The New York Times has a great article about viral video.
I found this quote very interesting
It’s written by Natalie Kitroeff, and it’s very good, go read it.
What is interesting is they didn’t say tell the truth, make it more intellectual, or make it be visually stunning.
It’s all about the emotion.
You have to engage emotionally.
The character of Linkbait is all about emotion.
But here’s the thing, most people are proud. People want to appear more intelligent and well read than they actually are and so will ignore the creation of the simple emotional signal for the complex intellectual one. I am guilty of this. It’s not about dumbing down, it’s simply about understanding how the human brain works and how it reacts to some dumb video.
The journalist wants the cat to die, because that is what happens and that is what journalists do, they report the facts.
The viral expert wants the cat to live because a positive emotion is more likely to be shared than a negative one.
Thing is, people will not tell you what they really like, but they will show you by what they react to and what they allow on their screens and into their minds.
Creating website melting traffic is not about intellect, it’s about being savvy about the human mind.
So true, Lyndon. No matter how advanced our methods of distribution become, we’re still creating content for people, who are emotional beings. After all, it’s not the mysterious Google algorithm that chooses what gets shared. It’s people.
You nailed it Andrew, It’s the audience that will share our content not Google.
I like this post, it’s to the point about engaging the reader through emotion. A good tip I need to remember!
You mention that “people want to appear more intelligent and well read than they actually are…”. This is a great point too. I went to University and studied, but I don’t feel the need to prove this to anybody, but many people do. I try to write in a simple style that appeals to every body, without the ‘big’ words that I see cropping up in blogs. They’re just not necessary in my opinion. If I can engage with a reader and solve their problem quickly, to the point and with no fluff then I’ve done well.
You can definitely add a level of emotion to even the most banal subject. You can see this in blogs about the latest Android code and other pretty flat subjects. The key in business writing is to ensure that its passionate but not offensive to others!