An interesting thing happened the other day that grabbed my attention.  Three different clients emailed me with a link to a recent article.  All three wrote some version of “Check out this case study. Can you make this happen for my Facebook page too?”

The title of the article was enough to hook anyone: Facebook Case Study: From 517 to 33,000 fans in two weeks (plus media coverage).

After reading the impressive case study and looking at countless other Facebook page success stories, I instantly noticed a common thread throughout these pages.

The Formula for Facebook Page Success

There’s a true winning formula to creating a successful, thriving and engaging Facebook page.

And here’s the good news: If you apply this formula, you grow your fan base, increase conversations with your fans and capture the interest of people who want to spend money on your products and services. Who wouldn’t want that?

The strategy behind a Facebook page does not need to be complicated—but it does need to be carefully thought out in advance. When it comes to growing Facebook pages, that’s where business owners and marketers get stuck—they overcomplicate things.  Let’s dissect the formula to see how it works.

#1: Create a Compelling Vision

The Facebook page of the case study I mentioned above belongs to the California State Parks Foundation.  It’s an outstanding example of a compelling vision.

In an attempt to save 210 state parks from closing, the foundation hired Adams Hussey & Associates to help create the “Friend Get a Friend” campaign.  The campaign was created to promote awareness and discussion around the looming closures and to also encourage people to take action to save their local state parks.

This Facebook page for the California State Parks Foundation achieved amazing media expose.

After reading the case study, one of my clients, who owns a successful medical spa, pointed out (in frustration, I might add), “Yeah, but their mission is noble.  It appeals to environmentalists and loyal supporters. They have a huge advantage.”

This is WRONG thinking at its best.  When you believe in what you’re doing, you can easily cultivate the passion and excitement for your mission.  The popular retail store Target and the popular sundae spot Dairy Queen have extremely successful pages with loyal followers.

The Dairy Queen page has more than a million fans

And here’s what’s important to realize:  Their mission is not necessarily going to change the world—but the people behind the brand are passionate and committed to creating an experience and making their customers happy—and that kind of passion is contagious. (Take note—you can create the same kind of excitement with your brand too!)

Brenna Holmes of Adams Hussey & Associates manages the California State Parks Foundation’s social media campaign. She works with both for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

Holmes sees real opportunity to spread the vision and message in both spheres of businesses.  “As long as people are driven and passionate about their issue,” said Holmes, “and commit to sticking it out with daily work and a real strategy, I believe pretty much any campaign can be successful.”

When you’re starting out with your page, your vision is only as strong as the individual or team behind it.  It’s up to you to spread the word.  The good news is that once you have a solid fan base, your fans will help spread your message and virally attract new followers. It’s up to you to “sell” your vision to get others to pay attention. One great way to accomplish this is to spend time online where it counts and make sure you’re connecting with the people who are most interested in your brand.  I call this “positioning your vision.”

A word about positioning your vision

If you spend any time in the online marketing arena, you’ve heard plenty about knowing your ideal client.  This is crucial when building a Facebook campaign.  Don’t waste your time in spaces where your message could fall flat.

Segmentation and niche marketing is ideal for your page’s success and you want to be laser-focused on whom you target.  Cast a wide net and you’re likely to come up short in the end.

(One great way to attract your ideal client is with Facebook ads.  For more info on what these ads could do for your business, check out Mari Smith’s recent Facebook article here.

#2: Smart Branding

Some of the most successful pages look like mini-websites inside of Facebook.  Branding is key to making your page serve as a mini-hub for all your customers and prospects who are likely spending a lot of their time on the social networking site already.

Meeting your customers where they are in the moment is crucial when searching for a captive audience in the social media space.

Smart branding allows you to create a bridge from Facebook to your websites—but the key is not to push your potential clients outside of Facebook before they are ready.

The more clicks you require your prospect to make, the less likely you’ll get them to where you want them to go.  Therefore, by using the Static FBML Facebook app, you can create many of the same features you have on your website.

