A few years back, Upworthy stormed the publishing world — and eventually became the fastest growing media company ever, with 47 million monthly unique views after just 17 months in existence.
So what’s their secret? Tantalizing headlines.
Headlines you love to hate and hate to click but you click anyway, because you hate not knowing what’s behind that headline more than you hate Upworthy’s headlines.
We’ve all fallen for it.
The magic behind those headlines boils down to this: they were about issues we cared about, most involved a positive spin rather than a negative one, and, of course, each headline was built using a concept called the curiosity gap.
But in spite of their smashing success, Unworthy changed how they wrote headlines. Here’s the story — and the lessons you can learn from it.
In this 8-minute episode of Rough Draft with Demian Farnworth, you’ll discover:
- Three headlines from the top five greatest Upworthy hits, circa 2013
- What made the curiosity gap headline formula so irresistible
- Five curiosity triggers that alert people to such a gap
- Why Upworthy changed a formula that worked so well
- An introduction to the five stages of audience awareness
Rough Draft on iTunes
This article's comments are closed.