Our latest podcast is up! Join founder and CEO Michael McNew as he goes over some of the simple tips that any content creator can do to make their content more shareable.
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If you can’t listen to the podcast, here are the things you need to know.
Shareable Content Has Benefits
Everyone loves to get recognition. They love it when someone likes, shares, or comments on a post. It’s a love of the feeling you get when someone enjoys what you’ve done. This is really most true for marketers, who spend so much time focused on getting shares that you’d think they made a science out of it.
But it looks like they didn’t.
Studies like the ones Buzzsumo and CoSchedule did (separately) reveal that the share rates are really, really low. But don’t get depressed, because that means you’ll be way ahead of the game if you can manage to get your shares up. Thankfully, there are a few quick things that almost anyone is capable of doing.
Make A Few Quick Adjustments
The first thing you’re going to want to do, before you start that content, is to get ready to work differently. You see, some of this is going to be a little abnormal for you. And it might take a little practice to get right.
It’s also a little more work than you’re used to. But only very little.
Shareable Content Has A Few Secrets
Only publish content that’s worth sharing. It may seem like a no-brainer. I mean, that’s kind of the root point of the article, right? But if you’re focused on the quantity of content you create over the quality, you may be messing this up big time.
Promoting bad content teaches your viewership to ignore you. When they do, it means fewer views and fewer shares. You can pay for all of the traffic in the world, but if your content sucks, they won’t share.
Take your time to craft useful, entertaining, engaging content that people are going to want to spread, even if it means creating less of it.
Use more pictures. Check your Facebook feed. Images are everywhere. In fact, posts with images get an average 2.3 times more engagement. That’s a lot.
Kick it up a notch. If you can make an image from a piece of your content and that image work well without the rest of the content, you’ve doubled your output. Infographics, step-by-step images, and great memes go far, fast.
Social sharing software is your friend. People are lazy. That’s a fact. You an fight it, or play to it. I promise you’ll get more shares if you play to it.
Adding sharing buttons to your website (like the ones at the bottom of this article) allow your readers to share with minimal steps. They don’t have to copy/paste the link and write a new post, switching tabs to their favorite social site. In one quick click, your content is ready to share.
As an added bonus, software like AddThis offers analytics for free, letting you know what content works and what doesn’t. That information is super useful when you put it to work deciding what your next piece should be.
Ask for shares. As my mother told me, you can’t get what you want unless you ask. Surprisingly, it works for content sharing to. Ask. If they say no, you’ve lost nothing. But what can you gain if they say yes?
Use social tags. Yes, tag people in your posts. Tag people that are a part of your content.
If you interview with an industry leader or reference a major influencer, tag them in the social post. It’s going to grab their attention, getting them to share. It’s also going to grab the attention of their audience, who will likely also share.
Write great headlines. I’ve written before about clickbait. The article headlines work because they peak our curiosity. However, even the ones that don’t get read still often get shares.
The sad thing here is that most people are still not going to read your content. However, with the right catchy title, they may still share it anyways. That’s a win for you, even if it’s a loss for them.
Shareable Content Creates Leads
What everything comes down to is leads. If your content is getting shared, that means it’s getting viewed. Ultimately, that means more visitors to your site. If it’s good content and you back it up with a great lead funnel, the sales are all but guaranteed.
If you liked this podcast (or the article if you couldn’t listen), make sure you share it with the social buttons down below.
