body in Topless Bar
Be Contrarian
Think Like a Woman and Make More Money
Congress Deserves a Big Fat Raise
Coverage You Can’t Buy: Why the Disastrous
Healthcare.gov Rollout Could Be Good for Obamacare
Don’t Say Goodbye When You Leave a Party. Just Ghost
Why Tom Brady Is the Most Overrated Quarterback
in NFL History
Personal
Immediate
Exaggerated
Make It Personal
Don’t Ask Hillary Clinton About Abortion
if You Can’t Handle Her Answer
Things Every Grown Man Should Have
19 People Who Are Having a Way Worse Day Than You
What Recruiters Look at During the 6 Seconds
They Spend on Your Resume
9 Questions About Syria
You Were Too Embarrassed to Ask
Make It Immediate
Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan
in Your Movie
Stop Everything and Watch This Basset Hound
Run in Slow Motion
The 15 Best Countries for You to Move to Right Now
10 Things You Need to Know Before the Opening Bell
POPULAR SCIENCE
Meet the Climate
Change Denier
Who Became the
Voice of Hurricane
Sandy on
Wikipedia
GAWKER
This Guy Is the
Reason Hurricane
Sandy’s Wikipedia
Page Didn’t Mention
Climate Change
Until Today
Make It Exaggerated
The Impossible Choice That Had Elon Musk
on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
The Most Sensational Murder Trial
You’ve Never Heard of Started 100 Years Ago
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Pope Just Published One of the Most Powerful
Critiques of Modern Capitalism That You Will Ever Read
I Wasn’t Feeling the Holiday Spirit Until I Heard This. The
Chills Down My Spine Might Never Go Away
This Is the Greatest Hoodie Ever Made
BUZZFEED
29 Surreal Places
in America You
Need to Visit
Before You Die
VIRAL NOVA
Step One Foot in
Any of These 29
Places and Your
Life Will Never Be
The Same. Wow
LeBron James
Signing Makes the
Miami Heat the
Best Team in NBA
History
LeBron James
Signs With the
Miami Heat
Use Power Words
11 Tips to Writing
Copyblogger
11 Smart Tips to
Brilliant Writing
Don’t Do This With
Your Marketing
Efforts
Copyblogger
The Most
Dangerous Threat
to Your Online
Marketing Efforts
5 Beliefs That
Made It Harder to
Write
Copyblogger
5 Crippling Beliefs
That Keep Writers
Penniless and
Mired in Mediocrity
5 Grammatical Tips
Everyone Needs to
Learn
Copyblogger
5 Grammatical
Errors That Make
You Look Dumb
Inside the Business
Romance of Nikki
Finke and Jay
Penske
New York
Inside the
Promising, Hellish,
Doomed Business
Romance of Nikki
Finke and Jay
Penske
Get Specific
Telecommunications
Best Practices for
the 21st-Century
Enterprise
Marketing Land
7 Simple Ways
Enterprises Can
Cut Telecom Costs
JONATHAN RICK
How to Sell Social
Media
MASHABLE
15 Case Studies to
Get Your Client on
Board With Social
Media
JONATHAN RICK
How to Make
Google Laugh:
SEO Your
Headlines
MASHABLE
How to Optimize
Your Headlines for
Google and
Humans
JONATHAN RICK
What Brand Do
Your Email
Bookends Convey
About You?
FAST COMPANY
What Your Email
Says About Your
Brand
HYPOTHETICAL
How to Get Better
at Organizing Your
Day
HYPOTHETICAL REWRITE
The 5-Minute Guide
to Organizing Your
Day for More Focus
and Productivity
HYPOTHETICAL
How to Use
Android SDK
HYPOTHETICAL REWRITE
The Beginner’s
Guide to Android
SDK
Write for the Outsider
JEZEBEL
Good Housekeeping
Gives Michelle
Obama a Photoshop
Facelift
JEZEBEL
Michelle Obama Gets
a Photoshop Facelift
HYPOTHETICAL
Jennifer Lawrence
Talks About What
It’s Like to Be
Judged
UPWORTHY
That Lady From
the Hunger Games
Talks About What
It’s Like to Be
Judged
SLATE PAGE TITLE
WhatsApp Co-
Founder Brian
Acton Got Turned
Down for a Job by
SLATE ARTICLE TITLE
The WhatsApp
Guy Applied to
Work at Facebook
in 2009. They
Rejected Him
The Art
Create an ____
Be ____, ___, and __________
Make it ________, _________, and
___________ (PIE)
Use _____ words
Get ________
Write for the ________
How Today’s Media Would
Have Covered Columbus’s
Discovery of the New World
If Classic Books Had
Internet Headlines
20th-Century Headlines
Rewritten to Get More Clicks
1905
How a Shocking New Theory,
Discovered by a Dad,
Proves Scientists Are Wrong
About Everything
1912
6 Titanic Survivors
Who Should Have Died
1916
“Physicist Dad” Turns His
Attention to Gravity, and You
Won’t Believe What He Finds
[PICS] [NSFW]
1920
17 Things
That Will Be Outlawed
Now That Women Can Vote
1928
This One Weird Mold
Kills All Germs
1929
The Most Embarrassing
Reactions
to the Stock Market Crash
1945
These 9 Nazi Atrocities
Will Make You Lose Faith
in Humanity
1948
5 Insane Plans
for Feeding West Berlin
You Won’t Believe Are Real
1955
Avoid Polio
With This One Weird Trick
1969
This Is the Most Important
Photo of an Astronaut
You’ll See All Day
1986
This Video of a Terminally Ill
Child Watching the Challenger
Launch Will Break Your Heart
1989
You Won’t Believe
What These People
Did to the Berlin Wall [VIDEO]
If Upworthy Existed
Throughout History
If Video Games Had
Upworthy Headlines
HEADLINES PART 3
TACTICS
“Contemporary media culture prioritizes
the smart take, the sound bite, the
takeaway—and the list is the takeaway in
its most convenient form … You are,
initially, sucked in by the promise of a
neatly quantified serving of information or
diversion. There will be precisely 10 (or
14, or 33) items in this text, and they will
pertain to precisely this stated topic. You
know exactly what you’re going to get
with a listicle.”
