Will @upworthy type headline work for you? A startling conclusion.

Will @upworthy type headline work for you? A startling conclusion.     

Before I reveal if an Upworthy type headline will work for you, let’s back up and first talk about what IS an Upworthy type headline?
Upworthy is a site that takes videos that are already trending on Reddit and packages them into a super-catchy, super-sharable viral explosion.
Unlike you and I, Upworthy doesn’t have to worry about creating content. They simply take existing content that’s already going bacterial, repackage it, and give it a supercharged rocket booster. And it all starts with the headline.
To get a really good sense of what an Upworthy headline looks like, here are top 10 Upworthy headlines of 2013:

What is an Upworthy type headline?

Upworthy headlines use a psychological principle known as the Curiosity Gap.
Let’s take “A Pastor Asks A Politician Why He Supports Gay Marriage. It Seems He Wasn’t Prepared For His Reply” headline and break it down.
The headline introduces two characters; Pastor and Politician. It already sounds like a start to a funny joke, right? Two guys walk into a bar, one’s a Pastor the other’s a Politician…
All of us have strong feelings about Pastors and Politicians. So Upworthy is tapping into our preconception in a masterful way by introducing these two players to us right in the headline.
Then they add a hot button issue to the equation. Gay marriage.
And then BOOM! The Curiosity Gap. “He Wasn’t Prepared For His Reply”.

The Experiment

So, I decided to see if the Upworthy type headline would work for my business.
I performed a short experiment in November-December 2013 timeframe on Triberr blog. It’s fair to say that the experiment didn’t have enough data points to be entirely scientific, and Im sure the fact that the experiment was done in November-December (holiday season) will skew the data in some way.
I’ve chosen to follow 2 primary data points. The number of first-degree shares, and the number of visits which came directly via the shortner.
Note: Majority of Triberr blog traffic comes from within Triberr, and members are not seeing the headlines when clicking on the Blog link inside their Account drop down. So I’m only including shortner visits in the results.
I’ve compared 3 blog posts which use Upworthy type headlines and 3 posts that use a traditional type headline.
Click on total shares and pageviews to verify the numbers and get up to date info. 
Upworthy type headlines:

• The future of technology. He nails it. (260 total shares, 361 pageviews)
• Behind closed doors at a content strategy meeting. What you hear will surprise you. (231 total shares, 480 pageviews)
• She tried to keep them on topic but they kept going off the rails. What happened next will amaze you. (305 total shares, 281 pageviews)

Regular Headlines:

• The ROI on Influence Marketing – Case Studies (438 total shares, 420 pageviews)
• 8 Triberr Announcements Before Thanksgiving (230 total shares, 202 pageviews)
• The Anatomy of a Campaign Post (284 total shares, no pageview data)

Data Aggregated

Sometimes looking at a singular data point doesn’t reveal anything useful. Let’s aggregate these results and see what we have.
First degree shares:
Upworthy headlines got 796 shares total.
Traditional headlines got 952 shares total.
Upworthy pageviews = 1120
Traditional pageviews = 922 (I assumed 300 pageviews for the last post because I lost the data)
Interesting, right? Upworthy type headlines received less shares in total, but attracted more pageviews than traditional headlines.

Conclusion

Please share your own conclusions in the comments, but to me the data has spoken.
I hate to admit this because I see Upworthy headlines as lame and manipulative. Plus I’ve spend years learning how to craft a killer headline and Upworthy essentially changed the game right underneath my feet.
But the data points to the fact that Upworthy headlines are super-clickable even when it’s done by a regular business.
Will I use more Upworthy headlines? 
I was really hoping this experiment will be a total failure. I was hoping it would prove that Upworthy type headlines are an aberration and they only work for the likes of Upworthy and Buzzfeed. These “fast food” sites are ruining my Internet and I’d love to see them gone. They are drowning “home cooked” posts you and I write, and I hate that we have to fight them for attention.
Alas, data says that the Curiosity Gap based headlines work across the board.
So will I use Upworthy type headlines more now? I still feel Upworthy type headlines are exploitive, manipulative, and lame. But will I use them? YES! Absolutely.
Not only that, but I will try to convince you to use them as well. Why? Because if we all start using them, they will stop being effective. And then we can either go back to a more traditional approach, or come up with the next version of super-effective headlines.
Will YOU use Upworthy type headlines?

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Dino Dogan

Founder at Triberr

Global Force for Badassery | Founder of Triberr | Refugee from Bosnia | Writer for Technorati | Professional Speaker | Lousy Martial Artist | Singer/Songwriter | Hi.

In my book, "Power Up Your Power Point Presentations", I share the importance of making the first thing you say, do or show your audience be unique. The primitive brain looks for the what is different from the norm. So the first slide needs to be different from what the audience expects. And because of the way the eye focuses on a flat object such as a power point slide, you need to make sure your slides are not all the same, and yet all your slides only contain the most important information. Here is a recent research study on eye tracking that discusses how the eyes track information that supports the "Make it novel and unique" trick.

