Sexification of Post Titles & the Unexpected Attention Prioritisation Formula
Contents for Day 8:
- Review & Q&A of previous day
- Post reviews
- Be mindful of your hourly pay
- Attention Management - Baseline, Stretch & Grandslam
- Hello Steemconnect
- Hello Steemfollower.com
- Quick & Dirty Tricks to Spice Up Your Post Titles
- Manipulating with Emotional Words
- The Different Types of Titles
- Type 1: The How Tos
- Type 2: The List Type
- Type 3: The Question Type
- Hello Headline Analyzer & Advanced Marketing Institute
Assignments for Day 8:
- Create a post on the topic of interest
Key Learnings:
Totally unplanned, it all started because the kids were exploring work opportunities after the program, and I told them if they had the chance, they should always, always try to calculate their earnings per hour.
I gave them the following example of a fresh grad drawing a salary of RM1,800 (USD 450) per month. He works for 20 hours a day, for 10 hours a day. Now, some of you may say isn't 10 hours a bit on a exaggeration? Try factoring in travel time, and you'll realise that under you are not using your commuting time effectively, ie. driving, you better factor that in. Some may say they spend up to 5 hours a day in traffic!
Working through the math, we realised that the manager earns RM9/hour.
I asked to kids to look at some of their better posts on Steemit, and based on the class average of $5/post, they have roughly SBD1.87/post, which at today's ultra low rate ($3.78/SBD), turns out to be ~RM26! That's almost 3x more! And they spend an average of an hour on the post as well.
Factor in that as they spend more time on Steemit, their Steem Power and network of followers will grow, and multiply in the fact that SBD's rate will increase over time, it's possible for them to be earning more than a manager!
Note: Of course, factors like medical benefits and allowance have to come into mind, although some would then argue if you don't have a stressful work environment or a nasty boss, you'll generally have better health.
That's where I introduce them the concept I learned from my business coach, Dave Rogers. Dave taught me to always seperate my opportunties into three buckets - Baseline, Stretch and Grand Slam.
- Baseline Opportunities are anything that you can earn quick cash within a month of starting. It can be anything from washing a car for RM10, to designing a website, to taking a photograph. Ideally, if you pitch to a client today, you can get paid within a month. It doesn't always have to be big money, but it's the money that pays the bills and afford you some comfort. This is to prevent you from going into desperation mode.
- Stretch Opportunities are anything that you may not see any monetary results for 6 to 18 months. It could be a project which involves you developing apps, building a market place presence, or even an F&B joint.
- Grand Slam Opportunities are like the WhatsApp-To-Facebook stories, where a big cash out is in place, and probably your grandkids don't have to work a single day of their lives (depending on how they spend it of course)
Now, the right way to allocate your daily hours, or should I say your attention, is like below - 60% for Baseline, 30% for Stretch, and 10% for Grand Slams. Yes, most "hopeful" entrepreneurs would spend too much of their attention on the Grand Slams, mainly because it's a nice dream to have, but the nature of the opportunities themselves meant that they had to wait a very long time before cashing in. Most would be desperate by then.
I told the kids that if they choose to work on Steemit full-time, and using it as their Baseline, it means they have to devote at least 60% of their effort and time on it. Alternatively, they can also look for other baselines opportunities like a job or e-commerce, and have Steemit be their Stretch. As a matter of fact, in the latter case, they may even invest in promising cryptocurrencies and who knows, they can become their Grand Slams.
The message was simple: take stock of everything that they do in terms of earnings/hour's work, and allocate those opportunities in the right "baskets".
Now, some may say I am teaching the kids to be materialistic, to count their earnings hourly. On the contrary, actually. If they are fully aware of their baselines and earnings/hour, they can put the right attention on covering their monthly baselines, and with the extra time that they have, they can choose to work on causes that do not pay them, like volunteering at homes or saving the wildlife. If anything, it's training the kids to be realistic and efficient.
After that "lecture" which I hope the kids get, we went to the main module of the day, but I thought I would show them Steemfollower that can help them gain more followers and traction on Steemit.
Under Copywriting Magic, I gave them some quick and dirty tricks I use to spice up any copies, and they can use in their post titles. Sexy post titles tend to attract more attention and gets more click through, increasing their exposure and potential income.
- Manipulate with Emotions - Try to include emotions in the title of the post. For examples, "Are you afraid of the uncertainties?" or "Do you feel guilty of not doing enough?" I gave them access to my cheatsheet of 334 emotions too, to help them identify the right emotions that can be linked to their titles.
