Creating Contagious Social Media Content

You know shareable content when you see it – something so exciting, informative, or entertaining that you can’t not forward it along to your online community. And, once it goes viral, it can have a pretty monumental impact on the brand that created such contagious content. Since a pretty small percentage of your content will have power like this, craft a strategy that can put the odds in your favor.

Starting the fire with a single match

It’s all about relationships, at least according to the NY Times Insights Group. Their study found that people are inspired to share content based on their relationships with key motivators such as defining themselves to others, bringing entertaining and valuable content to others, growing and nourishing relationships, and creating increased awareness for the brands and causes that have personal importance.

Knowing this deep-rooted desire of your audience, you can apply basic strategies to create great content that they can share. A good starting place is “10 Ways To Create Contagious Content for Your Social Media Marketing,” written by Vinay Koshy and published on JeffBullas.com. While not included in entirety, the top-line takeaways from this online resource are generalized and summarized below.

The over-arching formula to shareable content is simple

Because your audience feels compelled to connect with each other, remember these fundamental principles to create a perfect content mix:

  • Tell a story.
  • Keep it simple.
  • Make it positive.
  • Make it credible.
  • Incorporate a sense of urgency.

Encourage social validation

According to The Power of Likes study, social media users were more likely to up-vote a pre-liked comment. Knowing that this “stamp of approval” may sway other people, promote to your established fan base and make sharing buttons prominent. Take a look at daFlores, a South American flower delivery company. With the help and insight from Conversion Rate Experts, they realized that some website visitors never heard of them. As a solution, they put up a static image that read “¡GRACIAS a nuestros mas de 600,000 seguidores en Facebook!” (“Thanks to our 600,000+ Facebook fans.”). With this simple affirmation of brand popularity, sales increased by 44%.

Spread the cheer

After examining close to 7,000 New York Times articles that had been shared online, author Jonah Berger found that positive news was more likely to go viral. An Ipsos study found that the items people most often shared were interesting (at 61%), funny (at 43%) and unique (at 29%). Rounding out this finding, a BuzzSumo study found that the most common emotions invoked by shared articles were laughter, awe, and amusement.

Focus on the layout

About 79% of people scan a page and pick out individual words and sentences while only 16% of people read web copy in its entirety, so says Jakob Nielsen. The more organized the content, the more engaged people will be. Utilize subheads to break up chunks of text, use prominent headlines to highlight a couple big ideas, rely on bulleted text for key points, and follow the inverted pyramid structure for writing your content – putting your most important points first in case people stop reading early.

Be quick on your toes

There are always relevant news stories that pertain to your industry and appeal to your target audience. Be the one that shares breaking news with your online community before anyone else. If there is a bigger movement that you can tie into, connect the dots for your followers with a trending hashtag and the like. Stay in front of the story and become the story.

Make an emotional connection

According to Antonio Damasio, professor of neuroscience at the University of Southern California, and researchers Raj Ragunathan and Szu-Chi Huang at the University of Texas in Austin, emotion is a leading factor in almost all decisions. To create shareable content that has an emotional response make sure you feel it first. Did it resonate with you? Did it make you laugh? Did it inspire you? If this post is going to go viral, you need to ensure that it has the power to move people.

Become a storyteller

At face value, your company is a company and your product is a product, and you need to ask yourself why either matter to your audience. Taking practicality out of the equation, and think about why people need you and your product or service. Connect your solution to an emotional need that’s greater than what meets the eye, and then present this story. Share powerful testimonials from your customers and make people feel you can do something that no other competitor comes close to being able to do.

Creating an emotional connection can be challenging so be sure to show (vs. tell) them your story by creating meaningful characters that people are invested in, staying true to your messaging, and continuing to build it (with new meaningful additions) from here on out.

Use controversy to your advantage

When you tap into polarizing emotions (i.e. love and hate), it’s very likely to get shared. People want to talk and debate about these issues in a public way. Clearly, you won’t want to let a controversial topic get out of hand where it can teeter into becoming a public hate forum, but present hot-topic issues in a shareable format that can position you as a knowledgeable moderator.

Make your customers look good

People buy products that make them look good and make them proud to represent the brand. Give them an outlet to show off their brand support, but don’t make it a hard sell. You can let them share their purchases and their brand loyalty, but don’t force their hand by making share buttons bigger than the product. Too much pressure to share can turn people off.

Join something bigger than your brand

The NY Times survey found that 68% of people shared content to illustrate who they are and what they care about. This certainly extends into businesses that can create a powerful impact (and shareable content) by supporting a cause that is meaningful to the brand and its audience.

Gossip?

What do you do when you come into possession of juicy information that is too good to keep to yourself? You share it. Leverage this same principle on your social media outlets and share exciting content that needs to be seen!

How are you faring?

If you’ve succeeded in creating contagious content, you will know it. You will see it in your numbers. To best gauge the viral strength of your posts, measure number of shares and engagement rate. If your numbers are lackluster, it’s time to revamp your content strategy before people write you off. Instead, create a spot where people visit with their morning coffee, excited and confident to find content that they can share on their personal networks. If you can make someone look good, you will always be a go-to spot for spreading content like wildfire.

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Reference: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/10/21/10-ways-to-create-contagious-content-for-your-social-media-marketing