BuzzFeed, ViralNova, Upworthy, you know the type. “You’ll never guess what she said!” junk posts. We all hate it. And most of us click on it anyway. Damn them for their irresistible titles and usually-unrelated photos. It’s a winning combination. Even Business Insider gets in on the action.
ViralNova is a one-man operation. All of these sites survive on social sharing, primarily on Facebook. But lately the evidence is starting to show that they’re investing long-term plans too. A few of them have proven hugely successful business models. Will it last? I doubt it. But it’s fun in the meantime.
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Here’s the plan: join the social clickbait party with a twist: instead of sharing the next “you won’t believe what happens” junk, we should share “here’s what happened” explainers posts. I’m calling it Unclickbait.
It will repost everything we can get our hands on, describe it in the title and/or body, and share right alongside the first junk. The mystery will be deflated, and maybe that will hurt clickthrough, but I’m betting that lots of people will appreciate the service.
$100,000 in a week it may not be, but for little to no startup cost, why not try? Let’s see if I can make this happen.
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