Monday, December 16, 2013

2013: The Year the Viral Headline Went Mainstream

I'm looking to do an end-of-the-year story on the top tech improvements/gadgets for communicators for 2013. I'd love to get a quote or at least your opinion. What do you think was the coolest or most useful tech platform/gadget or improvement this past year?

2013 was the year virality went mainstream, and it did so by way of viral headlines. If we takeaway one tech lesson this year, it's that a good headline can be a silver bullet.

As websites like BuzzFeed and Upworthy have demonstrated with truly remarkable success, if you want your content to go viral, you need to spend as much time packaging it with a click-baitish headline as you do writing the post.

This isn't easy. As even the smartest experts have discovered, when it comes to predicting which headline will do the best, your gut is gullible. Instead, you need to need to test, test, and test some more. Done right, a good headline can spur a police investigation or help raise $300K for cancer research.

Addendum (12/18/2013): Success!

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