As a Marketing Director for a large company, I’m always searching for ways to stand out. This topic really interests me. I believe it will be a key factor in the future, especially with the rise of mobile use and how social media is focusing on shorter captions and fewer characters. You need to grab people’s attention and convey your message in just a few seconds.

I am sure you have seen all kinds of captions too on Twitter, Pinterest and Linkedin

Some of the common headlines that I see are the following:

“Breaking News” “Just Posted” “Top Stories” ALL CAPS POST

“Top 5, Top 10″ “Good Morning” “Good Night” “#hashtag topic”

My point here is that we really need to think about this whole phenomenon that is occurring.

How do you get reader’s attention? (Some items to remember)

  • You only have a few seconds to engage someone and to lead them to the next item: blog link, news item, picture or your follow-up message, (Twitter)
  • You need to think about what you are posting and find a way to stand out from the crowd.
  • Put some type of announcement or action statement. (Remember you want people to either read or act)
  • Check out people’s tweets. I have found that people do develop their own unique style of posting information.
  • Remember to change your writing with respect to the platform. Tweets on Facebook look out of place to me. Do you agree?

Some of the biggest learning’s I have discovered are the following:

TWITTER – Try keeping your posts to 10 words or less.

GOOGLE+ – Learn how to format your text Write 1-2 sentence captions.

LINKEDIN – Write a brief sentence statement – Remember you are writing to professionals, many of whom only use Linkedin

FACEBOOK– Write more from a friend standpoint

PINTEREST – 400 characters to use for your caption and key words.

What are some things that are working for you with respect to headlines? I know I will keep trying things and I am sure someone will write a book on this subject in the near future.

Picture via Dan Taylor