You probably have some idea of the power social media holds. With millions of users spending literal hours of each day on their Facebook or Twitter accounts, social media is a marketer’s dream – when it can be effectively tapped into.
But just how do you get your message out on the social networks?
What you can do on your site
There’s two ways you can make your content shareable from your site.
The first is to include sharing widgets/plugins to every page of your site. See the little social icons that are at the top of this site? They make it easy for people to share content with a single click. If you don’t have social sharing buttons already, make sure to include them – they’re an absolute necessity.
The second thing to do is to make content that is inherently shareable. You want to inspire your readers to pass on what you write to others, and if the content is outstanding, you increase the chances of that. Particularly shareable content often:
- Provides advice or value that can be immediately actioned by readers.
- Is topical or current.
- Has a fantastic headline.
- Is personal or human, connecting with the reader in some way if possible.
- Includes a list (like ‘5 ways to…’).
- Supports a cause or effort the sharer also holds.
- Conveys a particular opinion or position.
What you can do with your social media
Once you’ve created the content and it’s optimised to be shareable on your site, it’s time to start promoting it elsewhere. The 80/20 rule is a good one to apply here – spend 20 per cent of your effort creating the content, and 80 per cent marketing it.
If possible, it’s great to optimise your content for different social media platforms. Facebook and Pinterest, for example, like content that’s centred around the home, human connections, and emotion. LinkedIn users prefer business or technology posts.
Of course, your content can’t hit all of those buttons at once, but if it’s possible to tweak the way it’s presented to suit one audience over another, you should do so.
Thinking outside the box
Then there’s a range of different ways you can share your content that don’t follow a conventional marketing strategy:
- Ask employees if they’d be able to share some of your business content on their networks.
- Communicate with key contacts and business partners to show them your content and see if they’d share it with their networks.
- Interview industry leaders and publish the discussion – then ask them to share it too.
- Seed the content on unconventional websites like Reddit – inviting discussions and traffic.
