Do We Respond Better to a Negative Message?
As I am sitting here watching the Democratic convention, I am starting to notice a trend. This trend centers around the reactions of the crowd to the various speakers. The loudest cheers have not been evoked by a speaker describing why their candidate will do a great job nor what specific measures the candidate will take to improve the country. Instead, the most boisterous applause has been saved for any type of negative comment made toward the leaders of the opposing party.
Now this is not some kind of indictment of the Democratic Party as I GUARANTEE we will see the exact same thing in Minnesota next week. Instead, we should ask ourselves why these speeches are littered with a surplus of negative bashing. I believe the answer is quite simple. Not only do we love the negativity–we can’t get enough of it.
However, politics are not the only setting in which a negative message will produce superior results. In fact, the venue in which we are in now, the blogging world, provides one of the best examples of this phenomena. Nothing beats a good rant complaining about any subject in generating hit after hit. Nothing serves as more effective link bait than one blogger trashing another. Nothing will draw more attention to your blog than a good tirade against a government policy or politician.
So to everyone out there, I say go out there and spew out a venomous post about any subject and then sit back and enjoy the ensuing traffic. No, that is not what saying. Instead, I am urging you to use some restraint when using negativity. Yes, the negative game is a fun game to play, but I urge you not to cross the line. For instance, this week I read a post on one of my favorite blogs that mocked a fellow blogger for paying $10,000 for an existing blog. I believe the author was 100% right in his analysis that the purchase price was way too high. However, the title of his post was similar to “Another Dumb Truck is Born LMAO,” and crossed the line of decency. Inspired by such a derogatory title, scores of his readers trolled to the new blogger’s site and unmercifully mocked and teased him. Although I am sure that this post will end up to be one of his most popular ones, I believe he traded some great traffic for some loss of respect throughout the blogging world.
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Filed under: Blogging Tips, Internet News
I don’t think it has to do with better. Normally those politicians that “go negative” can’t win based on convincing people to vote for them. Instead they try the much easier task of convincing people to vote against the other one. But even more important - is just causing lots of people to give up and not vote at all. I can imagine the founding fathers thinking that “better thinking” came from convincing people not to vote.
You will notice those that have to get people to actually buy their stuff rarely “go negative.” Pepsi doesn’t say don’t buy Coke it is sugar water that makes you fat. NBC doesn’t say don’t watch ABC it just makes you dumber to watch some lame “reality” TV show.
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