How To Get More Clicks Part 2
In the first part of this blog topic about how to get more click-throughs for your social media posts and blogs we looked at the typical social media experience and the basic rules for constructing a headline that draws your clients/customers in to read more and engage with your posts. Engagement essentially means taking some form of action, whether it is reading more, liking, sharing or retweeting.
The aim of your headline is to get people to click on your link. Different channels have different needs. You can write a lot more on Facebook and Google+ than on Twitter. On Twitter, your tweet is ‘the’ headline. Some of these tips won’t apply to your business. But they’re good to remember, because you may get a client that does need them.
Tweets usually want you to read an article or offer you some wisdom that you’ll want to share with your followers, all of which promote you and the original tweeter. The questions is, do these simply get more followers and fans rather than customers? Twitter discovered that the most effective Call To Action was to ask people to “download” something. Create a free downloadable product that then asks the downloader to sign up for a newsletter or go on an email list.
According to Dan Zarella there are 20 key words that increase the likelihood of your tweets being retweeted. Appealing to people as “you” is top, followed by “Twitter,” “please” and “retweet.” Asking people to retweet with “Please RT” is another way to get some action. The phrase “social media’ is also highly ranked, also, as Dan says: “don’t be afraid to tweet about tweeting, blogging, networking etc.”
Facebook has room for more words than Twitter, but research shows that short posts of between 100 to 250 characters are more likely to be read than posts of 250+ characters. Kim Garst suggests you hint at the content of your blog and “provide a very brief excerpt.” Also, use an image. Posts with a photo get 84% more click-throughs than posts without, according to Kissmetrics.
Use more verbs. This is another fabulous Dan Zarella tip. Get more verbs and adverbs into your headlines—rather than nouns and adjectives. Examples of verbs that get results are: achieve, earn, save and boost. Also, use the present tense when possible: “Peppermint Spain reveals social media secrets” is better than “ social media secrets revealed by Peppermint Spain.”
Blog post headlines require another set of techniques. Peppermint will let you into the secrets of how to write these on another day and share some more research findings from the top social media gurus.