9 practical methods behind new media operations of popular headlines!

It is said that a good title is half the battle of a good article, and some even say, “A person who can write a good title is worth a thousand troops!”

This is of course an exaggeration, but it is also realistic.

Because users only give you 1 second, if you want people to read your article, your title must catch their eye immediately and make people want to click on it.

After all, no one wants their hard-earned article to have only a few readers because no one clicks on it.

For all reading and forwarding, the title is the first link. Opportunities are fleeting, you only have less than 1 second. If you cannot attract users to click within 1 second, then it will have no chance to appear.

I have a habit of frequently reading the titles of the top 100 popular articles officially recommended by Toutiao, because the titles on Toutiao have a more direct effect and are less affected by the fan base and tone. I like to analyze as I watch, and I always get a lot of inspiration.

Today, I will mainly share some key points and methods of titles that I have observed. Durable and reliable!

1. Title and topic are inseparable

When talking about the title, we cannot avoid the topic. As mentioned above, “a good title is half the work”, half is the title and half is the topic.

Why do we have to talk about the topic first? Because relatively speaking, I think the topic is more important. If the topic is wrong, the title cannot save it.

The choice of topic not only directly determines whether users open the article, but also affects the upper limit of the article's diffusion. The most important thing is to have a topic first and then a title.

Of course, there are many practical methods on how to choose a topic. Here are some key points I observed:

1. Hot items and hot spots are good friends. Timely entry into hot spots is more likely to become a hot item
2. The topic has high attention, covers a wide target population, can penetrate into multiple circles, and form multi-circle communication
3. Find those strong emotional convergence points and stimulate high arousal emotions
4. Don’t have mediocre opinions, have sharp and tricky opinions. Strong opinions are explosive points.
5. Subverting common sense, saying things that others have not said, saying things that are different from the public's perception
6. Find an angle of entry from the controversial point or the opposite side of the incident
7. Satisfy strong curiosity and arouse unexpected surprise and desire to share
8. Help readers express their thoughts and say what they want to say but have been suppressing deep in their hearts
9. Valuable, insightful, and can provide social conversation points for others
10. Can help the target group to shape and consolidate their image, and even show a sense of superiority

These are all very reliable and popular topic selection directions. It is certain that countless people have written good articles based on these angles.

A more " convenient " method is to build a rich topic library.

This should include the core pain points of the target population, issues that all ordinary people care about, eternal topics, popular topics of your own account, hot topics, competitors' popular topics, and good topics on various platforms, etc. All should be collected.

As long as you have enough materials in your topic library, believe me, you will never lack topics. You just have to think about how to write it.

2. 10 key points of the title

Back to the title, let me talk about some facts that I saw among the thousands of popular headlines on Toutiao.

What kind of title can quickly attract attention?

There are many methods and techniques, such as dramatic conflict, using specific numbers, chasing hot spots and hanging out with wealthy people, using contrast, stimulating pain points, creating controversy, triggering resonance, highlighting short-term interests, creating an atmosphere of urgency, using labels such as region, age and identity, stimulating emotions, creating suspense and curiosity... and so on, too many to count!

However, the following key points are definitely principles that appear frequently during my observations and are worth noting down.

1. Closely related to readers, insight into life details, identity labels are important
2. The words are more direct, the tone is stronger, and the emotions are more explosive
3. Curiosity is a human quirk
4. Clear and specific, detailed description, direct benefits
5. Suspense, contradiction, conflict, revelation, conflict, reversal, subversion are eye-catching killers
6. Hot spots, hot spots, hot spots. Anything hot may be a hot spot.
7. Use "I", "you", "TA" more often to make the story touching
8. The angle should be novel, the viewpoint and attitude should be clear, even extreme
9. Long titles can accommodate more eye-catching words
10. Connotation and depth cannot defeat simplicity and crudeness, although it is unbearable

It is recommended that everyone pay more attention to these principles in the future. Especially "suspense", "curiosity" and "hot spots" are simply eye-killers. Below I will give you a lot of examples, please take a look.

3. Practical methods behind 9 popular titles

After looking at those popular headlines with relatively high click-through rates and reading volumes, I summarized several highly concentrated headline formats.

No need for extra explanation, you can understand it at a glance. The key is to get a feel for it through cases, and use them as reference coordinates when you write.

You have to admit that writing titles is very easy to imitate, and some can even be applied directly and perfectly. It works better than thinking hard about it.

1. Direct Quotes + Sharp Points

• Chinese dramas with distorted values: No matter how high the ratings are, I have to give them a bad review
• "Joined the company for 12 years, was fired in an instant": The dumbest effort is to be busy without any results
• "Houses are more reliable than men": You can't even imagine the happiness of rich women
• "Why don't you get married": Because low-quality marriage is not as good as high-quality singleness
• "Dear, please help me cut a knife": Your so-called friends are stealing your time

2. Highlights first + create suspense

• Almost all of Steve Jobs' iPhone design team has resigned. How did Apple force designers to leave?
• Minor wounds cost two lives. Doctors remind: 3 types of wounds, no matter how small, you should get tetanus shot
• Super accurate psychological test: What do you see when you first see a picture? Test your innermost secrets
• Before Du Yuesheng went to Hong Kong, he warned one person that he would die if he stayed, but he didn't listen! After Du left, he sneaked back to Shanghai and didn't live for 3 days.
• I switched jobs to a company with a monthly salary of 30,000 yuan, but I regretted it in less than half a year.