Using this app, you can create a portal to sell your products and services, sign people up for your newsletter, and highlight your expertise directly from your Facebook page.

To better understand this, let’s look at a great example of a company that has mastered the concept of the “mini-hub” inside Facebook.  Chick-fil-A, a popular fast-food chain in the U.S., has a thriving page with over 1.5 million fans.

Not only do they offer coupons regularly, they also display their menu and their “coming soon” specials inside their page.  Here are a few screen shots of their well-branded mini-hub:

This screenshot shows the tab that new viewers see when they first visit the page. Chick-fil-A does a great job of enticing new customers by displaying attractive photos of the items on their menu.

In this screenshot, Chick-fil-A puts their menu directly on their page. By doing this, all of their fans currently on Facebook do not need to go any further to check out the menu options. Chick-fil-A makes it easy by putting everything their customers’ need right on the page.

Another great example of a well-branded page is the National Hockey League page.  With almost a half a million fans, this page is thriving. One post can generate over 1,000 comments.  Check out the welcome tab—it’s branding at its best.  Potential fans landing on this tab are sure to click the “like” button to be a part of this community.

In this image, check out how NHL displays the many different opportunities for their fans. This welcome tab does a great job of grabbing attention and creating excitement for the sport.

#3: Strategic Inbound Marketing

Business owners often overlook this piece of the formula.  It’s a no-brainer that we need to use marketing tactics to drive traffic to our websites, but when it comes to Facebook pages, many overlook the importance of using similar strategies to help grow their page. The “build it and they will come” concept is definitely not meant for Facebook pages!

Inbound marketing strategies, including the use of keywords, opt-in opportunities, video, blogging, and cross-promoting on your other social networks are all key factors to “getting found” by the people most interested in your products and services.

One great example of a Facebook page that also utilizes inbound marketing strategies is the Social Media Examiner page.

I was fortunate to work with the founder, Mike Stelzner, to create the page a few months ago.  And since then I’ve been blown away by the momentum of the page (it already has over 8,000 fans).

I recently asked Mike the secret to his page’s success. “We started with a plan from day one,” he said. “Part of that plan was to create a button on our site’s sidebar that simply said, ‘Join us on Facebook.’

“Another thing we did was to make sure our daily email blasts to our readers encouraged them to join our fan page; thus every day more than 26,000 readers are reminded about our fan page.

“Our fan base grew very quickly and has garnered about 100 new fans each day.”

The most important thing to remember is that inbound marketing is powered by content.

Just as you would on your website and blog, you must continually publish great content on your Facebook page.  How do you do this?  One way is to pull your blog posts onto your page via the “Networked Blog” app on Facebook.  Another way is to post a link directly to your wall and add some commentary about your recent blog posts to encourage your fans to comment.

Every day when we post a new article on the Social Media Examiner website, we also post it on our Facebook page.  When we do so, we often encourage comments directly to our page by asking a question when we post.

Here’s an example:

In this example, notice how we encourage comments on our wall by asking a question (about fans!) when we post a link to a new article.

#4: Real-Time Engagement

The last piece of the formula is engagement.  In a nutshell, engagement is about taking action. A well-executed engagement strategy takes time and effort.  More than anything, engagement is really about showing up daily and taking a genuine interest in the likes, interests and opinions of your fans.

The rule for engagement is to make it about your fans and not about you. (Remember that people love to talk about themselves—so craft your posts and questions around them, and you’re sure to see some great conversations begin to surface on your page.)

One Facebook page that does an outstanding job of connecting with fans is Teavana.  With over 32,000 fans, the page attracts tea-lovers worldwide.  Their secret to engagement is making their posts about their fans.  Here’s one great example of a post that received 68 comments:

This image shows how simple it can be to get your fans talking. What fun and interesting questions can you ask your fans that will get them to post their thoughts and opinions?

