10 Ways to Create Shareable Social Media Content

Why is it that a piece of content can be all over the web in less than a day with thousands of shares and comments, yet, your posts are receiving little to no interaction?

Content creation is vital, but few companies are able to produce content that internet users want to share. Without social engagement, content is barely fulfilling its purpose.

Keep in mind what may motivate your users to share your content;

• Social approval: Sharing content can be a way to express your personality to a group.
• Communication: Content can allow us to develop relationships with other people more easily and frequently.
• Support ideas: Many will share content to signal support for ideas, views or beliefs.
• Entertainment: Entertaining content like humour, memes, videos and more.

1) Keep it high-quality

You cannot expect your followers to become interested or engaged with irrelevant content that lacks research. Put in the time and effort! Think carefully about your headline and title to ensure your high-quality content captures user attention.

2) Do your research

Do some competitor research to help you understand why users are sharing their content, or possibly why they’re not. Consider their social media channels and note what type of content has got high engagement on each channel.

3) Keep your audience in mind

Ask yourself, before writing a post, is this something your audience would like to see and share with their friends? You want your posts to generate comments and engagements, which you could then use to gain an insight into your audience. Think:

• Will content inspire your audience?
• Does content appeal to your audience’s experiences?
• Will it appeal to your audience’s values?
• Does it validate your audience’s opinions?

4) Keep it simple

Make sure your users are able to get an idea of what your content is about from a short-medium post. Think fast, you need to be able to capture their attention and a ‘wall of text’ isn’t going to do that. Some ideas:

• Two or three sentences per paragraph
• Multiple headers
• Summarise with bullet point
• Use images or infographics

5) Create an incentive

Offering a giveaway prize by simply asking people to share, like or follow the page can create a successful ripple effect that more than compensates for the short-term investment in the prize.

You can also offer other incentives, like how Compare the Market uses it’s Compare the Meerkat site to drive added incentive. KFC did a similar game incentive: Colonel Saunders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken Football Challenge using Instagram.