Useful and Easy Gets More People Sharing Your Content The key to creating content people will share is thinking why someone will want it.
By Clément Delangue Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Content marketing is an efficient way for companies to acquire new users. However, in the craze for content creation we risk forgeting the basic goal is, mostly, to generate more shares. Below are some of the lessons that we learned from working at mention on the daily online presence strategy of more than 200,000 companies.
Related: How to Create Content That's Meant to Be Shared
1. Make it useful. This should go without saying, but it's often forgotten. Your content is meant to be useful for your readers and customers. By constantly asking yourself "would it be useful to them?" you will create more powerful content people want to share.
2. Make sharing easy. The more easily shareable is your content, the more people will share it. This means using tools like ShareThis for content published on your blog and services like Click to Tweet that let people share your articles in seconds. Giving them rich content and media that improves the sharing experience itself, like images, quotes, or infographics, is also an important part of this optimization process.
3. Give them a good reason to share. You will increase the number of people sharing your content by giving them a good reason to share. Our webinars always include a special incentive, worth almost $1,000 (not too shabby), for the people who shared the most during the event. That leads to thousands of shares. Offering a good reason to share is a practical way to build excitement.
Related: A Benign Virus: Your Company's Content Shared Across Social Media
4. Reward people to encourage repeated shares. Sharers are like users. You'll often find that the most engaged users are also the people sharing your content the most. By simply thanking all of them for sharing, using a tool like mention, you'll dramatically increase the frequency of shares, turning your sharers (and users) into brand ambassadors.
5. Share and share alike. Sharing is a two-way street. The more you share content from others, the more they'll share your content. Additionally, this will give you a better sense of the psychological drivers behind sharing and insights into things like the optimal time to share your experience.
Why not start by sharing this article? I'll definitely make sure to share yours, too.
Related: What Day of The Week Will Your Company Be Mentioned Most? (Infographic)