Also, a great engagement tool Teavana uses is their monthly “What’s in your cup?” game where they ask their fans to post photos of what’s in their cup at that moment—this type of game encourages photo sharing which can virally increase visibility of their page.

Another example of a page that has mastered the art of engagement is the NHL page.  As mentioned before, they not only have impeccably branded their page, but they’ve also mastered the art of engagement.

The page uses video in most of their posts.  Why?  Because they know their fans will respond well to short video clips and their content is sports clips, so what better way to get their fans engaged than to show them clips of the game they love most?  (This is also a great example of knowing your fans’ wants and interests!)

The NHL page actually takes it a step further and uses their video to create polls and surveys.  One example is a short clip of a recent game where there was much debate over the call of a goal.  The caption for the video read “Goal or no goal? Watch the NHL Situation Room, make the call.”

This one post, because it added a touch of controversy, generated more than 1,000 comments.  When you see successes like this, think about your audience.  How can you use video to encourage interaction and idea-sharing?

NHL excited fanatic opinions when they asked their fans if a goal in a recent game was a fair call. Take a look at how many comments it generated!

The NHL Page also used a really cool tool called TweetMixx.  This tool allows you to tailor the content categories, tags, users and groups to your specific audience and will deliver the top-rated content as chosen by you and people who share interest in your niche.

This is a great engagement tool because it allows your audience to get instant access to the content they’re most interested in, plus it adds a real-time component.

The interactive TweetMixx application keeps the conversation going strong on the NHL page.

This formula is meant as a guide to help you with your overall social media strategy.

Closing thoughts: There’s a lot of noise on the web about the dos and don’ts of social media marketing and it tends to be overwhelming.  This formula is meant to simplify your process.  If you add a bunch of extra components to the formula, you’re less likely to see the results you want (or worse yet, you’re likely to get overwhelmed and not take action!). In short, ignore the chatter and stick to the plan.

Now it’s your turn!  Do you have a Facebook page success story? Share it below and let us know what components of the formula work best for you. Do you find any of the components of the formula challenging? Share here and you’re sure to find advice from the other members of our community.

People must be lured to your fan page. And there are some good and bad ways to go about doing this. In this article, I’ll share a big myth and 21 ways to drive more fans to your Facebook fan page. (Though Facebook recently changed the “Become A Fan” button to the new, omnipresent “Like” button – and a fan page is called a “Business Page” or “Facebook Page” – we can still call them fan pages and people who join are fans!)

The Big Myth

There’s a great myth that once you create a Facebook fan page for your business, the first thing you should do to get fans is invite ALL your friends from your personal profile using the “Suggest to Friends” feature.

Unfortunately, this strategy may not be that effective and can, in fact, often backfire. I have seen many industry gurus complain that when they decline a fan page request, it’s frustrating to continue to be asked again and again.

There are several reasons not to use the Suggest to Friends feature:

• Facebook users can only like up to 500 pages and may wish to be selective. (Though I have seen it’s possible to go over this limit).
• Fan page suggestions may often build up, unnoticed. (At last count, I have 593 overlooked fan page suggestions and am already a fan of 500!)
• To aggressively pursue all your friends to join your fan page – for no apparent incentive – is counterintuitive to the nature of social media.

So, the good news is there are many ways to promote your fan page and proactively increase your fan base without bugging all your current Facebook friends, and also by thinking wider than just Facebook.

Here are 21 ways to get more fans for your Facebook fan page:

#1: Embed Widgets on Your Website

Select from a number of the new Facebook Social Plugins and place them on your website and blog. The Fan Box widget is now the Like Box and it works well to display your current fan page stream and a selection of fans - see screenshot below with Whole Foods Market Facebook Like Box. I would recommend adding a title above the box encouraging visitors to your site/blog to click the “Like” button (which makes them a Facebook fan).

Whole Foods Market Facebook Like Box.

You might also consider the Live Stream widget for more advanced uses, particularly on an FBML custom tab of your fan page itself. The Live Stream widget allows Facebook users to add their comments to a live event, for example, and that activity pushes out into their stream.