- You vs. We & I - I learned this from Zappos, and it applies to the writing itself, not just the title. Basically, when you put more words like "you" or "your" in your contents, the readers will be able to connect better with it.
- Clear First. Catchy Later. - Always strive to have titles with clear objectives. Never sexify a title beyond the reader's understanding, because confusion is a distraction, and hardly ever generates curiosity.
- Action Words - Using works like "discover", "learn", "achieve" etc will create a positive, action-driven impact in your titles.
- Benefit Sells - try to squeeze in the benefit of reading your post in the title. A few examples are, "How to find out if your spouse is cheating on you", or "3 ways to nail that dream job"
We then look at the different types of titles they can work with, but I told them we would only focus not the first three as they are easier, and encourage them to attempt the others as they become better writers.
Kickass Title Type #1 - The How To
- This is like the "dummies guide" titles, and promises a solution to a problem
- For example, "How to find out if your spouse is cheating on you" promises solutions to find out if your spouse is being unfaithful to you, and may include strategies like eye movement, body gestures and choice of words.
- Most readers are attracted to titles like this because they are by nature curious, and would love to explore solutions to problems they may or may not yet have.
Kickass Title Type #2 - The List Type
- This is like a checklist of tips, strategies and solutions for the reader to either solve a problem or enjoy certain benefits
- Taking the earlier example of "3 ways to nail that dream job", the reader would expect to learn at least 3 ways to, well, get their dream job
- There's an interesting psychological effect to putting the numbers in front of the titles, because it promises solutions. And we are tempted to click on such titles because, psychologically, we say to ourselves that even if ONE of those ways can work for us, it's worth a read.
Kickass Title Type #3 - The Question Type
- This is slightly tougher compared to the other two (which are very straight-forward-fill-in-the-blank).
- The trick is to string a question that stimulates either a Yes answer, or further curiosity. It could be a question that teases a solution.
I then introduced them to Coschedule's Headline Analyzer, so they can have fun scoring and improving their titles. I told them to find ways to maximise the scores, using the suggestion given by me and the website. Quite happy to see some of the kids scoring above 80% (which most of my adult participants would struggle to achieve!)
I also asked them to have a look at Advanced Marketing Institute's version of headline analyser, which has a feature to access the title's Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) score.
Image Source
Truthfully, copywriting is never an easy topic to teach, even to adults, because it's a combination of skills, experience and knowledge about any topic. I was quite glad that when I broke down the process for them, right down to filling in blanks, they were able to produce catchy post titles.
I am reminded of a compliment my good friend Dato' James Foo gave me a while back, one that I never really knew I had,
"When someone shares an idea, you are able to deconstruct and disassemble what is essential and unessential within the idea. That's your real super-power!"
It could be systematic thinking, or maybe my need to make a practical sense of everything. But I was pretty happy that I was able to use that to craft today's copywriting module for the kids.
Oddly, as I messaged James later, I told him as tired as I am during the Steemit Bootcamp, working with the underprivileged kids have allowed me refine my contents and delivery even further, something that my future clients are sure to be able to benefit from.
Check out the previous post(s) in this Steemit Bootcamp for Underprivileged Kids Series:
- Day Zero | The lead-up and Preparation
- Day One | Introduction to Steemit, the kids' first #Introduceyourself post, and no way a combined SBD133 of upvotes on the very first day!?!!?
- Day Two | Interests, Format & Structure
- Day Three | Grounding and be Grounded
- Day Four | Canvas, Chats, Contests & Courtship
- Day Five | The Stalker Techs of Steemit! And the legendary dreaded question.
- Day Six | Youtube Videos, Google Sites & Discording TeamMalaysia
- Day Seven | Withdrawals, exchanges, marketplaces, 2-Factor Authentications…… it's like a Bank!
Wait, why's Mav posting on Steemit nowadays?
Well, unlike other blogging and social media platform, Steemit is the only platform that allows me to earn cryptocurrency when I engage with it. Yup, one Steem is about USD7, and you, too, can earn Steem Dollars every time you:
- Create content (articles, blog posts, podcasts, videos, photos)
- Upvote (like) other people contents
- Comment on other people's posts
- Have discussions, share opinions etc!
Yup, basically it's the very same thing you're doing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc all along!
The only difference? For once you can earn a nice income on the side!
Sign up for a free Steemit account, and you can thank me by coming back and upvoting this article. And guess what, you will earn Steem too for doing that! #awesome
