You know why something is priced $19.99 instead of $20 because research shows that the brain really thinks you are getting a deal because the .99 is at the end. More people are willing to buy the same product if it has a .99 at the end than .00.
People can be easily manipulate, with essentially elementary style manipulations.
One of the dumbest things someone will send me on social media is this.
“You just did that to get clicks to your site”
I often wonder where these people work at. The goal of any business is to have people partaking in your product. No one says, you just put those displays out in the grocery story to make me buy a 24 pack of water, that I probably don’t need.
You only hear that in media, where the job is to get people to read, watch and listen to as much as possible.
Now how you go about that is of great debate, but the reality is it doesn’t matter because no one can force you the consumer or in this case the user of the internet, watcher of TV or listener of radio to do anything you don’t want to do.
I speak about hypocrisy a lot in media, but there is a lot of hypocrisy in the individuals that are consuming the media.
You know the Jay Z line, men lie, women lie, but numbers work. Sports Media is a perfect example of that. It is in style for the user to say they “hate” something or label a site as “clickbait”, but it isn’t a coincidence that those same media entities are the most popular.
Everyone “hates” 1st take but it is the top rated show on ESPN2. Everyone loved Grantland and it is nowhere to be found.
Remember when everyone said Bleacher Report was just slideshows? Now, they are the 2nd biggest online entity in the world. Buzzfeed they said only did lists, but they are a top 50 website in the United States.
If these sites, individuals and shows are so hated, why are they so successful? The reason is simple, people lie about what they secretly enjoy. Furthermore, even if they don’t enjoy it, the hate fuels their curiosity or as someone much smarter than me once told me….
“It is hard to bitch and complain, if you don’t know much about what you are bitching and complaining about.”
The point being is some people love to complain, but they have to watch, read or listen to have stuff to complain about.
Social media is good for that, I see it happening in real time. What a lot of people don’t understand when it comes to online media, while it may look easy, we are analyzing and crunching numbers and trends all day.
There is a direct correlation between people complaining (and I am being nice, because some people are downright evil with their communication) and numbers going up.
If no one is talking good or bad, the numbers are going down.
You hate Skip Bayless, you hate MTO, you hate TMZ, you hate EMPIRE, you hate Real Housewives, you hate BET and etc, but you are talking about them consistently which driving revenue right into their pockets.
You think Harvey from TMZ cares about your personal feelings about TMZ or if you on their page as soon as something goes down?
TV shows get canceled because not enough people watching, it is simple concept.
I liked the NBC show The Player with Wesley Snipes, but it got canceled, no one was watching. Doesn’t matter if I liked or hated the show, the numbers didn’t lie. If you truly hate what you call clickbait or all the hot takes that are being thrown your way you simply wouldn’t click or watch and those shows and reporters would go away.
Just because the bait is on the hook, doesn’t mean you have to be the dumbest fish in the ocean. Don’t blame the media for you being fish dinner for their bottom line every day. Don’t say you are being misled just because you decided to believe what you wanted to believe the story was about.
There is a reason it is called a HEADLINE.
There are a lot of different ways to write a headline, when you are a little guy like myself fighting against a bunch of big guys, I can’t afford to do standard AP style. I’d be out of business in two weeks, so I will totally clickbait you at every single turn.
These stories are so crazy these days, you don’t have to lie or sensationalize, because all the info you need to entice people with that $19.99 is right there.
It isn’t my fault or media’s fault if you take the bait and media who themselves are complaining about it are just salty no one is checking out their stuff. If their stuff was more interesting they wouldn’t be complaining about another site clickbaiting their way to success.
Don’t downgrade anyone for understanding simply supply and demand. Never blame the supplier, blame the user, because they are the ones who in the end make the decision and no one else.
Now, the question begs, did I write this to truly inform you or did I clickbait you, by saying it was a clickbait post?
Guess you will never know.