#2: Invite Your Email and Ezine Subscribers

Assuming you have an opt-in email list, definitely send out an invitation to your subscribers via email (several times, over time) letting them know about your fan page and encouraging them to join. Ideally, provide them with a description of the page and an incentive to join.

Be sure to have the Facebook logo/badge appear in your HTML newsletters. Instead of the usual “Join our Fan Page,” say something creative like “Write on our Facebook wall,” or “Join our Facebook community,” or “Come add your photo to our Facebook group” (where “group” is actually your fan page). Users have to be a fan in order to interact with your fan page in this way.

#3: Add to Your Email Signature Block

Instead of promoting your Facebook personal profile (if you do), include a link to your fan page in every email you send out. If you use web-based email, check out the Wisestamp signature addon.

#4: Make a Compelling Welcome Video

Create an attractive landing tab (canvas page) with a video that explains exactly a) what your fan page is about, b) who it’s for and c) why they should become members.  The result: you’ll increase your conversion rate from visitors to fans. One of my favorite fan page welcome videos is by Steve Spangler, the Science Guy! After watching his video, you can’t help but want to join!

(By the way, with the new Facebook changes, if your custom welcome tab and video talk about clicking the “Become A Fan” button, you may want to change the wording to “click the Like button” now).

#5: Use Facebook Apps

I recently tested a new live video-streaming app called Vpype. The app adds a tab to your fan page called “Shows” and when you broadcast as your fan page, everyone can view by default. (You can also broadcast as your personal profile and selectively invite friends/friend lists). I wrote up a review of this app here. By announcing via Twitter, your personal Facebook profile, your blog and your email list, you can broadcast regular live Internet TV shows from your fan page and create much buzz.

Another example of app integration is Target’s “Bullseye Gives” campaign. Target had their fans vote on which of ten charities they most wanted to see the company donate to. By voting, a post goes out onto your Facebook wall and into the News Feeds of all your friends, thus providing Target with valuable exposure. (For custom apps, see companies like Buddy Media, FanAppz, Wildfire Apps, Involver, Virtue, Context Optional.) [UPDATE: Thank you to Context Optional, the creators of Target’s “Bullseye Gives” campaign!]

#6: Integrate the Facebook Comment Feature

My favorite example of this is the t-shirt company Threadless. On their landing tab (canvas page), you can view and purchase t-shirts as well as Like and comment on any item and choose to have that comment posted to your Facebook profile, as shown in this screenshot:

(Screenshot of Threadless Facebook Fan Page landing tab)

Threadless actually has their landing tab set up so visitors don’t have to become a fan to purchase/comment/interact. Yet they have organically built well over 100,000 fans.

As users comment on items, that activity is pushed out into their stream (profile wall and their friends’ News Feeds), which creates valuable viral visibility for your fan page.

(Important Update: Facebook no longer supports FBML. Please refer to the articles on Facebook iFrame.) For further information on adding the comment box to your FBML page/app, see these pages.

#7: Get Fans to Tag Photos

If you host live events, be sure to take plenty of photos (or even hire a professional photographer), load the photos to your fan page and encourage fans to tag themselves. This, again, pushes out into their wall and friends’ News Feeds, providing valuable (free!) exposure. And, a picture says a thousand words – we notice the thumbnails in our feed more than text. (Props to Nick O’Neil for this tip.)

#8: Load Videos and Embed on Your Site

Facebook’s Video feature is extremely powerful. You can load video content to your Facebook fan page, then take the source code and embed on your blog/website. There is a “Become a Fan” button right in the video itself. For an excellent tutorial, see Nick O’Neil’s post: How To Get Thousands of Facebook Fans With a Single Video.

