WHY DO SO MANY OF US USE CLICKBAIT?

We use it because it’s easy and it works!

WHAT IS CLICKBAIT?

Web content, primarily articles/blog posts that are used to generate traffic and online advertising revenue. Clickbait is used to grab the attention of potential viewers.

WHAT ARE CERTAIN TYPES OF CLICKBAIT?

• Attention-seeking headlines such as, “She Ran Only One Mile a Day, You Won’t Believe Her Results!” This headline will make people curious enough to click on the article if they are interested in losing weight. Articles with headlines like this, want their readers to think they are about to read some shocking and amazing weight loss results. When in reality, the article is probably about loving yourself and feeling better spiritually after running a mile a day. 

We have been around clickbait so much, that we usually are smart enough to know which articles will relate to the title and which articles only want to generate traffic and talk about nonsense in 10 slides.

• Pictures of famous celebrities or athletes that grab your attention. Who wouldn’t want to see a picture on their timeline of their favorite celebrity? Most of us will click the link, bringing us to the article that most of the time has nothing to do with the actual celebrity. This type of clickbait advertisement can negatively affect your online business. People don’t want to be fed with misleading articles, because then they will consider your posts as spam and disregard your posts in the future.

On another note, clickbait isn’t just article titles and pictures. Sometimes celebrities share their own clickbait links to articles as if they were the ones who wrote them. For example, D- list celebrities live for clickbait advertisements. They simply get paid to post links to their Snapchat and Instagram stories. “Teen Mom 2” star Kailyn Lowry is famous for posting clickbait.

Readers who are familiar with the star have her on most social media platforms. Celebrities such as Kailyn Lowry, post clickbait advertisements daily. Celebrities make their own “cover” (the post you see before swiping up to the actual content). This clickbait featured in the picture above is from Celebbuzz.com. Its title makes it seem as if the star is pregnant. When in reality, we click on the link and it says, that Lowry is not pregnant, but wants another child.

The link to the article is, https://www.celebuzz.com/g/kailyn-is-single-now-but-confirms-pregnancy-news/2/

When we look at the URL slug, it reads, “Kailyn is single now but confirms pregnant news.” But she isn’t pregnant, and never announces that she is. Therefore, we can see how this can be deemed as misleading.

As misleading as this article is, we can see why people who are invested in the star and her show would want to swipe up. But in the end, the article didn’t make any false claims.

As we look at these examples, we can see that it is easy for clickbait to gain a bad reputation. But in the long run, it does gain traffic. Clickbait is everywhere even if we don’t see it. People do get annoyed with clickbait, but as long as the content isn’t too far off from the headline or picture, your online business should remain reputable and truthful.