With the rise of today’s “social web”, marketers are starting to realize the value of content sharing. Social media makes it easier than ever to share your content with direct friends and followers. Its real power, though, comes from the fact that it extends your reach even further, in ways that traditional methods can’t.
Every post, every tweet, every link on social media can be shared by your direct contacts with their friends and followers, and so on. All it takes is a retweet, a “like” or a repost, and your content has the potential to go further and deeper—with no additional investment of time and effort on your part.
While you can’t always control how much sharing goes on, there are a few tips and tricks you can use to make your content easier to share on social media. Here are a few tips:
Maximize social media real estate.
Your opportunity to capture people’s attention is fleeting, so make the most of the space you have. Create headlines and tweets that are concise but powerful, and don’t be afraid to throw in some controversy or humor. Social media is the place to be creative with your marketing—remember, you’re using it to lead people to your meatier content. Your content here needs to be the hook that brings them in.
Add images.
When possible, include thumbnail images of the author or other compelling visual elements with your social media content. This allows people to see you and your company as real people rather than just words on a screen. Good visuals also naturally attract eyeballs. Mashable reports that they see an increase of 27% in click-throughs when they add images to their headlines.
Focus on quality.
Above all, your content has to be good. Tweaking the delivery is a smart idea, but if the content you’re linking to is not high-quality, useful information that’s relevant to your audience—nothing you do is likely to make it more sharable. Strive to be an authority in your niche. Write well and often, and people will share it.
Utilize social sharing buttons.
One simple way to make it easy for people to share your content is to add social sharing buttons. Including a Twitter share button increases Twitter mentions and retweets sevenfold. And, since only about half of all websites have social sharing buttons, anyone who adds one has a leg up on social sharing and a big marketing advantage.
Making it easy to
share your content on social media means more exposure, traffic, leads and sales for your site. Try these tips to make this powerful marketing tool work harder for you!
