Social Media Sharing
Elissa Giroux
on

My career began in the editorial department at a large publishing house in New York in the mid-90s. The web was so new that only the high-level managers at my company were allowed access. It would be a while before I could afford a modem of my own, but my interest in the web was born! Within a couple of years, I landed a job as a content editor with a well-known print and web publisher. Watching the web industry grow - and collapse - and continue to evolve over the past 15 years has been an adventure. My own web career has evolved, as well. My early exposure to search engine optimization piqued my interest in online marketing and discovering ways to use the web to serve business needs. Today I am still excited by the changing nature of my industry. Social media, mobile devices.... What will come next?

Creating Shareable Content Online

With the growing popularity of social media and the search engines’ push to include social in search results, it has become even more important to have a presence in social media and create shareable content. While it’s easy to post company updates and news articles, it takes more than that to convince people to share your posts. Here are some tips for creating content that your followers will want to share.

  1. Be visual. People like graphics, videos, and simple posts. If your site or blog is filled with text and very little visual content, people will not stick around and read it, let alone share it with their friends. Keep things simple and visual.
  2. Provide helpful tips for your followers. Think about who your target market is and tailor your posts to their interests or questions. The content you’re writing should not only be interesting, but relevant and useful for your visitors.
  3. Be unique. If there’s an issue that no one in your field has addressed yet, be the first one to write about it. Keep your content fresh by staying up-to-date on industry news and being different from your competitors.
  4. Make it easy for people to share your posts by adding follow and share buttons to your website and blog. If people have to hunt for a Facebook or Twitter share button, chances are your content will never be shared.

You’ll quickly realize that if you can create relevant, shareable content, you’ll get more engagement from customers.  Plus, gaining more social shares could mean better placement in Google.

Were there any tips we missed? How do you keep people interested in your content?