Create Content Your Audience Will Want to Share
Why is it important to create content my audience will share?
How can I create content that my audience will share on social media and messaging services?
How can I plan my content strategy to promote sharing?
On social media and online, audiences are presented with an unimaginable amount of different choices.
From who to follow, to what to post, to what to like, to what to share, users have a lot of decisions to make. As a business trying to connect with customers online, it can be easy to get lost in the mix.
So, let’s start by putting yourself in your audience’s shoes.
Imagine you are scrolling through your social media.
While paid digital marketing can be useful in promoting your business, people trust their friends, family, community, and other humans more than ads.
To get more of that human touch, you might consider going beyond paid ads and creating a strategy that inspires users to share the content your business creates with friends and followers on social media or messaging services.
After all, if users are sharing content your business creates, they’re also sharing your business name and helping more people hear about your business while giving it their personal stamp of approval, like introducing you as a friend.
LISTEN UP
Sharing on social media and messaging is just a modern version of traditional word of mouth marketing.
You might sometimes hear this strategy referred to as the organic reach of your digital marketing.
There are the 3 keys to making your business one that people tell their friends about on social media and messaging.
First, you’ll want to establish a strong brand identity. From the colors you use, your tone of voice and personality, this identity should come through no matter where a person sees, hears, or experiences your business.
Second, make sure you are producing content that your target audience can (and will want to) share with their friends. How exactly do you figure out what your audience wants to share with friends? We’ll get into that in just a bit.
Third, once you know what content you are creating, you should set up a strategy for producing and distributing this content.
Start by looking into what social networks and messaging services your target audience spends time on and uses to communicate.
What content does your audience share with friends on these platforms? Resources such as SproutSocial, Hootsuite, and SocialMention can help you research and learn.
Ask yourself, what is your brand’s personality? Is it charming? Honest? Young and hip? Professional? Intelligent? Then think about what kind of relationship you want to have with your audience.
Maybe your brand is a casual friend, or it might be a credible, authoritative source your audience looks to for guidance. Use this identity to dictate the tone and language you use to speak to your customers in your marketing.
Consider using any combination of surveys, focus groups, and interviews with individuals to determine if you are on the right path. Tools like Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, and Google Consumer Surveys can help.
REMEMBER
Just like you probably wouldn’t jump into a conversation at a party without knowing what everyone’s talking about, make sure you do research and join in when you have something of value to say and know what you are talking about.
Next, start planning your content strategy to promote sharing. Content you produce should be based around utility, entertainment, or identity.
Utility posts give valuable insights and provide information. A catering company might create an instructional blog post about how to serve dinner to a large group of people at a party.
Entertainment posts are ones that make your audience laugh, smile, think, or feel something. A yarn shop, for instance, might create an impressively fast time-lapse video of someone knitting a giant blanket.
Identity posts resonate with the aspirations or lifestyle of your target audience. For example, a store that sells hiking gear could create a photo gallery of the 10 most iconic hiking trails in the world.
You might win your audience over by teaming up to make branded content with blogs, websites, and influencers that your audience follows and trusts.
Branded content is media purchased and promoted by an advertiser but designed to be editorial in nature, as opposed to traditional advertising.
A brand that sells cosmetics might team up with a beauty blog for a series of makeup tutorial videos, or an energy drink company whose target audience is hip hop fans could team up with a music magazine for an interview series.
If you are a larger brand, you can consult a digital agency that specializes in working with influencers. If you’re smaller, you can identify local influencers using social tools similar to the ones you used to survey your audience.
LISTEN UP
As you brainstorm ideas for content, know that visual content like photos or videos is over 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than text-only posts.
Make sure any images you post are in line with your brand style guides, and try to avoid using stock images.
A good way to encourage your audience to share your content is by showing them they have a stake in your brand’s success.
Imagine the yarn store from before holds a contest to decide on a new mascot. Fans can vote between a sheep, an alpaca, and a cat playing with yarn.
The store encourages its audience to vote in the poll and share it to get friends to vote too. When the poll’s over, they thank all who voted, and the fans see their influence when the winning mascot becomes part of the store’s signs and logo.
A contest is just one way to get your audience more involved. You could also feature user generated content, spotlight super fans by sharing their content that is relevant to your brand, or do a blog post about your fans.
Learning what content your audience likes sharing takes time, but it’s better to fail fast and learn than to spend a long time trying to create the perfect content.
It’s okay if something doesn’t work, just go back and try again. Keep in mind that if something in particular isn’t working, you don’t have to keep doing it just to finish what you started.
Instead, focus on what’s working, and keep improving upon that. Be flexible – know that just because something worked last month doesn’t mean it will work this month.
When communicating with your audience, authenticity and honesty are crucial.
You don’t want to sound or look like a parent trying to relate to their kids, or like an adult trying to sound hip. If you keep things authentic, your audience will respond well, and if you don’t, your audience will recognize that.
So, while you should make sure you are coming off as conversational and human and not like a salesperson, you should also make sure that you’re not trying to be someone you’re not.
DO THIS NOW
In order for your brand to create content your audience will want to share, you have to know your audience and yourself. So let’s see what you know.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
While paid digital marketing can be useful in promoting your business, people trust their friends, family, community, and other humans more than ads.
Content you produce should be based around utility, entertainment, or identity.
A good way to encourage your audience to share your content is by showing them they have a stake in your brand's success.
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