[UPDATE: Since Facebook changed the Become a Fan button to the Like button, embedded Facebook videos now display a white watermark hotlink of the Facebook name in the upper left corner of the video player - see first screenshot below. This is a clickable link that goes to the original video page on your fan page. If the visitor to your site clicks through to Facebook from your video, and they are logged into Facebook at the time, they will see a Like button at the top left corner of the video player - see second screenshot below.]

(Screenshot shows example of an embedded Facebook video on an external site)

(Screenshot shows the same video on the original page of the fan page with the Like button)

#9: Place Facebook Ads

Even with a nominal weekly/monthly budget, you should be able to boost your fan count using Facebook’s own social ad feature. It’s the most targeted traffic your money can buy. To buy an ad, scroll to the foot of any page inside Facebook and click the link at the very bottom that says “Advertising.” From there, you can walk through the wizard and get an excellent sense of how many Facebook users are in your exact target market.

Then, when you advertise your fan page, Facebook users can become a fan (click the Like button) right from the ad as shown in the screenshot below. Additionally, Facebook displays several of your friends who have already liked you, thus creating social proof.

My book with Chris Treadaway, Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day (Sybex) contains comprehensive instructions on maximizing your marketing through Facebook social ads.

#10: Run a Contest

This is somewhat of a gray area because Facebook changed their Promotional Guidelines last year. Essentially, you need prior written permission from Facebook and need to be spending a significant amount on ads per month. However, you CAN require Facebook users to become a fan of your fan page in order to enter a contest, sweepstakes, drawing or competition. See these two posts for further explanation. PLUS, good news: you CAN run contests and sweepstakes with the use of the apps created by Wildfire App.

#11: Link to Twitter

Link your Twitter account to your Facebook fan page and automatically post your Facebook content to Twitter. You can edit what gets posted, choosing from Status Updates, Photos, Links, Notes and Events.

You have 420 characters on the Facebook publisher and 140 on Twitter. In the tweet that goes out, Facebook truncates your post past a certain character count and inserts a bit.ly link back to your fan page. To track click-through stats on that link, just paste the bit.ly link that Facebook created for you in your browser’s address bar and add a “+” sign to the end. This works for any bit.ly link!

I also recommend you promote your Facebook fan page on your Twitter background and possibly in your Twitter bio/URL field too.

#12: Get Fans to Join Via SMS

Your fans can join your fan page via text message! You’ll need to get your first 25 fans and secure your username. Then, to join your fan page, Facebook users just send a text message to 32665 (FBOOK) with the words “fan yourusername” OR “like yourusername” (without the quotes).

This feature is ideal when you’re addressing a live audience, say. Have everyone pull out their mobile phones and join your fan page on the spot! This would also work well for radio or TV. (Note that this only works for Facebook users with a verified mobile device in his or her account.)

#13: Use Print Media

Look at every piece of print media you use in your business. Your Facebook fan page (as well as Twitter and any other social sites you’re active on), should be clearly displayed. Put your Facebook fan page link (and the logo) on your business cards, letterhead, brochure, print newsletter, magazine ads, products, etc.

#14: Display at Your Store/Business

If your business is run from physical premises, put a placard on the front desk letting your customers know you’re on Facebook. Ideally, you have a simple, memorable username. Incentivize customers to join right away via their mobile device and show you/your staff the confirmation for some kind of instant reward!

You might give out physical coupons promoting your fan page. For restaurants, put the Facebook logo, your username and a call to action on your menus.

I was at a hotel in San Francisco last fall and they had a placard in the elevators promoting their presence on Facebook and Twitter. The sign was very noticeable because of those ubiquitous Facebook and Twitter logos/colors!

#15. Add a Link on Your Personal Profile

If you’d like to promote your fan page to your Facebook friends, just under your photo on your personal profile there is a section to write something about yourself. I call this the “mini bio” field and strongly suggest adding a link to your fan page like so:

Be sure to format the URL with http:// otherwise it will not be clickable with just the www’s. You have a limited amount of characters, so keep it succinct and leave out the www’s. You can put in hard line breaks though to make the content easier to read.

#16: Add a Badge/Button to Your Profile

Using an app like Profile HTML or Extended Info, you can create your own custom HTML, including a Facebook badge and/or graphic embedded, as shown in the screenshot below:

#17: Use the Share Button

The Share button is all over Facebook and is a very handy feature. It only works for sharing on your personal profile. So periodically go to your fan page, scroll toward the bottom left column and click the “Share+” button. Add a compelling comment along the lines of exciting news, recent changes, special incentives, etc., happening on your fan page and invite your friends to join if they haven’t already. I find the Share button far more effective than the Suggest to Friends approach. (And, if you’d like to Share content from the web on to your fan page vs. profile, I highly recommend using the Hootlet bookmarklet tool at HootSuite.com).

#18: Use the @ Tag

As long as you’re a fan of your own fan page, you can “@ tag” it on your own personal profile wall. From time to time, you can let your friends know about something happening on your fan page by writing a personal status update that includes tagging your fan page with an @ tag. Simply start typing the “@” symbol and the first few letters of your fan page name (this works whether you have your username registered or not), and it will appear from a drop-down menu to select. This then makes it a nice, subtle hyperlink that your friends can choose to click on.

#19: Autograph Posts on Other Walls

A subtle way to gain more visibility for your fan page is to add an @ tag for your fan page when writing on your friends’ walls as a way to sign off.

I would use this one sparingly and, again, monitor the response from your friends. I have never been a fan of adding a signature block on Facebook wall posts because our name and profile picture thumbnail are always hyperlinked right back to our profile anyway. But the simple @ tag could be effective.

#20: Autograph Other Fan Pages

As with adding your fan page @ tag to posts you make on your friends’ walls, you could equally use the same technique when posting on other fan pages. This needs to be used with discretion and I would advise against doing this on any potentially competing fan page!

#21: Maybe Use “Suggest To Friends”

I won’t rule this one out completely as it does depend on how many friends you have, your relationship with your friends, how often you suggest fan pages/friends to your friends, etc (see ‘The Big Myth’ above). But I do recommend monitoring the response to this technique – perhaps simply by asking for feedback in your status update.

So, these are just 21 ways to create strategic visibility and promote your Facebook fan page.

Let’s hear from you.  Which ones have you implemented with success? Plus, do feel free to add any of your own creative promotional ideas in the comments box below!

One aspect of your writing requires a great deal of effort getting right, and it is so obvious it is commonly overlooked. What is the first thing a social media user sees?

“I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and I get briefed by people who probably read the news themselves.”
George W. Bush

“It has been found that the less an advertisement looks like an advertisement, and the more it looks like an editorial, the more readers stop, look and read.”
David Ogilvy

Yes, you guessed it. It’s the headline.

Without a compelling headline, you will not attract attention, and your article will not spread as easily. If you do write a killer headline then you will get more clicks, more bookmarks, and your readers will be compelled to share it with their friends and contacts.

Creating Compelling Headlines

Take a look at the last article you wrote that did spectacularly well (or if you do not have a great example, choose a disaster).

• Does it grab attention? The first job you have to get right when producing a new article is to get it read, and your first task toward getting your article read is grabbing the reader’s attention.
• Will it target a particular audience? We are largely driven by self-interest and our brains are wired to look out and listen for any message that addresses us. If your headline identifies a target group specifically, then that group, if they have an affinity for it, will take notice. Be careful though, this can backfire!
• Is it specific? Highly specific approaches work much better to draw attention and create belief than generic and vague statements that can come across as untrustworthy. Rather than say “get great results” say “achieve 147.2% increase in profits with this simple tweak.”
• Are you generating a great deal of curiosity? What is going to get the reader not only to take notice but also take action? You need to give him or her a good reason to keep reading past the headline into the full article, and this is where curiosity comes in. Create a feeling of incompleteness; hold off on the punch line, so the reader has to find the answer to feel satisfied.
• Is the headline promising powerful benefits? Does your headline answer “So what?” Above all, there has to be a payoff. Your readers need to know what is in it for them, why should they care.

