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

Facebook

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?