Word Games, 2024 Reading Wrap-Up & 8 Filters to Help You Write Great Headlines
Hey, hey! Are you in the mood to play? Today, I’m sharing my 4 favorite free word games. Plus, you’ll find my super random reading picks for the year along with 8 smart filters that will help you craft winning headlines that stop the scroll and get mad clicks.
My 4 Fave Word Games
Dear Reader, not many know this but I’m going to share it with you today in the spirit of giving. Most days, I play four quick word games. Generally speaking, I totally kill it. Some days, I lose. Sometimes I even learn a new word, like today: Kendo. Merriam-Webster tells me it’s a Japanese bamboo sword-type thing. It has a blunt tip, so it’s most often called a kendo stick.
Anyway, all the games are free and they’re a fun way to challenge your brain. Check them out – and let me know if you start playing, too! It’s my Christmas gift to you. You’re welcome.
Wordle: You get 6 guesses to puzzle out a 5-letter word.
Quordle: Same concept as Wordle, but now you’re figuring out 4 words in 9 attempts.
Octordle: Yep, now it’s 8 words to fill in with 13 tries.
Waffle: This one’s a grid made up of 6 intersecting words, similar-ish to a crossword puzzle. Not sure how many “swaps” exactly you get, I don’t really pay attention to that on this one!
Of course I have strategies for consistently winning these games, honed and perfected over hundreds of plays. But is it too much for you, Dear Reader? Reach out if you want to know more. Otherwise, I will keep this extra layer of nerdiness to myself, hahaaaa!
My inner word nerd on full display…
8 “Filters” to Help You Write Great Headlines Every Time
Let’s make no bones about this — writing headlines is hard. There is tremendous pressure on those few precious words. If your reader doesn’t get your headline, or if it is boring at all, she’ll skip it. And you want her to click it, tap it, like it, love it. Right? While there’s no magic formula for creating fantastic headlines, you can run your process through what I call “filters” to make sure you’re addressing all angles.
1. Consider Your Audience
Who exactly is this content for? If you don’t know, don’t pass go and don’t collect $200 until you are very sure. Consider this. Say you got fired from your job. Imagine how you deliver the news to your spouse or your bestie (tears, gnashing of teeth). Now think about how you represent your employment gap as you interview for your next job (it was not a good cultural fit, independent consulting). Big difference, right?
To match your message to your audience, document as much as you know about the recipients of your content – if you’re marketing a product, do you know if they’re already a fan? What about age? Or income? How do these details inform your approach? Your word choice?
2. Craft Your Message (in a Nutshell)
What exactly are you trying to say? I’ve seen companies call these “points of distinction” or a personal favorite, “reasons to believe.” Depending on the format of your content, you may have one single message or a main point plus a few secondary nuggets. Write this down, then work on getting it as concise as possible. Think sound bites. If you have multiple points that need to be included, put them in order of importance. Be prepared to cut the last one on the list in the interest of keeping it short and snappy. Because as Shakespeare so aptly wrote in Hamlet, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
3. Play to the Channel
Are you sending an email? A text? Publishing on LinkedIn? Posting on Insta, Facebook or TikTok? Each of these is its own unique beast with its own set of best practices. Do your research and make sure you understand the user experience on the platforms/channels where you’re publishing your content. For social channels, tap into the information published by each channel. For example, Instagram has an entire section dedicated to helping businesses and brands create successful posts. Likewise with Pinterest.
When I worked at 84.51° (owned by Kroger), we frequently met with reps from the big social channels. These insiders make great recommendations for every aspect of marketing on their channels, from strategy to measurement and creative — and at least in the case of Meta (Facebook and Instagram), the service is free. The Pinterest reps were always super helpful and interesting. They can offer insights about your audiences on these channels, and it’s in their best interest for your business to do well. So take advantage!
Once you understand the user experience and the best practices, the headlines practically write themselves.
4. Learn from Click-Bait
There’s a reason click-bait works. You just have to know the answer to that tempting tease. Yes, thank you, I do want to know about the one big change Costco just rolled out! This example comes from The Kitchn, a much-beloved cooking site that has creating clickable headlines down to a science. Yahoo, CNN and other news sites are also gems for researching the types of constructions and positioning that motivate clicks. Of course, you may not have salacious celebrity gossip to offer, but you absolutely do have something you can tease that will make your audience tap that trackpad. Take note of phrases like “The 1 Thing You Need to Know about A, B or C” or “You Need to Try [X, Y or Z] ASAP.” Creating a sense of urgency and mystery can generate solid engagement.
5. Incorporate AI
One of my favorite ways to use AI is as an idea generation partner. Let’s say you have a rough headline that’s making you pretty happy… but could it be better? Ask AI to create 10 additional headlines based on the one you created. Could be that one of these is perfect as is – if yes, go with it! More likely, the output will spark a fresh spin that will take your headline from plain to perfection. Remember, AI is iterative. So if you’re not happy with the initial list, try asking the question a new way with a fresh starting point.
Another option? Go with a partner like Backstroke that has automated this process into a streamlined tool that will generate subject lines and headlines that are most likely to succeed.
6. Make It Personal(ized)
Headlines and subject lines are like picky kids at meal time these days. You have to serve up a different option for each one. Luckily, there are plenty of services that make personalization automatic. Persado can spit out lots of options using generative AI, although it’s likely a bit of an expensive option for smaller companies.
Also, you should Always Be Testing. Send half of your recipients one subject line, and the other half a different one. Which performs better? One time, I interviewed a job candidate who was currently working at a newspaper. They would change their headlines multiple times a day, especially if the one they published with wasn’t getting clicks. A different turn of phrase often made a significant impact in engagement.
