Content Marketing Secrets: How To Create “Highly Shareable” Content in 13 Easy Steps

The best way to attract people towards your website is by posting highly sharable and appealing content. It does two things, improves your rankings in Search Engine Results (SEO) and enhances your social curation when the content is shared frequently. The more it is shared, the more people will be able to see it and this will automatically attract a large number of people.

Although the content you share is meant to attract people but more often than not it fails to fulfill its purpose. There is plenty of quality content out there on the internet but it hasn’t become viral. No matter how good a content you are creating, whether or not it is going to do well on the internet, is a question that is only going to be answered when it is out on the horizon. All of this may sound a bit complicated but there are certain tips and tricks to maximize the shareability of the content you are about to post. At the end of the day, the target is to increase the traffic.

Until and unless you post your content, you cannot predict how viral or popular it will be, however, there are certain things you can do to increase its potential by making sure that it has every ingredient to be highly shareable and appealing to the masses. Mentioned below are some of the secrets of creating highly shareable content.

1. Always Add Buttons to Share on Social Networking Websites

To make sure that your content becomes highly shareable, one of the most important steps you can take is by adding buttons for social sharing. It does not matter where you put them, they just have to be there for example, you can place the content feed on the floating menu or anyplace else you find fit.

This simple idea will act as a catalyst towards increasing traffic and engagement by making the sharing process easy. If the content does not have the sharing buttons available, it could be extremely time-consuming. The drawback of that is there are some people who would only share something when they find it really interesting, whereas there are some who would share almost everything if they like it even a bit. If the sharing buttons aren’t available, in most cases both the parties would not bother looking for ways to share it, particularly the latter. However, if the sharing button is available then things become extremely convenient; they would only have to click to share the content on their feeds.

2. High-Quality Media is Important

The value of visual content in the world of marketing has taken a huge leap. People these days are more attracted to something that looks good; this is perhaps the reason why you see magazines with so many colorful images. The same principle is followed in making content highly shareable. In order to make the content more appealing, it is highly advisable to use images or any sort of media. This is perhaps the reason why you see simple commercials, infographics and short videos becoming so effective. While online, people would always prefer reading a colorful image or anything that looks attractive. Another advantage of using high-quality media is it would attract almost anyone, whether a kid or an adult. Besides, people like sharing images and videos with each other more than anything else.

3. Make Your Content Convenient For mobile Users

The use of smartphones has grown drastically. More and more people are switching from their desktops to phones. According to a report published by Bloomberg,

At the end of 2015, the number of people using smartphones throughout the world will reach 2 billion.

This clearly means that billions of people browse the Web through their smartphones at any time during the day. The most number of time people are on their smartphone is when they are travelling – 72%, 64% percent while they are in restaurants and 63% in stores. In a nutshell, smartphone users are always occupied and they want quick information.

Posting content which is too explanatory and long is not the best idea, particularly when it comes to mobile users. Like mentioned above, visual content e.g. images, infographics, short videos are ideal for smartphone users. They don’t have to spend too much time exploring through the detailed information, they can get information in the form of visuals quickly and easily which they can share with friends through their phones.

4. Content Should be Useful

A content that contains useful information carries a lot of importance in the world of social media, simply because of the fact that more and more people want to share it.  If you are a smartphone dealer, try to post something that the users can benefit from. For example, tips and tricks about efficient smartphone use, tutorials, frequently asked questions and how-to videos. All this information isn’t easily available and can easily draw the attention of users. They would love to share this kind of information with their friends which will help the content become highly shareable.

5. Guest Blog

The figure above shows the most prominent types of link building techniques. Guest Blogging as we can see is among the top.

One of the best ways to increase online audience is by either letting someone post a guest blog on your site or by posting a guest blog on someone else’s site or go both ways. When you let marketers and bloggers post on your site, it brings a lot of traffic from their forum to your website and helps increase your popularity. In the same way, when you post a guest blog on someone else’s website it improves your popularity too, makes your brand and name more visible online, which will drive a lot of people towards your site.  No matter which way you go, the point is, posting a guest blog is an excellent way of improving engagement and shareability of your content and you end up creating a highly shareable content.

