Be Wary of Using Clickbaiting Headlines in Facebook
April 11, 2017 /
There was an important change to Facebook late in 2016 that you may have missed – Facebook wants to clear users’ feeds of click bait and unscrupulous headlines.
Click bait headlines intentionally omit crucial information. This forces people to click through to find out the answer, but they then quickly return to the News Feed.
By analysing tens of thousands of posts, Facebook confirmed that the two most common click bait styles involve withholding information, examples such as “You’ll Never Believe What Happened Next!” and “You’ll never look at a Barbie doll the same after seeing these paintings.” and misleading or manipulating users into clicking.
With that in mind, Facebook’s algorithm can identify pages and websites posting too much click bait and lower the reach. Their goal is not only to make the News Feed more trustworthy for users, Facebook wants these changes to have an impact on the content managers pushing out information.
Pages aren’t blacklisted forever, so posts can regain a larger audience if they stop publishing click bait headlines.
Facebook has created an article to help businesses with suggestions about what else they can use to avoid click-baiting techniques.