—Mark O’Connell, The New Yorker
Th
e L
on
g E
xp
lan
atio
n
“Promise me 11 things, I will at least read
three of them.”
— Choire Sicha, The Awl
Th
e S
ho
rt Ve
rsio
n
“Geek
equivalents of
Cosmo covers”
—Anil Dash, Dashes
13 Animals That Are Really Bummed
on Obamacare’s Third Birthday
Headline Source
7 Important Tax Facts About
Medical and Dental Expenses
75 Facts About the 75th
Secretary of the Treasury
The 10 Most Unintentionally Hilarious
Propaganda Videos
The Top 5 Signs You Probably Have
Pancreatic Cancer
Can You Spot the Difference?
The Debt Ceiling
Explained in 3 Videos
and 1 Chart
The Debt Ceiling
Explained in Three
Videos and One Chart
FreeEnterprise.com
How Social Networks
Change the World in 5
Ways
5 Ways Social Networks
Are Changing the World
Saudi Man in Custody
Was Tackled by
Bystanders at Boston
Marathon
Forbes
Saudi Man In Custody
Was Tackled By
Bystanders At Boston
Marathon
King of Thrones:
America’s Best
Restroom Is in
Minneapolis
NPR
King Of Thrones:
America’s Best
Restroom Is In
Minneapolis
When “60 Minutes”
Checks Its Journalistic
Skepticism at the Door
The New York Times
When ‘60 Minutes’
Checks Its Journalistic
Skepticism at the Door
Boom, Roasted: Here’s
Why You Don’t Ask a
Feminist to Hawk Your
Sexist Product
Upworthy
BOOM, ROASTED:
Here’s Why You Don’t
Ask a Feminist to Hawk
Your Sexist Product
Tactics
“List” + “article” = ________
Numbers: to spell out, or not to spell out?
Where do numbers go?
__________ each word.
Double quotes, or single quotes?
Italics, or capital letters?
Google cuts off your headline after __
characters
HEADLINES PART 3
YES, BUT…
“Millions of readers are lured by
sensational headlines, only to be
disappointed to find a superficial dispatch
with no new information, dashed off by a
harried journalist tasked with producing
three stories a day.”
—Steven Levy, Medium
Critic
ism
#1
“Upworthy posts don’t go viral because
people click—Upworthy posts go viral
because people share. ‘Clickbait’ … is a
totally viable … way to get a bunch of
initial views. But it doesn’t create viral
content. By far the most important factor in
getting people to share a post is the actual
quality of the content … To share, they
have to love what they see.”
—Upworthy Insider
Re
bu
ttal #
1
“There is hyperbole and the occasional
withholding comment, and then there is the
pulling at your bleeding heartstrings with the
subtlety of a monster truck.”
—Lexi Nisita, Refinery29
Critic
ism
#2
“What special virtue is there in letting
great videos, articles, and images fall into
the Internet’s abyss simply because
nobody thought of the right combination of
words to unlock their audience? What’s
more, when readers find themselves
hating a headline picked by a testing
audience and shared by 10 million people,
whose tastes are we really objecting to—
Upworthy’s or ours?”
—Eli Pariser
Re
bu
ttal #
2
Assuming my boss didn’t mind the
tabloidization of our corporate brand, I too
could crank out clickbait.
Critic
ism
#3
“Could you make a list of cute animals that
gets five million views? It’s actually really
hard.”
—Jonah Peretti
Re
bu
ttal #
3
“The kind of mindless Internet advocacy
Upworthy’s been accused of promoting
has inspired a new word: clicktivism.
