Shares have become the social media marketing equivalent of gold, especially for small businesses. Each share is a chain reaction where brand messaging is relayed to an entirely new audience, which can greatly help generate leads and sales. As it stands, Facebook is the undisputed king of social shares, making up for over 90 percent of shared articles in the first half of last year.
Engagement is a huge part of social marketing. It’s one of the main metrics marketers turn to when defining the impact and effectiveness of social marketing campaigns. When it comes to measuring engagement, there’s little doubt that social media shares play a critical role. Engagement like comments and likes are important for gauging interest, but shares drive reach.
What you will receive is a combination of what type of content is most sensible for your website and what type of content people will read, enjoy and want to share. From our engaging blog posts to specialized digital asset development and promotion services, our content marketing strategies aim to get you the most exposure. This translates to a multitude of benefits your site will reap, including:
People are sharing your content so make sure that it’s displayed in the best possible way across all social platforms. To get the most out of your social media shares, there are a few key elements that you need to optimize. Take the time to do this so you can be sure your content looks great on social networks and in search results.
Facebook Open Graph markup allows you to control what’s pulled from your content when it’s shared on Facebook. Having a strong headline and preview image can help get others to click on your link, so don’t leave it up to chance. You can read more about the markup on Facebook for Developers.
For easier implementation of this, as well as Twitter Cards, you can check out the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, which helps you install both tools. It also lets you customize the titles and meta descriptions of your posts, further optimizing your site for social shares and search results.
While you’re optimizing your website for social media shares, you should also do the same for mobile. People are consuming more content on mobile and they’re processing it much faster too. In fact, eye-tracking research from Twitter found that people consume content faster on mobile devices than on desktop. Facebook confirmed this, noting users consumed mobile content in 1.7 seconds versus 2.5 seconds on desktop. Make sure your website and blog are mobile friendly, and make it easy for readers to share your content from their mobile devices.
It may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how fast we as humans take a simple task and overcomplicate it. Remember that people are more likely to do something if it requires minimal effort on their part. This is particularly true of social media. Platforms are inundated with content and it moves very fast. If sharing something requires a large investment of time—either due to searching for a way to share or having to jump through hoops in order to do so—more times than not it won’t be shared. This is especially important when you’re trying to extend the reach of your blog or website content.
One of the most important elements, if not the most important, of your social content is the headline. This is what grabs people’s attention. Creating bland and boring headlines is one of the biggest sales-killers of online business. Your headline needs to be enticing, but also clearly explain what sort of information you will be sharing. This is one of the best ways for small businesses to set themselves apart on social media.
This tactic attracts audiences because it is easy to browse through and read headlines quickly without much effort before diving into the deeper content.
People are more likely to share something if it’s relevant, valuable or entertaining. This requires you to know about your target demographic and what’s their interests. Use a tool like BuzzSumo or Google Trends to research topics that are trending in your industry.
Similarly, Google Trends lets you explore what people are searching around the world. By analyzing search volume, you can discover the top questions being asked around a particular topic or event and then use that information to build out your own content strategy.
Scheduling out your posts so they are released during high traffic times can really help to boost shares and views. There has been a good deal of research conducted in regards the best times to share content on social media sites. Interestingly, the data concluded that each social media site has differing peak times.
For instance, Facebook posts receive higher engagement on the Thursdays, Fridays and the weekends and between 1 to 4 p.m. Twitter, on the other hand, is more active during the day from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., with higher activity during the week. Instagram has better engagement in the mornings and on Mondays, with lower engagement during the afternoon hours.
Consistently gaining social shares is one of the best ways to bring small businesses to the next level. Simply releasing content on social media and hoping for the best is not going to bring in great results. You need to strategize your methodology beforehand and plan for maximum engagement on social media.