sharebait
n. A social media post with text, images, or video designed to entice the reader to share the post.
Also Seen As
share-baitshare baittweetbait
Other Forms
sharebaiting pp.
Examples
2014
In its short life, BuzzFeed has garnered almost as much criticism as it has readers. Competitors and media critics have panned the website as a manifestation of clickable sharebait on steroids.
—Stephen Hutcheon, “BuzzFeed, Ben Smith and how to harness the viral power of the bored-at-work brigade,” The Sydney Morning Herald, November 28, 2014
2014
Behold, we have entered the age of share-bait: Content that exists only to be shared.
—Caitlin Dewey, “Forget click-bait. We’re living in the world of share-bait now.,” The Washington Post, August 27, 2014
2010 (earliest)
this article is social-media-share-bait
—Alen Todorov, “this article…,” Twitter, March 10, 2010
Notes
I created www.voicebug.com to see volume of traffic I could generate with TweetBait and see if clicks come from the wild in future.
—Brian Caldwell, “I created…,” Twitter, August 09, 2007
Posted: January 16, 2015