Why is “Closer” by The Chainsmokers popular? External triggers.

why-closer-by-chainsmokers-is-popularI was running on a treadmill the first time I heard the song “Closer” by the Chainsmokers. The pre-chorus came through my headphones. Wow! I started to run faster. I wanted to sing along.

So did millions of others. The band has been nominated for three Grammy Awards in 2017. The music video has been watched more than 1.1 billion times – more than Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself which had an 8 month head start and received two Grammy nominations in 2016.

If you’re a marketer paying $0.30 a view to YouTube then wouldn’t it be nice to trade metrics with the Chainsmokers? People are finding the “Closer” video and clicking the play button all by themselves. The band isn’t paying YouTube for these views.

This post is about one technique you can use to stand on the band’s shoulders and increase views of your stories. The technique is adding imagery. The Chainsmokers used 10 pieces of imagery in “Closer” which propelled it to the top of the charts.

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3 Steps to Pitch an Idea like Malcolm Gladwell

Me and Malcolm Gladwell in studio in NYC (July 2019)

The Tipping Point is a business book that sold 2.5 million copies. In it, author Malcolm Gladwell pitches a theory on epidemics called the Tipping Point. This blog post attempts to reverse engineer the process Gladwell took to explain his idea.

Explaining an idea is hard. My favorite articles on the Engel Journal blog are ideas, and readers often ignore them. Reflecting on my work, I asked, “What can Gladwell teach me about selling my ideas?” I found the answer in the opening pages of the Tipping Point.

Here are three steps Gladwell took to lead readers through his theory on epidemics:

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Divide & Conquer Blogging with Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling writing app on Zoho Creator
A screenshot of my Rudyard Kipling writing app powered by Zoho Creator.

I just created the writing app your content marketing team needs to create thought provoking blog posts that stand apart from your competition. My app, named Rudyard Kipling after the system of writing, frees up your company’s experts to focus on sharing insights while writers focus on wordsmithing.

The writing app works by dividing the labor of writing an article into six steps:

  1. Ask3
  2. Answer3
  3. Draft
  4. Edit
  5. Publish
  6. Share

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