19 Apr A Good Headline is Worth its Weight in Gold

Social media marketing means writing good copy…..even moreso than videos or cute graphics. In Facebook or other social media platforms people act primarily on the words they read, before they will watch a video or download a file.
Copywriting can be broken down into several layers. Each layer serves its own purpose while interacting with the layers before and after it. I once heard someone compare good copy to a pita sandwich, where all the layers folded back into themselves. I’m not sure how good of an analogy that was, but it’s always stuck in my mind.
For your Los Angeles business, standing out from your competitors is important. We live in a refined and cutting-edge city where the latest marketing techniques come to the forefront sooner than, for example, in Billings, Montana.
Here I’m going to talk about the first layer of good copy, the headline. Is that the pita bread or the lettuce?  A good headline grabs attention. The concept isn’t just for ads or the top of landing pages. Social media marketing benefits from strong headlines.  For example, if you’re doing Facebook Marketing,  even a Facebook post needs a good headline so your follower will catch it in his or her newsfeed.
Several tips for writing a good headline:
1. Be Direct
2. Provoke
3. Excite
4. Tell The Reader To Act
5. Tell Them What They Are Getting
The instinct most of us have when writing a headline is to be clever. However, writing a plain and direct headline works better by not forcing the reader to think about it. Facebook marketing strategies are all about getting a readers eyes to stop on your post and to act by clicking on it. A good way to get that click is to effectively provoke your reader with a question. Here is a provocative headline question using one of the oldest adages in marketing – “nothing sells better than sex and death:
Do You Want To Die While Having Sex? Who wouldn’t click on that?
The above question hit on tips #1-4 but falls short on tip #5. It excites the reader and gets the reader to act but  it doesn’t tell the reader what they are getting. The reader would have to click through to find out. Ok, I admit that I have no idea what the reader would be getting on this particular post. And if you can actually find something to sell around it – congratulations, you’re a millionaire.
For more good tips, Dreamgrow.com has a great article worth reading.