Clickbait or fake news? How to ensure your marketing content is honest

The experts at The Bridge Marketing know that as the digital world grows, influencers and marketing teams have become more inventive at grabbing audience attention. One of the most popular tactics to achieve this comes in the form of Clickbait – creating content designed to grab the reader’s attention before leading to another article or webpage.

With digital content becoming critical in achieving Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and engaging visitors, you could be forgiven for thinking that you need to use clickbait to get your content seen; but if you have a strong brand identity and post consistent content regularly then your audience will receive your message organically.

A famous example of this method is the ‘Rickrolling’ phenomenon; when people were emailed a link to an article which appealed to them, only to discover that the link took them to a video of Rick Astley’s 1987 pop hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’. This was clickbait at its simplest form.

When is Clickbait suitable?

If you’re looking to grow your following at an accelerated rate and attract new user’s then clickbait is often seen as a means to an end. With clickbait it is still important that you don’t go wildly off the mark because you can appear as overly sales driven, and audiences will begin to distrust you.

There is a fine line of how much you can go off topic before bringing it back to your original point. If we were to entice audiences to a blog about Saturday night TV but wanted to discuss GDPR that wouldn’t work because we would be attracting the wrong audience. Clickbait still needs to be relevant to your chosen audience and at least mildly discuss the topic you’ve used as a hook before relating it back to your business.

It’s important to note that when you overuse clickbait it can become spam and push away potential clients and customers. However, when used correctly (and research to the demographic of your target audience has been conducted), it can be done with integrity and actually shows your business in a knowledgeable position within the industry.

So how do you achieve a strong identity?

The easiest way is to make your topic relatable. Discuss things in your blog, video or social media posts that audiences understand. There is no better way to make content relatable than starting with something they already know about. For example, relate your topics to current events, a trend that they don’t need industry knowledge to recognise; this allows audiences to immediately relate to you and will make your brand appear approachable.

This regular content will be seen by those who are already following your brand, your website and social media. Clever use of hashtags, reciprocal links, SEO and adwords can boost these to potential new customers and followers.

What started with a joke of an 80’s pop song has since become a proven way of introducing brands and businesses to potential new customers.

If you’re looking for advice on how to grow your audience on social media or increase your brand awareness contact The Bridge Marketing office and the team will be happy to help.