Clicktivists mistake gratification for
meaning. They conflate feeling good …
with doing good. They watch a video of a
kid sharing his lunch with another kid,
forward it to their social networks or sign
a petition, congratulate themselves on
their political involvement, close the
browser window, and diminish the
definition of service for everyone …
These superficial do-gooders … achieve
a sense of philanthropic agency through
the shallowest possible means.”
—Katy Waldman, Slate
Critic
ism
#4
“Awareness creates the conditions for
change. We are priming people for action.”
—Peter Koechley
Re
bu
ttal #
4
HEADLINES PART 3
QUESTIONS
What’s the likelihood
that this headline will
make it to the given
website’s list of most
popular content?
Would I tweet this
article or like it on
Facebook if I only
saw its headline?
If others are writing
about this subject, is
my headline different
enough to stand out?
Should You Write the
Headline First or Last?
“You may know some of the elements
you’re going to include, you may know
how you want it to begin and end, and
you may know a dozen other big ideas
that have to be in it. But until you can
come up with a headline, chances are
you are going to end up like me, with all
the hard work behind you and this small
sign before you, demonstrating as clear
as a Bahamian bay that the greater
purpose was never framed and fixed.”
— Mike Long, SoMaidSaid.com
Questions
Can I envision this headline on the
given website’s list of ____ _______
content?
Would I ____ this article or post it on
________ based on the headline alone?
If others are writing about this
subject, is my headline _________
enough to stand out?
HEADLINES PART 3
TESTING TOOLS
Optimizely Taboola Outbrain
HEADINGS PART 4
Subheadings
Lists
Bullet Points
Tables
“The most important effect of any heading is
to create white space on the page, making
for a relaxed visual environment in which
information can be scanned.”
—Roy Peter Clark, How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast
Times
1
“By using headings, I make the material
easier to write and to understand. Instead
of writing one long memo, I treat it like a
handful of mini-memos on several smaller
topics.”
—Mike Long, SoMikeSaid.com
2
HEADLINES PART 4
SUBHEADINGS
Signal Transitions
Any website worth its pixels offers wayfinding
tactics.
Create White Space
Long paragraphs constitute eye sores.
BAD “She’s not promoting it, but she can be found
on Twitter at @digitalori.”
C’mon, Lori. Don’t be coy—you know you
want more followers. I know you want more
followers. Shout it from the rooftops!
“Follow Richard Levick on Twitter and circle
him on Google+, where he comments daily on
the issues impacting corporate brands.”
GOOD Lori
“She’s not promoting it, but she can be found
on Twitter at @digitalori.”
C’mon, Lori. Don’t be coy—you know you
want more followers. I know you want more
followers. Shout it from the rooftops!
Richard
“Follow Richard Levick on Twitter and circle
him on Google+, where he comments daily on
the issues impacting corporate brands.”
Effective? Yes. Yet it could be stronger.
Turn a Scanner Back Into a Reader With Subheads
Which One Is Unlike the Others?
Keep Your Reader in Track With Benefits
3 Subhead Techniques
Win the Battle Against the Scanners
HEADLINES PART 4
LISTS
1. I will learn to love lists.
They bring order to my thoughts and deprive
ambiguity of oxygen.
2. I will learn to love lists.
They facilitate scanning and make my content
snackable.
HEADLINES PART 4
BULLET POINTS
• Bullets bolster brevity.
• Bullets cut to the chase.
• Avoid clutter
The Top 3 Principles of Bullet Points
• Practice parallel punctuation
• Get comfortable with fragments
HEADLINES PART 4
TABLES
Table Paragraphs
Just the essentials Full of filler
Tables
Variety is vigor Blocks are boring
The Middle East Friendship Chart
Headings
Sub________
_____
______ points
______
HEADINGS PART 4
YES, BUT…
Our brand is too important to be sacrificed to
the ever-changing whims of mouse movers
and thumb clickers.
Critic
ism
#1
“That people ruthlessly scan content, both
online and off, is just a fact of writing life. It’s
better to accept reality, and resolve to suck
the scanners in.”
—Brian Clark, Copyblogger
Re
bu
ttal #
2
Bullet points and lists result in abrupt and
terse writing. They hamper my natural
fluidity.
Critic
ism
#2
“We’re not telling you to keep your copy
short. We’re telling you to keep your copy
readable.”
—Robert Bruce, Copyblogger
Re
bu
ttal #
2
As you try these strategies, you may find
that one headline type works well for a
while, and then begins to show diminishing
returns. The key is to keep finding new
ways to engage your audience. Be playful
and experimental with what you write—and
ruthless with how you test.
HOW TO WRITE FOR
SOCIAL MEDIA
WEB WRITING 2.0
@jrick
/jrick
hi@jonathanrick.com
Questions? Comments? Drinks?
What’d ya
think?