2016 is going to go down in online marketing history as the year that everyone finally agreed that social media matters.
From optimizing your website to cultivating authority to building a strong brand, you need to be active on social networks to get the job done properly. That means using your various social accounts as funnels to bring more traffic to your primary website. This job gets a lot easier if you make an effort to develop content that lends itself to sharing.
Start With Something Worthwhile
The things that get shared far and wide across social media networks are endlessly diverse, but if you look for a common trait that they all share it’s this: The people sharing them found them worthy of their attention. That means your content needs to be informative, or amusing, or useful. All the polish in the world won’t encourage more social sharing if your content doesn’t strike visitors as worth their time.
Remember that attention is the currency of choice in the social world. If you want to collect it, you need to pay for it by delivering something of value. Unless your content leaves visitors feeling satisfied with their decision to look at it, the odds of them sharing it and increasing your exposure are slim. It may take extra time to find the right idea and polish it into something that holds people’s attention. Unless you do it, though, trying to cultivate more sharing will end up being a waste of time.
Embrace Engagement
Many marketers overlook the “social” part of the phrase “social media” when they make their first forays into this environment. Few things will get visitors sharing your content faster than an active discussion on a topic of interest to your niche. You don’t have to be provocative to get this sort of attention, but you do need to be ready to participate in the conversation. For a start, provide all the necessary buttons on your content page to allow visitors to share it on the biggest social networks.
You should prepare yourself to answer questions raised by your content through all of your online communications channels. Don’t be afraid to raise your own questions and post them to your social accounts. Communicating with your first visitors will engage them more fully in the nascent discussion and encourage them to bring friends into it.
Go Beyond Plain Text
You don’t need to be concentrating your social media marketing efforts on Instagram or Vine to derive considerable benefit from going multimedia with your content. If you’re crafting a piece that you want to make a big social splash, adding some visual interest to your presentation will go a long way towards making it more shareable.
Even very simple images will liven up a text piece and make it go further. Infographics are an excellent way to present a distilled version of your content and they’re perfectly suited to sharing and reposting. Thank anyone who elects to repost your content and make sure you get the credit! If you have the resources available, investing in video content is also a great way to get social attention.
Social media give you a powerful set of tools for building brand awareness, promoting your interests, and attracting attention. Content that goes viral and draws in a huge audience doesn’t just appear at random. You need to craft your material carefully. Create content that is easy to share and make sure your audience will think it is worth sharing.
About the Author
Sparky Parker has over 35 years of related experience in marketing, internet sales and engineering. He owns and operates FrontRangeMarketeer.com, which helps local businesses generate more leads and attract new customers.