For many PR practitioners, describing our profession often includes some sort of caveat that PR is more of an art than a science. According to a recent article in Ragan’s PR Daily, this accepted understanding of the industry may be changing.
In “Words that makes (sic) your headline more shareable,” writer Adrienne Erin shares a list of words and phrases that have been proven by scientific methods to be most effective at capturing attention and encouraging engagement. In many cases, the success of specific words in encouraging the desired response (e.g., reading an article, sharing with others, clicking through on links) may not be especially surprising, but as a practitioner, I appreciate being armed with the knowledge that these words actually do have an impact.
Here are a few words that will make your headline more shareable, per post type:
Blog Posts
100 popular blogs were analyzed by Startup Moon to quantify which words and phrases make a headline more successful. Key takeaway: Many of the words suggest that the information will make a reader smarter. Here are the results:
- Surprising
- Science
- Critical
- Huge
- Hacks
- Smart
Facebook and Twitter
More than 10,000 of the most retweeted tweets were analyzed by “social media scientist” Dan Zarrella* to determine a list of the 20 most retweetable words and phrases on Twitter. According to the article, successful or highly shareable content on Twitter would seem to offer valuable knowledge in a short amount of time as readers are on the go and scanning for words that imply the content won’t take much time to review. A few to ponder include:
- How to
- Free
- Top
- 10
- Great
- Facts
According to a study conducted by Marketo and based on more than 31,000 data points, the following types of content are most likely to be shared via Facebook:
- Inspirational content such as quotes and advice
- Uniting content that makes readers feel part of the story and encourages sharing
- Funny content that is acceptable to most groups
- Giveaways, contests, discounts and special offers
- Amazing content with a wow factor such as unbelievable photos or facts
- How-to style content such as quick tips and engaging advice
Other trends to watch:
- Facebook and Twitter have seen an exceptional increase in the popularity of infographics.
- Action words, especially verbs, are more widely clicked and shared than are nouns or adjectives.
- Numbers are popular and the number of shares for a piece of content has a direct correlation with the size of the number in the title, so go big!
- Controversy causes clicks. Readers often click on a headline that they believe will challenge them or their beliefs.
After reading the article, I was eager to put this new research to a test. I pulled the top five “most read” blog headlines from the Communiqué PR blog and found that none of them included any of the key words highlighted by the research. I did, however, find that the headlines included words such as “studies,” “tips,” and “lessons” which imply that the content would make the readers smarter.
I will further test this new research by incorporating the key words and trends (as appropriate) in everything from email subject lines when pitching, to headlines on news announcements – starting with the headline of this blog post! Feel free to leave a comment about my creative use of the top words for blogs. If you don’t have time, don’t sweat it – I can always pull the number of visits and analyze the results like a scientist.
*Readers who scan may think this article is a shameless self-promotion written by Dan Zarrella. We are not the same person, we just have the same amazing name.