In part 1 we looked at controversy – the backbone of all things click-bait. Example: “OMG have you seen what [insert old celebrity name] looks like today!”
Apart from all the BS headlines that appear every millisecond everywhere using controversy as the #1 angle to get attention, there are a whole bunch of others that use our #2 angle – Outrage.
When you think about it, outrage is really just more controversy, there’s a difference though – we’re getting specific about the type of controversy we want to generate.
We don’t want any old controversy, we want controversy smeared all over with a good dollop of anger generating emotion.
We want to enrage our audience (so they take action without even thinking). Let’s get outrageous then.
Here’s a newspaper headline:
“Survey finds fewer deer after hunt”
Sorry. My bad. How about this one:
“Mum nearly loses eyesight as doctor prescribes wrong drug”
Now we have division. It’s not overly outrageous, but if you’re the sort of person who thinks that big pharma is a con, this will make that itch worse – and if you use any eye medication, you’re going to want to find out more.
“Vaccine kills more vaccinated than non-vaccinated new report reveals”
This could lead into an advertorial (or press release) for the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) industry.
Whatever it is you’re trying to sell, look for division in your industry and exploit it. It’s not easy, but once you start thinking this way, your ability to come up with new angles will improve.
But is that it? No of course not. Continue to part 3.