I used to think a good headline should dominate search results for what it is about without necessarily being SEO
I’ve now started developing this idea that they should be “good listener” terms with search/alert results surfacing most salient recent ideas.
Conversation
Not great for traffic, but if you’re tracking a topic long-term for a series, searching for mentions will also serve as a dragnet for fresh fodder.
“Premium mediocre” and “domestic cozy” are examples of my own. Memorable as compounds, good listeners as search (w/o quotes)
1
4
The trick is to keep the individual words literally salient while keeping combinations memorable. “Gervais principle” for example is not a good listener term for info on sociopathy/office politics/org theory. It will mainly surface celeb gossip besides my mentions.
1
1
“Breaking smart” is a very bad listener term. It works for human resonance partly via reference to “breaking bad” but search bycatch is almost entirely about broken smartphones and gadget troubles 😂
Heh search bycatch is a good term... you want high serendipity bycatch
1
1
8
“Art of Gig” is a fine joke as a play on “Art of War” but bad listener. Mainly catches people talking about art gigs rather than the gig economy or consulting life in general.
1
1
Listener headlines are a tactic in a broader strategy of unbranding.
Unbranding is sacrificing discoverability and fame for longevity and underground positioning. Prioritizing sustainability and relationships over audience acquisition. Accepting slow WOM-only growth.
1
8
Unbranding does not necessarily mean you’re producing a commodity. It simply means you’re not signaling uniqueness or differentiation overtly, because assets traditionally devoted to branding losing leverage, becoming wasted on branding, and better used for other things.
Replying to
The higher the noise and arms race dynamics in the public environment, the louder branded things have to scream to get noticed, and the more resources they hog in the project. At some point the tail of branding strategy wags the dog of project purpose.
1
1
3
Brand enough to indicate contents and have some fun, but don’t let brand optimization consume the rest of the project. And don’t mistake structural elements like headlines (which serve many purposes) for functionally fixed branding-monopolized elements.
2
1
I kinda like how classical music and haute cuisine do this well.
‘Prelude in G minor” is an awful viral brand name, but serves a useful informative/search/search bycatch function.
“Braised greens and sautéed mushrooms” tells you about the flavor/texture profile.
1
2
If, as a writer, you find yourself spending more time on a clever headline than 2000 words of text... is that really what you enjoy about writing?
Some people have the wrong reaction and retreat to numbers. “Book 1” or “Opus 1” or “Issue #1”.
That’s just pretentious.
1
2
In retail there’s a trend towards packaging for e-commerce: plain, functional brown boxes with labels etc but no shelf-spaces dominating screaming design. I feel a bit sad the era of great packaging art is ending but it’s the right direction. Ditto for information.
1
3
There’s a broader megatrend developing here. When public spaces get flooded with noise that’s 90% branding 10% content, use packaging to fit into higher SNR streams by giving up some individuality for socialization in a more quality, slightly more private context.
1
7
Extreme version of strategy would be to declare the platform brand and use store unbranding/subbranding models. For example, I could just headline a post “Ribbonfarm: The Syrian Conflict” instead of trying to come up with a clever title like “After Aleppo Armageddon”
1
1
3
