These Strategies For Generating Clicks Are Insane
People are not convinced by facts or logical arguments. They want stories they can tell themselves. Stories about change, and about the future.
People don’t believe what you tell them, rarely believe what you show them, often believe what their friends tell them, and always believe what they tell themselves.
— Seth Godin
What are we telling ourselves about the changing weather?
- Stories about destruction
- Ones that make ordinary people feel guilty
- That the smartest guys in the room will just make it go away
- That it’s propaganda
They’re either negative things that nobody wants to think about, or they’re just wishful thinking. Putting ordinary people on a guilt trip doesn’t really motivate them to take action, it just sucks the air out of the room.
People tune out when they feel they are failing because “the system” is to blame.
When the system leads them to believe they are succeeding, they pay attention and generate clicks.
Getting people to click on your content is step 1, but how do you get them to engage with it once they’re in?
If Facebook + 2020 taught us anything, it’s that triggering an emotional reaction works. The internet got pretty sloppy for a while when it was aggressively targeting outrage and fear. Facebook wasn’t standing for anything beyond the ‘clicks at all costs’ mindset, and it did some real damage, both to its brand and to the rest of us.
But that’s the power of triggering emotions. If you want people to engage with you and really listen to what you have to say, then this is how you can stand out and get their attention.
Emotions stay with people longer than concepts.
Rage-bait is tired and vague. Seems like a better strategy of building an audience is by appealing to emotions that invite discussion, rather than just noise.
People will always tell you they want honesty and the truth, but really what they want is a break from the mundane.
They don’t want the truth, they want their imaginations stimulated.
Carl Jung was constantly trying to get people to change their minds. Patients came to him with their issues, and he tried to get them to view things from a different perspective.
He talked about how when you’re trying to get someone to change their mind, the slow establishment of confidence and trust is much more likely to work, opposed to giving a clinical demonstration of theory.
People are not convinced by facts and logic, because it’s hard. Some facts are easy to analyze, like facts about skin care products. But when it comes to analyzing emotionally charged issues like gun control, people start having a hard time, and find ways to hear what they want to hear.
Having conversations about things like gun control is difficult when you can’t really rely on the facts to convince people of your point, so the best chance you have of actually convincing someone to change their mind is to ignore the facts and appeal to their emotions.
“We humans live on the surface, reacting emotionally to what people say and do. We form opinions of others and ourselves that are rather simplified. We settle for the easiest and most convenient story to tell ourselves”
— Robert Greene