STORYTELLER
Captions, titles, thumbs. In the fast-paced, highly competitive world of social media storytelling, micro-copy can make or break the spread of your message. A few simple words need to do a lot of heavy lifting: entice the right audience, hint at drama and conflict, encourage sharing and engagement, all coalescing to persuade the viewer that your content MUST be watched NOW.
Micro-copy was an integral part of my work at Goalcast, where I was responsible for writing and testing the handful of words designed to grab your eyeballs and not let go, and produced tags and titles for hundreds of videos that persuaded billions of people to stop what they were doing and watch!
Greta Thunberg:
55+ Million Views
Here I combined several elements:
* by focusing on popularity as the hook, tapping into the universal human need for approval
* given the environmental theme of the message, connecting the sharing of the video to helping the world
* hinting that watching the video will help save a child
* including a ticking-time bomb metaphor ("2 days left") to convey a sense of urgency
* hinting at a paramount seriousness ("history's most important message"), without explaining why
Robert Downey Jr.
85+ Million Views
Here I combined several elements:
* selecting a bizarre and upsetting factoid from RDJ's life to immediately stop a person scrolling
* hinting at an epic journey, from dark past and real-life danger to massive celebrity, without explaining why
* connecting his real-life story to his superhero character, giving viewers an easy cultural touchstone as an access point
* focus on the relatable and universal human experience of having "demons" and being a "troubled teen"
Lisa Nichols
75+ Million Views
Here I combined several elements:
* playing on the universal fear and experience of failure
* hinting at the promise of providing help ("Here's what you say..."
* asking a question about a pervasive feeling in society, that people feel others often hold them back
* using select imagery (dimming, light), aligning with the overall metaphor of the video which is about "Shining Your Light"
Here is a just small sample of more successful videos I micro-copied, garnering billions of views:
Terry Crews - 136+ Million Views
Arnold Schwarzenegger - 55+ Million Views
Rick Moranis - 45+ Million Views
Sylvester Stallone - 36+ Million Views
Demarjay Smith - 35+ Million Views
Walt Disney - 30+ Million Views
Ian Humphrey - 35+ Million Views
Les Brown - 48+ Million Views
Jonathan Mooney - 40+ Million Views
Alvin Law - 40+ Million Views
Megan Markle - 43+ Million Views
Kathy Buckley - 68+ Million Views
Dandapani - 53+ Million Views
Dima Ghawi - 55+ Million Views
Rock Thomas - 83+ Million Views
Neil deGrasse Tyson - 38+ Million Views
George Lucas - 48+ Million Views
Jackie Chan - 60+ Million Views
Dale Carnegie - 38+ Million Views
Kevin Rupp - 63+ Million Views
Lady Gaga - 53+ Million Views
Bob Marley - 41+ Million Views