3. Ask curious questions and create suspense

• Would you put your parents in a nursing home? Look at the elderly captured by British photographers
• Are people who fart a lot more likely to get colon cancer? Doctor’s Tips: These are the reliable methods for checking colorectal cancer!
• How difficult is it to get married in rural areas? The three old farmer's rhymes express the bitterness and helplessness of many people
• How to steam egg custard without honeycombs? It turns out that the time of putting it into the pot is very important. If done right, it will be more tender and smooth than tofu.
• Who is making the harassing calls starting with 95? Finally found the source, can be blocked like this

4. Subvert stereotypes + use contrast to create suspense

• It was not Liu Bei and Cao Cao who created the chaos of the Three Kingdoms, but a pig butcher, but later generations ignored him.
• When your child kicks off the quilt while sleeping, don’t think it’s because he’s hot! If parents do not pay attention to these two situations, it will affect their development.
• The love story of these two middle-aged men is sweeter than an idol drama
• HR of a large company: What I hate to see most is the “excellent employees” selected from small companies.
• Is it most comfortable for your baby to set the air conditioner to 26 degrees in summer? wrong! How to turn on the air conditioner in summer? Listen to me

5. Identity label matching + addressing pain points

• Babies should not eat these 5 types of food before they are 3 years old. They have a great impact on their health. Parents should keep them in mind.
• My status at home depends on my bank balance | Young people humiliated by bank balance
• Do you know how many breeds of cats have died in backyards?
• Before marriage, "I support you", after marriage, "I support you"

6. Challenge cognition + break the routine (say the opposite of what you mean)

• As a mother, I never loved my children.
• I finally accepted that my son was an ordinary child.
• Taiwanese snacks really... taste very ordinary.
• Yes, I am the selfish woman who divorced and doesn’t want children!
• Have you eaten plastic today?

7. Highly insightful ideas/phenomena + direct quotations

• "On the fifth day after giving birth, I was admitted to the ICU"
• "I'm sorry, what I want is marriage, not targeted poverty alleviation"
• "Yes, I am the selfish woman who divorced and didn't want children!"
• "In my mother's eyes, my life is over"
• “You’re good, but you’re fired.”

8. Hot topics + sharp opinions

• A former colleague with an annual salary of 600,000 yuan is seriously ill. He said frankly: Extreme self-discipline is self-destruction. No matter how hard you work, you must cherish your life.
• 52-year-old Sichuan man took the college entrance examination 23 times, sparking heated discussion: Pointless struggle is a waste of life
• Middle-aged mothers can no longer afford Dior: The competition between women starts from their children's cram schools
• A Nanjing guy fell drunk in a subway station and burst into tears: The adult world is too hard, you need the right to collapse
• The world's popular elderly divorce trend has swept to China: At 65, I can still restart my life

9. Highlights first + stating surprising facts

• 21.8 trillion tons! NASA discovered a dense foreign object near Chang'e 4, which is 6 times larger than Wuhan City
• Zhang Xinyu: An artist who was delayed by acting, her Chinese painting is more professional than the masters
• "Mom, let's get a divorce. Stop pretending!" A letter from a 15-year-old high school girl | True story
• Don’t waste this summer vacation! 8 documentaries to help children learn about astronomy and geography
• The "Break" Post-90s Generation May Be China's Most Mentally Healthy Generation

Please remember four key words: curiosity, suspense, unique perspectives, and subversion.

In addition, if you read these titles more often, you will find that there are always one or two keywords in their titles, which can quickly attract you. Your hands are faster than your brain, and you click on them unconsciously.

Is that right?

This is the point I always mention every time I talk about the title with others, which is——

The title needs to contain one or more keywords that can directly stimulate the user, quickly stimulate the brain, and give the user an "electric shock" at first glance. I call it a headline buzzer.

So corresponding to this point of view, there is a quick trick to test the title:

You can break down all the keywords in your title, remove useless auxiliary words, and then see if there are one or more triggering words that can immediately stimulate the eyeballs. Then feel whether these refined trigger words are strong enough. If they are not stimulating enough, they need to be strengthened. In short, this way, you will have a method to follow when writing the title, and you won’t be completely clueless.

Finally, let me say a little more. Everyone knows that the title is important, but the more important something is, the more time it takes to polish. Methods and techniques are just tools, and any results need to be tested and summarized.

The method is the method, the result is the result. It is effective but not a shortcut. A title is a title, and a hot article is a hot article. They are related but not equal.