How to increase the number of public account readers? Just read this article

Can you tell the difference between the final title and the alternative titles? After studying this chapter, you will understand the thinking logic behind it.

01 Highly read titles must meet one formula

When articles and users meet on the Internet, no one will care about what kind of connotation is hidden behind the bad title. Although we hate clickbait titles , everyone should not reject being one of them, because it is a skill that can help double (or even higher) the number of article readers.

There are many articles on the market about how to come up with a good title, but most of them just summarize the various types of titles. In this article, we want to share something more essential: “reading motivation value” (reading motivation value refers to the degree to which users want to click on pictures and texts).

In summarizing my editing experience at Baidu Tieba , Xiaohongshu , and Operation Research Society , I found that reading motivation is mainly affected by two aspects:

On the one hand, there is the degree to which the article matches user needs, which is positively correlated with the reading motivation value.

On the other hand, there is the user perceived cost (the cost required to solve the problem using the method provided by the article), which is negatively correlated with the reading motivation value.

So according to this formula, you can think like this when you title your article.

Based on the core content of the article, what words can stimulate user needs? Which of these words do they need most?

For example, this article can actually meet everyone's learning needs, including how to match pictures, how to write abstracts, how to come up with titles, and how to do typesetting. The biggest pain point among these requirements should be how to give a title, so I will put the word "given a title" in the course title.

Of course, if you want to increase users' desire to click, you can also start by reducing their perceived cost.

For example, in 2017, a very popular book was called " Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind ". At that time, many people wanted to know what it was about. If you write an interpretation article and title it "Understanding "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind"", although it can attract many users to read it, I think such a title is not good enough, because users don’t actually want to read, and they don’t know how long it will take them to finish reading.

So a better title would be:

If you don’t have time to read “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” you can just read these 50 book excerpts.

It will make users subconsciously think that although I can't finish reading this book, the effect will be almost the same if I read these 50 book excerpts.

When you master the formula described in this section, your title-writing ability will exceed 60% of content operations . However, in order to come up with high-readability titles, you also need to know the following 4 title-writing principles.

02 High-read volume titles should follow 4 principles

We often hear many excellent self-media people say that they spend a lot of time coming up with titles, even longer than writing articles.

Why did it take these great people so long to write just one title? What exactly are they thinking about when they think about the title?

After communicating with the editors-in-chief of accounts such as Shenwanfawu , Hu Xinshu , and Chapingjun , and through my own practice, I found that the great people are thinking about these four questions when they come up with titles, and their time and brain cells are wasted on these four questions.

1) Does the title exceed the target audience?

In order to make your article have a higher readership, your title cannot only be understood by your core users, but also must ensure that after anyone shares it on WeChat Moments , his friends in WeChat Moments can also understand the title and are willing to click in to read the article, so your title must exceed the target audience.

So what is the super target population? For example, if the topic (core content) of your article is related to the Hammer phone , you might give it a title like "10 Secret Features of the Hammer Phone". However, if you have a "super-target group" mindset, you can define the target users as the entire population using Android phones when you come up with a title, so your title will become "10 Secret Features in Android Phones." In this way, your potential readership will increase by at least 100 times.

remember! " The article should be written for target users, but the title should be written for potential users."

2) Does the title have prominent keywords ?

In today's world of information bombardment, the war for traffic has become a battle for user time (attention).

Take WeChat subscription accounts as an example. On average, each user follows 200 public accounts , and about 20 public accounts will be pushed in the same period of time. With so much competition, how can you stand out and get users to notice your content?

This problem can be solved by using the “ cocktail effect” of human attention:

In a noisy indoor environment, such as at a cocktail party, there are many different sound sources present simultaneously:

The sound of multiple people talking at the same time, the sound of tableware colliding, the sound of music, and the reflected sound produced by these sounds reflecting off walls and objects in the room. All these sounds are meaningless background noise to you.

However, if someone suddenly mentions your name next to you, you can immediately recognize it even if the volume is very low and cannot be heard by other sounds.

Users will only click on content that is relevant to them. Your article meets the user on the Internet, and he gives you less than 3 seconds; if you want to attract his click within 3 seconds, you must have keywords that can reach the user when you write a title.

And it is best if the key is something they are familiar with, does not require thinking, and has a visual sense. For example, in the Internet operation industry, " Jack Ma ", "Tencent", "NetEase", " Ma Huateng ", " Nasdaq ", "fighting", "unwritten rules", "salary increase", "100,000+"... are the keywords that practitioners can pay attention to at a glance.

It is not enough to find such keywords, you need to highlight them. There are two specific ways to highlight them.

① Put keywords in front as much as possible

There is a word limit for any product title, so don’t let keywords become ellipsis.

Title keywords not displayed before modification

Modified title keywords display

② Keywords are indicated with symbols

for example"","","",【】……

3) Use more interrogative sentences

The advantage of question sentences is that they can attract readers' attention, bring up topics, and cause readers to think. Used in titles, it can attract readers, inspire them to think , and better reflect the core of the article.

At the same time, using question sentences in the title can increase the number of readers from sharing on social platforms such as WeChat Moments, for example:

"Why does the traveling frog dominate the circle of friends?" 》

"2017 Internet celebrity store death list, will Heytea be the next to close?" 》

"The APP that kills familiar customers!" What else are there besides Didi and Ctrip ? 》

…

How about it, do you have the urge to find out?

