Getting your content shared on social media is an effective way to extend your presence and attract more customers. But building it is easier said than done, as there is a lot of work to get followers interested enough to hit the Share button. Here is a useful guide to help you get a strong start in creating content that will be passed around faster.
A Strong Start With Hero, Hub, and Hygiene Content
To better understand how to build posts that have greater shareability, we need to look into an important content marketing strategy first. This is the hero, hub, and hygiene content employed by many brands. It refers to the three types of content you need to better capture audience interest.
Hygiene Content
The hygiene content serves as the foundation of the content marketing pyramid. Its main goal is to draw people towards your business. As such, you build that with users’ current interests in mind.
An example of a hygiene postTutorials, FAQs, and how-tos are some of the common examples of this type. They are designed to help answer people’s questions. By giving customers this useful content, you get their permission to engage them further on different platforms.
Hub Content
The next tier in the pyramid is the hub content. Its main purpose is to provide more value to the specific group of consumers that you are targeting. Additionally, such content is meant to gather these people and generate more conversations about your brand.
An example of a hub blog post.
Because of this, hub content will make the bulk of your material. You would also want to release it regularly to push people into action. Some of the common kinds of hub are blog posts, targeted promoted posts, and even landing pages.
Hero Content
This is the type of content that is at the top of the content pyramid. Unlike the previous two types, it is geared towards a mass audience. Your goal with this content is to create a lasting impression on that large audience and generate broader brand awareness.
What hero content looks like.
Because of this, it is designed to be the most shareable out of the three content types. Businesses also allocate a larger production budget for this to make sure that it delivers. Content designed for specific campaigns is a prime example of hero content, as they are intended to go viral.
How The Strategy Gives A Strong Start For Your Content
Now that you understand what roles the three content types play, you might wonder how they will help build shareable content. Here, you need to take note of their different degrees of shareability. This will help you effectively position each content on your social media channels.
As noted, hero content will be your most shareable posts and will draw people in. Once you have captured a certain section of that mass audience, hub content comes into play. While it is not as outright shareable as the former, it gives you a longer hold on the target audience.
The hygiene content may be the least shareable but it still plays a role in giving your other content a strong start. This is because it is information that customers would most often use with your product. As such, they are still likely to pass it around to their peers who might also need that info.
Making Your Content More Shareable
With shareability being an important factor in the success of the different types of content, you need to have a strong start in creating them. The first thing to do here is to tell a story to your audience. People best respond to something where they can see themselves in.
To build a story around your content, consider the problem that your audience is experiencing. You then present your intended solution. From there, build the narrative on how you can go from the problem to the solution. Be creative here, as you want something that doesn’t sound like a boring infomercial.
Strike Your Audience’s Sensibilities
Another way to increase the shareability of your content is by using it to hit the sensibilities of your audience. Note that you are already doing this by writing about their interests. But you can take it a step beyond.
For instance, you can use your content to appeal to their values. People are more likely to respond to a company if its values align with theirs. And they are more likely to share your content with their peers as a means of asserting those. By studying the demographics of your audience, as well as their response to your past content, you get to understand how they go about demonstrating these values.
Taking this further, you can also use your content to validate audience opinions. Much like the above, people are more inclined to share your content if they see that it supports their beliefs. This also has the added benefit of them seeing you as a reliable source.
Incentivize Your Content
Another powerful motivator for people to share your content is if they would get something in return. This works well for promotional campaigns that need to get the word out about your company as fast as possible. It has also become a popular mechanic for sales campaigns.
The incentive that you provide can come in different forms. But you need to consider how your target audience is going to use it. For instance, you can attach discounts for popular products to content that talk about them. You would also want to make the mechanics of the promo easy for your audience.
Go Visual
It can’t be stated enough that images and videos are some of the most shareable content on social media. As such, you would want to have a good amount of these integrated into your content. But you need to plan out how to better use these visuals.
Strong visual content
For instance, if you are looking to boost the shareability of your blog posts, you should add an image after every 75-100 words. This can make the post twice as shareable. You should also choose images that your audience can readily understand even without additional context.
Get A Strong Start On Social Media With Shareable Content
By using these strategies, you will be able to create a collection of content that social media users would want to share with their friends. When used properly, this content will give your pages a big boost. And be ready to look for more ways to increase the reach of these posts for greater mileage.