Content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers, not selling to them. You can think of it as non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your customer well informed. Content marketing is a strategy that is continuing to grow in popularity. Why? Because it is effective and it works. However, this strategy is only successful when it is used correctly with fresh, entertaining and informative content.
Social media is considered the modern day word-of mouth marketing with content being constantly shared through platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. It plays a significant role in your content marketing strategy as a key distribution vehicle. However, you don’t want to leave it to chance whether your valuable content is shared or left hanging in the digital space with no views. To fully harness the power of social media it is important to encourage the social sharing of your content.
1. Provide valuable content
Focus on topics that are valuable to your customer. Conduct some research to discover which topics carry the most weight. You can do this in a variety of ways including searching keywords through tools such as Google Adwords, asking sales associates what customers care about, or monitoring which topics consistently garner the most shares and comments on your blog, competitor’s blogs and in social media in general.
2. Headlines are important
Sure, your headline states exactly what your article is about; however, if it is boring, it isn’t going to grab your audience’s attention and encourage them to share. Start with a working title to understand the topic of your blog. Once it is written, go back and jazz up the title not only to reflect the topic but to also intrigue your customer to continue reading.
3. Make your post easy to skim
It is important to stay top of mind to your customers by providing unique, valuable content. Today’s on-the-go consumer does not have the time to sit and read hundreds of pages of dense paragraphs. It is imperative to design blog posts in a way that makes it easy to quickly grasp key points in order to encourage social sharing. How? Think bold headers and key points with only 2-3 sentences for each subtopic.
4. Place emphasis on vivid images
Images are very important for increasing social sharing. Consider the fact that sites such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest are designed to showcase the main picture from shared posts. Visual elements are critical to getting attention for your post in social media, to communicating the key message, and often can make or break the shareability of a post.
5. Remember that social sharing is a two-way street
If you want people to share your content, you need to be willing to do the same. Building up some online goodwill will only increase interaction with your content, including shares. Don’t forget to help others spread their great content well before you ask people to share yours.
These are just a few tips to increase the shares of your valuable content. Remember to be strategic about the content you produce, how it appears, how it’s introduced into the world and who sees it. How do you increase social shares for your content?
