41X More Upvotes by Changing the Headline
Same subreddit, different headlines. One has 82 upvotes, the other 2.
A few days ago I made these posts.
As you can see, they're virtually identical. Aside from timing etc., most variables are constrained. With the headline being the independent variable and upvotes the dependent variable.
I think it's a good reminder of how important a good headline is.
If the headline isn't appealing, people won't read your post. And it doesn't matter how incredible your post is if it never gets seen.
I also experimented with different subreddits to test the hypothesis that this piece (which is about writing non-fiction) would work in entrepreneur subs.
200+ upvotes by posting it in a different place
That created another 2.4X improvement over the first headline experiment.
Here are some takeaways
1. How you present it and to whom matters just as much (read more) as the content does.
(Why? Because it's easier to fix bad content if you've identified a good audience vs. fixing a bad audience for what you believe to be great content.)
2. Headlines are extremely important
Don't take it from me, listen to Ogilvy.
3. Where you post is as important as what you're posting.
Don't promote your hamburgers at a vegan conference.
NOTES
Here are the relevant links to the post:
Indie Hackers $7,144.56 in royalties in two weeks from books.
Reddit r/writers
Reddit r/EntrepreneurRideAlong
Reddit failure r/writers
If you liked this, you can follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hey_wub.
Cheers!
I have noticed that the early-stage entrepreneurial crowd generally reacts better to someone else's success stories/headlines than to practical advice. But upvotes here don't mean they're going to become your faithful users. It could be that it was upvoted by casual lurkers while your true audience actually clicked the link on the 2nd ("losing") post.
There was a report that on Facebook, posts with videos get more engagement but fewer conversions.
Twitter also discovered that some people tend to share links without even looking at the linked articles, based on the headline alone.
Of course, headlines matter a lot, and it's essential that we A/B test it, at least where it doesn't take much effort (testing a headline on your own website can be more complicated), I totally agree with your main point. We just need to make sure we're testing it right, using the metric that we really need (conversions rather than upvotes) when we choose the winner headline.
Yeah, you're totally right. However, I do believe we need to be careful with the "it depends" in marketing. If physics had that mindset, we'd still be stuck in the Middle Ages.
So while I do believe it's not all black and white, it's better as a marketer to present our thinking as if it is. Then you can reject or fail to reject your hypotheses and improve upon them.
This is a mistake I see many beginners make (not you). Everything is "it depends" to them. While somewhat true, it also demonstrates that they fundamentally do not understand the field of marketing.
In this instance, it is very possible that the 207 upvotes crowd converts less well than the 2 upvotes crowd, it's merely a proxy after all. However, the difference between 207 and 2 upvotes is so extremely significant that that shouldn't be your first inclination.
the second is click bait
Respectfully, I think this is an oversimplification. Clickbait is defined as a title that is written in such a way that people will click it while it has content that completely fails to deliver on the promise the title makes.
If one were to use your definition, every headline that works would be clickbait.
The reason the second headline worked is because it's much more inviting. People (for better or for worse) just tend to gravitate towards "I accomplished [BIG THING] here's how".
Had the post been crap, there's absolutely no way this would've worked.
A lot of #buildinpublic posts are structured like that. We can have a discussion whether that should or ought not be the case, but the reality is that it just is.