Page 56 - The Content Code: Six essential strategies to ignite your content, your marketing, and your business - PDFDrive.com

recommend that you consistently manufacture controversial content as a
legitimate ignition strategy. Controversial content can fascinate people the same
way that a good feud on reality television drives up ratings. But I don’t think this
is a sustainable strategy.

First, let me distinguish content that is conversational or thought-provoking
from content that is controversial. A definition of controversial is “a state of
prolonged, contentious public dispute or debate.” The keywords here for me are
“prolonged,” “contentious, and “public.”

Sometimes controversy is unavoidable. But is this a tactic you should
mindfully pursue as a long-term content strategy? Can you think of any
respected, successful company that pursues a prolonged dispute as a marketing
strategy? Of course not. Companies are built to avoid controversy. Most brands
are not built on a negative emotion. Study after study shows that positive,
uplifting content gets more views and clicks over time.

Another argument against controversy as a social transmission strategy is that
it may attract the wrong audience. Controversial blog posts are like a schoolyard
fight. The fascination value may drive a short-term spike in traffic, but will it
make somebody want to befriend you? Become a customer? Or, will they just
stay on the sidelines and walk away when the fight is over?

Controversy can be used most effectively when it is associated with a
positive cause. The CVS pharmacy chain raised a ruckus when it banned
cigarette sales from its stores as part of its focus on wellness. Clothing retailer
Patagonia defied conventional business logic by recommending that its
customers purchase less clothing, buy better quality items, and reuse, repair,
resell, and recycle to be environmentally friendly.

6. Remember that the most important part of your content is not your
content.
Do you want to increase the shareability of your content by 400 percent in one
easy step? Lean in close now as I share this secret: Stop writing sucky headlines.

In today’s world, you must craft a descriptive, emotive, accurate, catchy, and
“tweetable” headline. This is so fundamental yet it remains a challenge for many
content creators. The headline is more important than the video or body of the
text. Why? Because we live in a world of scanners, and if you can’t grab
somebody by the throat in a nanosecond, you’ve lost them. They will never see
the rest of the post.

So here’s the official Content Code Ever-So-Useful List of Best Blog Post
Headline Practices: