Let’s all face it – Facebook isn’t what it once was. We are flooded with ad’s, promoted posts, and articles for companies we’ve never heard of. It’s a headache and a daily struggle to dodge these to get to the juicy stuff.
The other day I was scrolling through Facebook when I noticed a little birdie complaining about how misleading titles and descriptions are for articles shared on Facebook. Quite frankly, I have to agree with her. It has become a game for companies like Harper’s Baazer and Huffington Post who post multiple articles on facebook a day. Both add “descriptions” of what they claim lay inside the article… However, it’s a game of whether or not the description/title is telling the truth.
Here is what my little birdie says on her Facebook post: “Case in Point: The title of this article has no reference or direct correlation to the story. In the article, they make no comment or quote on the people who have too much time on their hands.”
Photo credit: Elite Daily
This new trend is called Click-Bait. According to Amy Porterfield, “Click-bait is when a link is shared in a Facebook post with a title that sparks curiosity but does not really tell people what the article is all about. This essentially teases people to click a link but does not give them all the information so they are not exactly sure what they’re going to find on the other side of that click.”
The good news? Facebook is cracking down. On August 25th on the Facebook Newsroom page, they stated. “We’re making two updates, the first to reduce click-baiting headlines, and the second to help people see links shared on Facebook in the best format.”
Cheers to that, Facebook.
How can you help the cause? The way Facebook determines whether or not something is Click-Bait is by how much time you spend on the article you click on. If you click on an article and read it for a few minutes, Facebook measures that to be something worthy of reading. If you click on the article and immediately click out of it, Facebook recognizes that is an issue.
Click-bait making you crazy too? Drop a line in the comments and share.
Photo Credit: Greg Westfall