How to write Viral Headlines
Why did you click through to this article? Why will some people share this article without even reading it?
The most important element of this post may not be the 4 weeks I spent researching the data or the days I spent writing up the analysis or deciding on the tables and graphics. The most important element is probably the headline. The headline will determine the number of people that click through to read the post and the number of people that share the post, many without reading it.
This is not news, we all know about the importance of headlines. However, is there a formula to viral headlines? Are there words or phrases in headlines that particularly cause articles to be shared? For the past month I have been researching the headlines of the most shared posts in our BuzzSumo database. In this post I set out my findings, including:
The common elements of viral headlines
The top headline trigrams (three word phrases) shared on Facebook and Twitter
The most powerful words used in headlines and how these vary across networks
Eight ways to create your own viral headline
Note: We have subsequently carried out further research, in 2017 we reviewed 100 million articles and identified the headline formats and phrases that drive the most engagement on Facebook .
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Common elements of viral headlines
The first aspect I reviewed was the common structural elements of headlines. In a previous review of the most viral posts of 2015 , I identified a number of common elements to viral posts. These are outlined in the table below.
Note: we have updated this trigram research and identified the top phrases in a review of 100 million headlines .
This analysis would suggest that different phrases resonate differently on the different social networks. Thus if you are crafting content for a social post or an ad, you should draft a different headline for each network based on what resonates on that network.