The Simple Secret Behind Getting Your Content Shared

Content marketing is obviously about sharing content with your followers.  More than that, actually, content marketing is about getting your fans and followers to interact with the content you publish. The best case scenario is to get your followers share your content, basically doing the job of spreading your content so you don’t have to pay (often a lot of money) to increase your reach and brand awareness.

Content marketing is about getting your fans and followers to interact with your brand.

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Everyone out there will tell you that for your content to have an impact among your followers, it should be original, well written, well organised and, of course, interesting.

But how do you really make your content something people will want to interact with and share?

Also Read: The Complete Guide to Creating Perfect Social Media Posts

First of all, let me clear the sky: there is no certain way of achieving social media engagement. No matter how good your content piece is, no one can guarantee it will be shared or engaged upon. Whoever tells you so, is simply planning on using a lot of advertising money to reach a maximum of people who may or may not care at all about your brand, content or product.
There is, however, one simple truth behind whether content will be shared or not: It must be a story worth re-telling.

The simple truth behind getting your content shared: It must be a story worth re-telling.

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A Story Worth Re-Telling

A story, no matter what the story is actually about, which industry it covers or whom it was written for, is interesting if it connects to the person reading it in away that will make this same person want to re-tell the same story to their friends.

Yes, your content becomes interesting for your followers when it makes them feel powerful about themselves. How? Because it changes their state of mind, challenges their knowledge or make them feel good about themselves.  It is that element of your content that will get people to share it.
Guy Kawasaki refers to this element as enchantment.

Enchantment: The art of changing hearts, minds and actions.

Enchantment is about inspiration, entertainment, enlightenment and education. Enchantment means that people will like, comment and share your content because they feel it connects to them, not because they care for your brand.

People will share your content because it connects to them, not because they care for your brand.

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People Do Not Care About Your Brand

Your fans and followers probably genuinely like your brand. They use, wear or consumer your products because they like them, because it makes them feel good. And this brings them back to your brand again and again.
However, when it comes to sharing your branded content, they will only do it when they think doing so makes them look good, them, not you:

• - People do not share social media content to promote your brand, they think it is your job   to do so, not theirs.
• - People do not care if you gain more followers or not
• - People do not share your content because of your product’s value or benefits

In fact, no more than 33% of social media interactions with a brand have to do with the product or brand experience.  The majority of content sharing occurs for very personal and selfish reasons.

People Share Content Because It Makes Them Look Good

Yes, we are all selfish individuals, on social media at least. People will share content on social media because it makes them look cool, smart, controversial, funny, insightful, or trendy. In fact, selfish motives cover more than 66% of the reasons why someone will share information.

66% of the reason why people share your content are selfish motives.

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May I remind you of how popular selfies are?

Let’s Sum Up

People will like, comment and/or share your content because:

1. They love it
2. They identify / It had an impact on them
3. They think it will make them look cool

People will not interact with your brand because:

1. They want to promote your products
2. They want to help you gain followers
3. They are proud of being one of your customers

People will NOT share your content to help you gain awareness: Click To Tweet

Great content is about making an impact, getting people to identify and making them believe they will look great when sharing it.

What do you think? Will you share this story?

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6 Qualities to Make Your Videos Go Viral

Viral content is highly coveted, but getting your videos to go viral is no easy feat. Highly sharable content can give your business a lift, leading new people back to your site and increasing conversions. Creating a viral video, however, is far from easy.

Having a piece of content go viral is like winning the Internet’s version of the lottery. It’s incredibly difficult to achieve and often hard to replicate. For every viral video success, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of failures. Even Upworthy, the king of virality, only has 0.3 percent of posts going viral.

But there are still actions you can take to improve your odds of viral success. Help your company reap the benefits of video with these six tactics to help your videos go viral:

Be Short and Sweet

Keep in mind, you’re creating content for the 140 character Twitter generation. Our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, which means it’s time to tighten up your video content. A survey published in The New York Times found more than 19 percent of people had left a video after only 10 seconds. By a minute in, the video had lost a staggering 44 percent of viewers.

Since you’ll lose almost half of your audience by the end of minute one, put your most interesting, fascinating, funny, or surprising information first and foremost in your video. Creating viral video content is one place where you never want to save the best for last.

Be Upbeat

Jonah Berger, author of the book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, found the most highly sharable content tended to evoke strong emotions in the reader or viewer. And of those emotions, the most sharable content tended to be that which had a positive or upbeat note. Using empirical research, Berger and UPenn Professor Katherine Milkman found happy emotions tended to outperform sad emotions in the realm of sharability.

To be sharable, content needs to strike an emotional chord in viewers. These same viewers are more likely to share upbeat content, so if you want your videos to go viral, it’s important to strive for a positive spin.

Be Timely

If you want your videos to make the jump to virality, it might be time to brush up on your current events. By hooking into an existing Internet meme or popular topic, you increase the odds your content will be viewed and shared by those already interested in the topic.

This can be anything from a current event in the world, to a pop culture topic dominating the news. For example, just look at how many parodies of popular entertainment like Game of Thrones and Frozen exist on video channels. If you speak the same language as your target audience and present interest in the same topics, they’ll be more likely to share your content.

Be Involved

One of the keys to virality is engagement. Engaging with an audience can lead to loyalty and interest. After all, everyone likes to be heard. This is the approach taken by companies like Old Spice in several of advertising campaigns.

At one point, the Old Spice man, played by actor Isaiah Mustafa, answered fan questions on social media in short YouTube videos. Adding an engagement portion to your videos, like answering viewer questions, can give your content a boost and make it more sharable.

Be Informative

Your audience is always searching for new information and better ways to perform everyday tasks. If your video content is interesting and informative, it is also highly sharable. Everyone wants to learn something they didn’t already know, and videos can be a great tool for curating top-notch information.

At my company Pluto.TV, we curate the best videos for viewers, whether they’re looking for world news or cat videos. You need to take a similar approach to your videos, and curate the best and most informative content to surprise and inform your viewers.

Be Inspiring

By now, the incredible story of Upworthy’s success is old news. The site skyrocketed to more than six million unique page views per month in its first year, thanks in part to its famous (and infamous) headlines. Another reason is because the site looks to find inspiring stories to share with their large readership.

To get the viral edge you want, look for stories to inspire your readership, whether it’s a story of overcoming struggle, standing up in the face of adversity, or just finding success. Audiences love a good inspirational story, and the more inspirational it is, the more your audience will want to share it with others.

Creating viral videos isn’t easy — if it was, every business would have a few viral hits. These six pieces of advice can help you improve your content’s sharability and quality, improving your odds at viral success. See more:

What are your tips for creating viral videos? Share in the comments!

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