6. Don’t make it too complicated

One of most important things to keep in mind while creating a highly shareable content is the choice of words. There is plenty of content online that may look great with the use of high vocabulary but it wouldn’t necessarily be shared much. Simply because of the fact that people like to read contents that they can easily understand, instead of those that use the most difficult words from the dictionary. Try to use simple yet quality words so the readers do not find it difficult to understand. If you manage to get the message across, there is every chance your content is going to be shared.

7. Share things People can relate to

Not many people are keen readers and when you share something they cannot relate to, there are very less chances of it getting read or shared. People like to share and read content they can relate to in real life. Content regarding, family, relationships, sex, lifestyle is shared by people on a large scale, while tech and business articles or news in general only make a small percentage, around 14% to be exact. This goes to show how important it is to share content that people can understand. In order to make your content high shareable it is important to incorporate one of these topics.

8. Solve Problems With Your content

One of the best ways to create a highly shareable content is by solving consumer problems in the industry you are working in. This is perhaps the best way to improve your popularity online as the consumers are automatically attracted when they see a solution to their problem.  In order to resolve any problem that causes the consumer discomfort, you have to do a bit of research and find out actually what could be causing the problem. Once you have done that it is important to come up with a solution. Resolving consumer problems through your content is an extremely effective way of making it highly shareable as more and more people would share it with their friends or other people who are going through the same problems.

9. The Title Carries all the Value

Famous Australian blogger Darren Rowse said on Twitter,

While posting content online it is extremely important to make sure that it introduces itself better. It means that the title or the headline of the content has to be very appealing. If you put all your attention towards making your content exciting and neglect the title, it is probably going to have an effect on its popularity. At the end of the day, it is the title that people look at first. Try to make it short and sweet. It has to be compelling enough for people to have a look at it at least once. Also, try to use high quality images to attract or half cropped images to raise the curiosity.

10. List Posts Always Work

There is no doubt about the fact that list posts are a highly effective way of making your content highly shareable. If you take a look online, some of the most highly shared contents are lists.  But have you ever wondered why they work? What is that makes the list post so attractive? There are a lot of reasons why it is so successful, first of all, it is extremely precise and not too long; reader usually avoid articles that are too long and boring. With list posts, they can get quick information. Another benefit of that is it is easy to remember. Unlike lengthy articles that discuss everything in depth, list articles give you quick information which is extremely easy to remember. Another major reason why it is so popular is because it peaks a reader’s curiosity level. The mystery is what attracts them towards it. People can easily share these kinds of articles with their friends and family. If you notice, what you are reading right now is also a list post.

11. Don’t Use The Same Title for All Social Networking Sites

One of the major points to remember while posting content online is not to use the same title for different social media platforms. This can really hamper the growth of your content. All social mediaplatforms are different in their own way, and their consumers too. They have a different personality and approach to things. For example, Facebook users like to share videos and images. Google+ is also very similar to Facebook. Pinterest users are more inclined towards food, whereas, twitter is best for giveaways. Technology is also one of the posts that do well on twitter; LinkedIn on the other hand is a very business and professional oriented site.

Before you post your content online, it is important to have knowledge about all these social media platforms. Posting something that is not related to a particular group of people will affect its shareability. For example, posting content regarding food on twitter might not be a good idea. Therefore, it is important to post content according the type of social media platform to bring traffic towards your site, hence making your content highly shareable.

The title also plays vital role. It is important to ensure that the title of the post should be according to the social media site. For example, if you are going to post something on twitter, you have to make sure you make it appealing enough for the users to follow the link and that too in only 140 letters.

12. Be Consistent

Out of all the points in the list, this is perhaps the most important one. If you are posing content online, it is extremely important for you to be consistent. Keep coming up with different ideas and post blogs or helpful articles to engage your online users. Keep posing content that questions the community, or post something that provides solution to the consumer.

The important thing is you have to keep going. Keep coming up with the ideas and post something interesting every day. It takes a lot of effort and hard work to become successful.

13. Stay Up to Date & Interact With the Users

While posting content online, it is important to have the right knowledge of what is in and what is out. If you are going to post something that people aren’t talking about too much, there is every chance that it might not get as many shares as you would like. This is why it is important to spend time on social media sites and different forums to find out the hot topics and post similar blogs. This could increase the popularity of your content and make it highly shareable.

In order to create a highly shareable content it is important to make sure that you reach out to your users. If the users have any concern or complaint, try to respond. Interaction with the users is a great way to drive traffic towards your site. It also helps you get the user perspective which could be helpful in promoting your content ahead in the future.