7. Write for Reading Pleasure
Mine your memory banks and see what you can remember about those literary devices you probably learned about back in high school English class. (Thank you, Mrs. Jennings.) Alliteration definitely tops the list, but you can also employ rhyming, wordplay, even metaphor and simile. Hyperbole is basically an old-fashioned word for click-bait, so for sure trot out that trusty puppy. Honestly? It’s fun and sexy to weave in literary devices — and they’re pleasurable for your readers, too. Want to dig deeper here? Check out my post sharing My Top 5 Sexiest Literary Devices.
8. Make Sure It Stacks Up
Finally, take a step back and look at your piece holistically. Are all your parts playing nice? Use this moment to finely calibrate each of the components so they super-charge each other. If anything is repetitive, subtract or shift. Try to engage with it as your reader would, seeing it for the first time. Does it all make sense? Is there anything that’s too wordy that can be slimmed down? Check back in on your prioritized messaging list. Did you hit that key point? Does your finished piece fulfill your original strategic objective?
Go ahead, hit send or publish or share — then keep an eye on your metrics and apply learnings to your next piece of content.
My Top 6 Random Reads from 2024
I always feel a little sheepish looking back at the modest stack of titles I manage to rack up on my reading list at the end of each year. While I would consider myself a voracious reader, I’m not fast. I tend to savor rather than rip through, rereading passages and sometimes managing only a few pages between hitting the pillow and zonking out. And I also don’t read a lot of the newest books. There are some amazing best-of lists out there, from The New York Times, NPR and GoodReads—but they’re a little (a lot?) overwhelming, too. If you feel the same, you might find something to like from my more digestible (snack-size?) motley crew.
Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
If you missed my 8 reasons to read this gem, check out this past post (and revisit a pic of Young Jessica in sequins… again).
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein
This is one of two non-fiction titles on my list this year. I originally read a copy I checked out from the library, but just bought a paperback of it for a future reread. If you’re the type of person who constantly craves a stretch, yearns to try out something new—if you feel trapped by talent managers thinking you can only do the exact job you do now, this book will speak to you. Personally, reading this book made me feel “seen” in a way I didn’t realize I needed. It was validating, and gave me some helpful and utilitarian new language for what had only been vague hunches about what sometimes made me feel like a square peg in a round hole in the workplace.
Epstein talks about the decades-long march toward deep and narrow specialization and the unintentional consequences caused when experts stay in their trenches and thus lose the ability to make connections outside of their focus area. He layers together rigorous research with reams of anecdotes about real life people, companies and organizations that bring his points to life. From sports to medicine and space to non-profits, the insights in Range are highly relevant across any industry, and are perhaps especially salient for parents.
The Anxious Generation, by Jonathan Haidt
My other non-fiction pick! I have already written about this important book, which in my mind should be required reading for anyone raising kids. Currently I’m running a charm offensive to get all the moms on my son’s soccer team to read it. That’s because putting Haidt’s principles into practice will be a community project. A difficult yet worthy endeavor—potentially life-saving for our children.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by Victoria Schwab
I’m fascinated by the concept of time, and I’ve long been drawn to fiction that plays with the construct and asks questions like… what if we could live our one life over and over again? Read: Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. What if we could visit our past and future selves? Read: The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger or Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore. What if you could stretch out your life and exist in unchanging youthfulness for multiple centuries instead of a paltry quarter of one? Read: How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. What if, indeed, you were immortal? Read: any vampire book AND The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
The protagonist here is born in England in 1691, and her fate—as is the fate of all females at this time and for centuries to come—is to be given in marriage to a man not of her choosing, become a mother as many times as will happen with no control of the matter herself, and be worn down by the grind of time and die in a matter of decades. Instead, the headstrong young woman flees on the night of her wedding and makes a fateful deal with a dark God. She’ll escape the marriage trap and live forever—but no one will ever remember her.
We travel along with Addie, through centuries, through countries, through wars. She starves, she sells her body, she cannot find a true place to call home (people never remembering you can be somewhat problematic for landlords). Over and again, she finds joy in living. And one day in modern day New York City, something remarkable happens. A man remembers her. Intrigued? You’ll have to pick up the book to find out more.
The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
Both this novel and Verghese’s Cutting for Stone are just incredibly outstanding. Being a doctor-turned-writer just results in a special, unexpected magic which should not surprise, given the insights uncovered in my other pick, Range. Take a look at my reasons to read this one as well from a past edition of Pink Pineapple Post.
The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray
This unsettling novel is one that really sticks with you. Each chapter is narrated in turn by a member of a dysfunctional family in a rural Irish town outside of Dublin. Every page left me with the uncomfortable sensation that something horrible was going to happen at any minute. Then the chapter would end and you would go for pages and pages, chapters and chapters, with no resolution. Only to find that disaster had somehow been averted, discerned only through an absence of information.
On a few levels, here's why I can't stop thinking about this book:
🗻 The ending is a cliffhanger. Did the world come crumbling down? Or did it all come out ok in the end? You literally will never know.
😱 Can a family live in the same house and truly know so little about each other? As a parent, this scares the living daylights out of me. I mean, these people had no clue what was going on inside of each others' heads—and outside, too!
✍ The pearls of wisdom scattered throughout are devastatingly striking in their existential truth. Like this: “Today, in the developed world, the great threat to political order is that people will pay attention to their surroundings. Thus, even slaves have access to entertainment. You could even say we are paid in entertainment. The novel was the first instance of what in the twenty-first century has become a vast and proliferating entertainment industry, an almost infinite machine designed to distract us and disempower us. We are presented with a virtual world powered, literally, by the incineration of the real.”
I had to stop and read that three times. The INCINERATION OF THE REAL. Is that what was happening to the characters in the book? Is that what is happening to us now?
