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Creating Shareable Content for Social Media

Colorful graphic of network of persons interspersed with social media icons.

The rate at which social media users share content has considerably declined over the past few years. CoSchedule gives several reasons why. At the top of the list is the declining number of social media users. Facebook, for instance, lost about two million active daily users over the past year alone. Only 51% of US teenagers aged 13 to 17 use the platform now compared to 71% in 2015. So what is the process for creating shareable content for social media?

Consumers are also more likely to be less attached to brands than ever before. On Facebook, particularly, users are more concerned about personal connections than sharing branded content. They are likely to share light moments with friends and discuss the well-being of their families over the sharing of articles and videos from their favorite brands.

Six Tips to Create Content People Want to Share

Since sharing is still the most effective way to expand your reach and engage with consumers, you need to find a way around the current challenges. Below we share six expert tactics for creating highly shareable content.

1. Learn from the competition

There’s no better place to start than seeing what the most successful brands are doing. What type of content are they creating to get so many shares? Round up the top five brands in your industry with the most shares. Then take a look at the content they’ve shared in the last six months, and identify the high-engagement content. Use this content to inspire your content marketing activities.

2. Adopt storytelling

The difference between storytelling and traditional content marketing is that stories connect the dots for your audience. Rather than creating random posts, storytelling requires that you begin by discussing the customer’s challenges and end by giving a solution. Stories are more appealing and a lot stickier than regular content.

3. Validate customer opinions

We live in a world where everyone craves validation. Everyone is seeking approval, whether for the things they do or those they say. They want to know that someone is listening and agrees with them; that they’re important. As a result, your customers are much more likely to share content that validates their opinions.

4. Appeal to your audience’s values

This is similar to the point above. We all have values that we live by. For instance, some people have very strong opinions on climate change or food preferences. If you want your fans to read and share your posts more, focus on their values and beliefs. Take your time and create content that focuses on topics that align with those values.

5. Be slightly controversial

Benford’s law of controversy states that passion is inversely proportional to the amount of factual information available. In other words, the fewer the facts known to and agreed on by the reader, the more interesting the topic or writing becomes. Things become boring real quick if everyone has the same opinions. Use various viewpoints when creating content to get both sides of a situation.

6. Write valuable content

Even as you seek to appeal to their values and opinions, always write content that adds value to the reader’s life. It doesn’t have to solve all their problems right now. Nothing can. However, through your content, you can inspire them and direct them to solutions to some of the problems they currently face. They’ll see your genuine effort and become emotionally invested in your brand.

It’s About Connecting with Your Fans

What would you ask for if roles were reversed and you were then one consuming the content? Obviously, you’d want to share light moments with your favorite brand. You’d likely also want a brand that shares your values and beliefs. A brand that actively tries to add value to your life. This is exactly what your fans want from you.

At the end of the day, it’s engagement that builds trust and momentum on social media. This means creating shareable content may take more work but can also have much greater returns for elevating your company to be seen well by the largest amount of people possible.


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