4) Does the title have target users to vote for?

When you edit an article that may go viral, it is recommended that you come up with five or more titles for it, and then ask users to vote on these titles, or consult several target users about their thoughts after reading the titles.

Once you master the reading motivation value formula and follow the 4 principles of titles, you can almost beat 80% of content operations . If you want to increase your open rate, you can also work on the sentence structure of the title. Below we will share 10 common title sentence patterns.

03 Top 10 common sentence patterns for high click-through rate titles

1 title formula and 4 title principles can help you find the core keywords in the title, but in order to make the title have better readership, you can also know the following 10 common title sentence patterns.

1) How to

How to style is the most widely used title type and also the most useful type. As long as you put the word "how" in a title, you can't write a bad title. ( It is not necessary to have "how" in order to be a how-to title.) The title format can be imitated :

"A must-read for technical marketers : How did Airbnb use Growth Hack to gain more users in its early days?" 》

The Path to Advanced Marketing for Modern Marketers : How to Become a Marketing Technologist from Scratch

How to send emails asking for help and get a super high response rate? 》

It is clear at a glance what the whole article discusses, and readers can judge from the title whether it is the content they are looking for.

2) Collection type

6 methods, 5 suggestions, 4 trends. The advantage of a collection is that it is a good summary. One article is equivalent to reading 5 articles separately. In addition, numbers in the title are easy to catch the user's attention, such as:

"Airbnb tells you how to trade chicken ribs for chicken legs: 3 typical cases of sharing economy"

《【Inventory】Heavy recommendation! The most literary words on the Internet in 2014

3) Titles with negative words

4 common mistakes, 5 things you should avoid. These negative words often alert people and make them want to find out the truth. When they see something wrong, they reflect on themselves and gain inspiration from some wrong cases, such as:

Original title:

8 Resume Writing Tips

Things about the Palace Museum

Changed title:

If your resume is ignored, check out these 8 tips

Things You Don’t Know About the Palace Museum

Does the changed title make you frown even more, and make you want to click on the article to eliminate the negative emotions at this moment?

4) Add some modifiers

Modifiers have two functions: one is to make the definition clearer and more unique, and the other is to increase the emotional intensity of the reader.

《The best and latest case libraries are all here丨HuntBy SocialBeta》

Speaking of case library, smart readers will know what this is about, but where can I not read cases? I think you will be a little tempted when I use the term “best and latest” to describe the features of this case library.

5) With a sense of urgency

"What you haven't tried yet", "The latest launch"... Everyone has a spirit of exploration and a psychological gap for counterattack and verification. I would immediately want to verify whether I have tried it and whether I know about the latest products. Moreover, making the title full of urgency is also a call to action.

《【Case】Have you seen this interesting aviation safety video? 》

Would you like to verify it quickly and see if you have watched this video yourself? Is it really interesting? If you still don’t know how to use it, I’ll teach you a universal pattern: verb + benefit obtained. Like Ginger Tea, there is an article titled:

《Learn these English words and you can make it in the advertising industry! 》

6) Give it a sense of preciousness

FaceBook Internal Employee Work Guide

"Exploring the Salaries of Google Programmers "

When readers see a title like this, they feel that the information you provide is something they can get but others cannot. Moreover, after obtaining this unique information, readers will be more willing to act as a source of communication and spread knowledge to others. (I have to admit: it is my nature to be a teacher…)

Li Jing has an article that has had a great influence:

[ Li Jiaoshou ] How to write articles for WeChat public accounts : The secret of smooth and readable articles

How to write articles for WeChat public accounts is enough to attract people in social marketing . Coupled with the smooth and readable interest temptations and mystery presentation of the articles, would you like to click on the secrets and then share them with your friends?

7) Explanatory title

"How did the student team achieve 350,000 sales: an interview with Mr. and Miss from the L'Oreal charity sale team at Nanjing University"

The keywords of exclusive interview and L’Oréal give the article uniqueness and also convey value and a sense of exploration to the readers. Add numbers and how-to statements to supplement the facts and knowledge.

8) Use puns and one-liners

Puns + Internet buzzwords are a good combination. They complement each other to make up for the imbalance between novelty and over-popularity, such as:

When Game of Thrones suffers a "stupid death", even the most tragic "death" becomes cute

Although this is a metaphor, it is clever and interesting enough to eliminate the unpleasantness of wasting brain energy.

9) Deliver a sense of instant success

Everyone is busy and may not have the time or willingness to delve into complex research.

"Understand the essential changes of marketing from advertising to SDi in one article"

《Teach you how to design a logo in 7 steps》

Will you feel confident and achieve success immediately after reading this article?

10) Welfare Post

The title suggests that there are benefits to reading this article. There are two ways to express this title:

One is to directly label it as welfare, for example:

"2014 Annual Gift List—A welfare post dedicated to those who don’t know how to give gifts! ! ! 》

"【 Recruitment Benefits】High-end Jobs Special: New Media and Marketing Jobs"

Another is metaphor, using words like "guide" and "introduction book". These words can be combined like this:

"【Guide】Concepts, cases and best practices that marketers should know about Cinemagraph, a powerful visual marketing tool"

"Recharge during the Spring Festival: 36 Recommended Articles for Social Media and Digital Marketers (Workplace Edition)"

Do the above title techniques make you feel a lot clearer?

This article was compiled and published by the author @陈维贤(Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games