Marketing Ourselves: ALL Post Titles are Clickbait!

I find myself often getting annoyed because I click on some link I come across on a web site that sounds interesting, and then realize that it was so-called ”clickbait.”

Clickbait annoys us, and has a bad reputation for wasting our time, right?

But if you step back and think about it, aren’t all headlines and post titles pretty much ”clickbait?”

If you’re in the business of marketing pretty much ANYthing — from your post to some product or service — the objective is to get other people to look at whatever it is you have to offer, right?

Of course, we tend to think of clickbait as reading ”Amazing new cure for cancer patented!” as the hook, and at the end of the link we find advertising and pictures of toenail clippings.

Obvious deception.

But there’s a difference between deception and enticement.

The title of this post, for example, is “clickbait,” but I am actually exploring the (possibly subjective) truth that all post titles are clickbait, after a fashion. The title is simply an invitation that hopefully entices people to have a closer look.

We could insist that we should always be objectively truthful but a title like ”600 Words About My Boring Life” probably won’t inspire that many people to have a closer look, right?

Of course, the irony of my writing these words is that I am — and have been, for many years — involved in all manners of sales and marketing, and yet I utterly loathe the entire ”self-promotion” process, including coming up with post titles that somewhat represent the content of something I’ve written… but without coming across as a used car salesman.

Earlier today, Mrs. Denmarkguy and I were having a conversation about the way many people who are ”on the spectrum” (aka mild autism/Aspergers) tend to have a fairly ”tight” inner code that makes it difficult for them to fabricate exaggerations of relatively ordinary things.

One of the reasons I never did very well in mainstream Korporate Amerika™ was my unwillingness to ”pad” my CV with overblown claims. No, ”mowed a few lawns” is NOT the same thing as ”President of startup landscaping company!” I'm not prepared to "lie" about such things, even in service of potentially scoring a good job.

But — typically — you need ”the gift of gab” to get much of anywhere in our world! And so, we write somewhat "clickbait-y" titles for our posts, hoping to catch someone's attention.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing!

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

How about YOU? How do you feel about so-called clickbait? Do you agree that ALL post tiles are, in some small way, clickbait? How do you feel about exaggerating and elaborating on the facts? Is it "inevitable," in order to get noticed? Do leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20210723 23:43 PDT
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