5 Types of Headline

The standard social media headline types tend toward the following categories:

1. News—Particularly breaking news, is very popular. Announce something, share a piece of gossip, and let people know what is happening now. Social news has made traditional news media look slow and dated because by the time the news has spread around the social sites, mainstream media is only just picking it up. The downside of this, of course, is that your content is not going to be perceived as evergreen—there will always be something newer, shinier, and trendier. For example: “Breaking News: White House Moves to Ban Bacon”
2. Goals—Offer a way to achieve a goal, get more, be more powerful, wealthy, attractive, healthier… whole magazines are full of this stuff. Just take a look next time you are at the supermarket checkout. For example: “101 Tried and Tested Dating Secrets to Win the Partner of Your Dreams”
3. Problems—The flipside to the goal is the problem. Fear sells just as well as positives; just ask the newspapers. The economy, health, worries about global politics, you name it. For example: “Finally! Make Your Computer Virus-Free With Open-Source Software”
4. How-to—Share a technique, tutorial, recipe or formula to achieve something practical and beneficial. It is kind of the same as the goal, but rather than a dream, it gives you the steps to create something in reality. For example: “How to Win Friends and Influence People”
5. Entertaining—Social media is full of pure entertainment. It might be a funny video, a cute picture, a joke or even a link to an accidentally funny forum thread. This is the coffee break content that social media was built upon. For example: “Nasty or Nice? Take The Ultimate Personality Test”

Most of all, you need to trigger an emotional reaction. Remember we do not just want “interest,” we want the reader to take an action—even if that action is just to hit the vote-up button.

Emotional Hot Buttons

If you want to really draw attention and get your readers to take action, even if it is only to comment or pass along your link to their friends, you need to grab them where it counts: show empathy and make them feel. Can you get your reader to laugh, cry, or shout at their screen? Take a tip from Hollywood and move your audience emotionally using these hot buttons.

1. Boost and Slam—What is the best/worst/most/least? Compare and contrast, particularly if you can combine with Contrary (see #10).
2. Laugh, Cheer, Snigger or Cry—Human interest that tugs the heartstrings always works. Especially when you combine weep, snigger and cheer. Just ask Susan Boyle.
3. Outrage, Anger, and Righteous Indignation—Listen to talk radio or the talking heads and their jabbing fingers on any cable news network.
4. Fear, Scams, Problems and Looming Disasters—Be afraid, get clicks.
5. Sexy, Cute and Attractive—Sex sells. Lust draws attention.
6. Divide and Conquer (Us versus Them)—Polarize your audience, get attention. Many of the chain letters you get asked to pass on are all about supporting one side of an argument while attacking another, particularly when it comes to politics.
7. Shock and Awe—Take someone by surprise, present something as outrageously and wildly different.
8. Curiosity, Confusion, Riddles and Puzzles—Make readers have to read just to get your idea out of their heads.
9. Caught in the Act—People love it when the rich, powerful and famous are caught doing something they shouldn’t, especially when it is against their accepted brand or persona.
10. Contrary, Contentious and Devil’s Advocate—Challenge accepted wisdom, deep-seated stereotypes and assumptions.

10 Headline Formulas That Work

To get you started creating compelling headlines, use the following “fill in the blanks” headline formulas.

1. Do You Make These ________ Mistakes?
2. The Secrets of ___________
3. What ______ Can Teach Us About ________
4. Everything You Know About _____ Is Wrong<
5. How _______ Made _____ and You Can Too!
6. If You ________, You Can ___________
7. Finally, No More _______
8. At Last! _________
9. Learn How Millions of ______ ________
10. How to Get More/Better/Cheaper _______

If you like these headline ideas, make sure you click here to download the free PDF 102 Proven Headline Formulas now.

Over to You

Share some of your best headlines with us in the comments!