Six exceptional ways to get your content shared today

If a trees falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Creating great content does your brand no good if nobody sees it. Getting your audience to share your blog, video or coverage to their online network is, clearly a great way to make sure more people see it, as well as see your brand.

I’ve combed the web for advice on getting content shared, as well as adding my own insights and experiences, to bring to you six exceptional ways to get your content shared today.

Pick the right social network

The Digital Buzz Blog looked at how articles on Mashable were shared over a three week period. As you can see from the infographic, each social network has a bias as to what type of content its users share. So, when you’re planning your digital marketing strategy, be sure to focus on the right channels.

Write like yourself, says Lifehacker

“There are millions of blogs on the web today, so it isn’t easy to stand out. However, if you notice, the top or most popular bloggers have large readerships because of their unique voices and perspectives and the interesting things they share.”

Make it easy and compelling

At university, my PR lecturer Bill Nichols drilled into us that everything we do must be easy and compelling. In digital, it must be easy to share your content, by including Like and Share buttons on the page. Your content must also be compelling. Think about what would make you want to share a post, of you weren’t connected to the company in any way. Is it of interest to your friends that like travelling? Or your colleagues in the sales department?

It’s not about you

Most marketers worth their salt know this, but when pressures set in from the powers that be to promote the company/product, or to create a certain volume of content, it can be hard not to give in. As ever, Econsultancy have written a great blog on content marketing, and their opening point is that your content should be about your audience, customers, potential customers, people you want to connect with on some level. And they probably don’t care about you all that much...

Talk to your otaku

Over the past 50 years or so, people have become very good at targeting the mass market, the majority. The thing is, they have become very good at ignoring marketing messages. They actively ignore TV ads, banner ads on websites, celebrity endorsements. So you need to find the people who are listening. Otaku is a Japanese term for a group who are obsessively interested in a certain thing, and Seth Godin advises you to find your Otaku, and talk to them.

People love pictures

It’s a well know fact that imagery helps engage people - from billboard advertising or a press release, to tweets and blogs. And social media platforms are changing to adapt to our love of all things visual. According to SimplyZesty,

“Images are easy to digest, immediately accessible, and don't require effort on the part of the viewer.”

To give you an example of something that has worked really well on social media, that I worked on a few years ago for HSBC. It’s called Expat Explorer, it is a tool based on survey results that lets you find the best place in the world for you to live, based on your priorities. Its blog was so shareable because it always had fresh content, cutting the survey results in different ways. It has a ready made otaku because a lot of people who move abroad create new communities online, and love to connect with other expats, which is what the blog and Twitter feed are all about. It increased its network by getting guest bloggers on to talk about their experiences. It was very visual, as you can see in the tool.

I’d love to hear about any other companies are people who do “shareability” really well.