Social media marketing is all about creating shareable content – those viral posts are veritable gold in the hills for social media marketers, and it’s not always easy to find that gold. The goal of using your social media to connect with your audience is to leverage the power of each platform to get your followers to engage with your posts. When your followers are sharing the content you create, knowledge of your brand will organically, naturally grow its online presence. It’s a big job, but it’s critical to succeeding in a digital world.
Finding the right ingredients for content that is inherently shareable can be elusive and challenging for organizations who are trying to engage with their audience through strategically engineered content. Strategy is the key word here – when you are intentionally creating content with the audience in mind, this becomes much easier to do well.
Here are three key ideas to keep in mind when you are creating shareable content.
It needs to be relevant
With all of the background noise in the world right now, there’s never been a better time to strive for relevancy. Our attention is constantly getting pulled in a dozen different directions, so when we find something that is relevant to our experience or circumstances, it resonates much more. This is especially in regard to creating shareable content. When your audience sees something that is relevant to them, they are much more likely to share it with their own colleagues and peers, effectively getting more eyers on it.
Shareable content has to be relevant. It has to have some sort of deeper meaning or be timely to the person who is engaging with the content. Without relevance, why will it matter to your audience? If you aren’t sure what’s relevant to your audience, do a poll to see what kind of content they would be interested in seeing. Approach your content and social media strategy as sharing news related to your organization and your industry with your audience.
It needs to get an emotional response
The quest for meaning and value is a huge component of the human experience – part of what makes viral content so powerful is the emotional response it elicits from the people engaging with it. If you want your content to have any resonance with your audience, it’s important to craft it with what your audience cares about.
Stories are the most powerful tool for eliciting an emotional response. When you tell stories that speak to the emotional triggers of your audience, you can better create content that will drive results for your organization. Whether you are using a personal story, a customer testimonial, or even a case study, leveraging a narrative into your content will help to connect to your audience on an emotional level.
It needs to be valuable
The need for valuable content cannot be overstated – if it’s not creating value for the end-user, why would they bother to spend time consuming the content? If you’re looking to create shareable content, anything that’s overly promotional or an advertisement will likely not be shared by your audience. Instead, lean more towards educational content like blogs, infographics, and white papers that are designed to provide relevant information to your audience.
Consider the “80-20 Rule”: 80% of the content that you post on social media should be educational and value-based, while 20% should directly promote and advertise your organization. The reality is that you’ll never connect to your audience by only sharing ads. If you limit the amount of promotional content that your audience sees, they may be more willing to act when they do see one.
Creating shareable content can be a powerful way to increase customer engagement and brand awareness. Share Moving Media has over 30 years of experience adapting business’ marketing campaigns to succeed in the healthcare supply chain industry. If your business could benefit from the creation of online content such as blogs, podcasts, webinars, marketing material, and more to set your business apart in the medical supply industry, contact Scott Adams at sadams@sharemovingmedia.com to set up a time to meet.