"Records of eye movements show that the observer's attention is usually held only by certain elements of the picture.... Eye movement reflects the human thought processes; so the observer's thought may be followed to some extent from records of eye movement (the thought accompanying the examination of the particular object). It is easy to determine from these records which elements attract the observer's eye (and, consequently, his thought), in what order, and how often." [8]
"The observer's attention is frequently drawn to elements which do not give important information but which, in his opinion, may do so. Often an observer will focus his attention on elements that are unusual in the particular circumstances, unfamiliar, incomprehensible, and so on." [9]
"... when changing its points of fixation, the observer's eye repeatedly returns to the same elements of the picture. Additional time spent on perception is not used to examine the secondary elements, but to reexamine the most important elements." [10]

Attention Getter example

I made some "dirt" from crushed Oreos, chocolate pudding, and Cool Whip. I took a real plant and put the pot (base covered in foil) inside a larger pot filled with the edible "dirt". It looked like the edible dirt was what the plant was potted in. After introducing that we would be studying soils for the next unit, I announced that I wondered what soil (humas) tasted like. I impulsively opened my desk drawer, took out a spoon and ate some "dirt" from the potted plant. The students gasped, thinking I was nuts; then I confessed and we all ate some edible "dirt" for fun as we began to discuss soils and in particular humas. Another time my second graders were studying amphibians when I began eating some eating Tapioca posed as frog eggs. Yes

Attention Getters How to start your speech with a Personal or Timely Reference
Grabs the attention of the participants with something they can identify as “right-now-relevant.”

 Rather than a canned attention getter, you draw on the moment.
 You talk about something that happened in the world, your town, the company that day, and relate it to your topic.
 It makes you look like a real pro.
• You can refer to the sports news and make an analogy to someone going the extra mile.
• You can refer to the convention party the night before, and the two people found in the fountain who can identify with your talk today on water conservation.
• You can refer to the morning trainer, who mentioned the importance of motivating employees and your talk this afternoon on using praise as a great way to motivate.
• When your share an "in the moment" experience with your audiance they feel more connected to you. And because it takes talent and courage to be in the present moment to use this kind of attention getter you gain immediate respect and admiration from your audiance. When my speaking coach cleints have use this method they have shared with me how wonderfully exciting it felt. I also know that when I’ve told what happened “on the way to the speech,” story or a "I heard or read this in the news this morning story? I’ve won some of the highest praise from my audiences.

Full Example #1:
“One morning, on my way to a breakfast speech for 200 realtors, I was partially dressed, driving my four-week old car, with hot rollers in my hair with metal prongs sticking out everywhere, putting on my blush and eyeliner, slurping Dannon coffee yogurt. As I was driving down the far left lane of a six-lane highway in 8 o’clock Atlanta rush-hour traffic, my tire blew. I saw my life flash before me. I managed to cross over five lanes of traffic to the easement, without hitting anyone or killing myself. I got out of the car in my hot rollers with prongs sticking out everywhere, partially dressed, holding my Dannon coffee yogurt to look at my rubberless rear tire. I needed help.

I stood watching cars zip by, curlers with the prongs sticking out all over, partially dressed, holding my Dannon coffee yogurt. I flagged at passing traffic. No one stopped. I had to get to those 200 waiting realtors. I hiked up my skirt, smiled, and waved politely at the oncoming traffic. The next truck stopped. Two bubbas got out and said ‘Can we help ya, little lady?’ I said I needed a ride and they said, “Hop on in the truck.” (They missed their appointment, drove 30 miles out of their way), Bubba #1 let me use his car phone, while Bubba #2 held my makeup mirror so I could finish my makeup in the car. All this help so I could make it here today. They rescued me, at a high cost to their business, when they could have just passed me by. (Holding up their business card) Mike and Tim were ‘shining stars,’ and that’s what we’re here to talk about today. How you can be a shining star in your city by volunteering for community service.”

Full Example #2:
“After the first day of a three-day workshop for the Florida Department of Labor in Tampa, Florida, I was dropped off at my sister’s house for dinner. My niece asked if she could play with my workshop magic markers, which were in my equipment case along with the high heels I’d worn that day (I’d changed into sneakers). The next morning I was back in my hotel room, reached into my case to pull out my high heels, and they weren’t there! My niece hadn’t put them back!

“That morning, I walked out in front of my audience, wearing a blue blazer, cream skirt, pantyhose, and large, white Reebok sneakers and said, ‘Today, we are going to learn about making a good first impression.’ The audience howled! I told them the story of my niece—they loved it—they loosened up and I was comfy-footed all day”

ay I will be giving three speeches on speaking and training.