4 Ways to Make your Content More Shareable
November 2, 2018
A huge part of online marketing these days comes in the form of shared posts on social media. Therefore, many companies are striving to create more shareable content. Shareable content can be anything from a contest to a photo, as long as it inspires consumers to send the post around from friend to friend.
Social media became the new word of mouth the minute Facebook marketing became a reality. Now, it’s up to businesses to find new and exciting ways to inspire consumers to share. Whether you’re new to the social media marketing game or this is old hat to you now, here are 4 tips to create more shareable content in your posts.
1. Target Your Target Audience: This sounds like something that should be common knowledge, but you’d be surprised to see how many companies craft their website and social media content with a broad range of consumers in mind. It pays to be direct with your content, especially what you post on social media, because it’s far less likely to be shared if it isn’t catchy and unique. Plain Jane generic fluff is being left by the wayside more and more as consumers click and share funny, engaging, and shocking content they find online.
The best way to draw in your customers? Cater the content on your site to reflect the audience you’re trying to attract. For example, if you’re a plumbing company, you’re not looking for local teenagers to find your content funny and engaging, you’re trying to get their parents to notice you. So, be sure you’re writing for a mature audience, while still keeping things light and entertaining.
2. Use Feedback to Create Feedback: CDC or Consumer Driven Content is one of the latest trends in online marketing and it involves the customer providing a fresh point of view to readers. Consumers already know what you have to say about your brand, and while it might sound great, it can’t be trusted can it? Well, if it’s being backed up by other consumers it certainly can. More and more businesses are leaning on the content created by their customers to sell products. Positive reviews and ratings online can be implemented into marketing campaigns to make your products and services appear more in touch with your target audience.
Want to take it a step further? You could even host a competition, where customers write in or send in images, videos, or voice clips containing their own attempt at your next ad. Nobody is more entertaining or enticing than a consumer with a video camera. Look at the amount of sensation viral YouTube videos streaming around the internet at any given time. Some of these are simple at home users showing how they’ve tried a product for themselves and displaying the results. Other consumers love seeing this candid and transparent approach to marketing and it will pay off big time.
3. Get Fresh with Your Followers: There’s nothing less attractive to online consumers than seeing the same old recycled garbage time and again. Many internet users flash through their Facebook and Twitter accounts several times an hour looking for something new and entertaining to read or observe. You might not think customers will notice you use the same campaign again, but they do, and it doesn’t make them eager to share with their family and friends.
Always craft new and unique content for every campaign you begin. Draw on current affairs, pop culture references, and even other internet campaigns or videos to create something unique and inspiring. Because of the internet, modern consumers have now seen it all, which makes it really difficult to wow them. Try to continually change and evolve as a brand to keep their attention and make them want to share what you have to say with others.
4. Make Content which is Aesthetically Pleasing: Long gone are the days when it was enough to write a catchy jingle or post a funny anecdote to get consumers to share what you had to say. The days of banner ads and billboards have been replaced with video clips and Instagram stories. It’s more important than ever before to have an aesthetically appealing ad campaign.
Use photos, videos, music, logos, and other sorts of entertaining and beautiful accessories to create appealing content. One way to separate your content from the masses is to use images and video which is specific to your business. Have your employees make videos, use photos depicting, “a day in the life of”, or take advantage of the hilarious and flattering filters included in Snapchat and several other video-based messaging systems.
The best way to make content that consumers want to share is by picturing yourself as the consumer. When you see something on the internet that makes you want to hit the “share” button, what is it about that particular piece that makes it so “shareable”? Is it the picture they’ve used? The catchy copy? Maybe it’s a combination of the font type and hilarious hashtags. Whatever it is that makes content worth sharing, if you can take a piece of that and harness it in your own campaign, you’ll see more movement.
Recent studies have shown that consumers aren’t as interested in “facts and figures” anymore. Making the age-old claims about how “healthy” a product is moot. There’s so much fake news floating around that internet users are more likely to believe something when they see it for themselves. So, make your content as visual as possible and stay fresh.