If you have a blog or commercial website, it’s important to build an audience that keeps coming back for more. One way to facilitate this is by encouraging your current readership to share your articles with their social networks. To get started, you’ll want to put sharing buttons at the bottom of each post. The following techniques can also help encourage readers to share your content.
Use Humour
When you read a well-thought out essay or informative article, you might be pleased that you’ve learned something and go on with your day. However, if you look at a slideshow of animals wearing funny hats with witty captions, you’ll rush to share this with your friends and family and find that several of them have already done the same. It’s not that online audiences don’t appreciate well-researched think pieces, and these certainly have a time and place. Yet many are looking for diversions that they can have a laugh with friends over. If you’re wondering how to get your website on Google search but also attract the social media crowd, you’ll want to consider creating content that combines keywords, topical research, and a good dose of humour.
Make it Timely
The other type of content that is frequently shared on social media is content which relates in some way to current political or pop culture events. If your content is relevant to your readers’ daily lives, they’ll feel more connected to it and want to discuss it with their friends. To help facilitate this, be sure to allow comments on your posts.
Break up Content into Lists
Websites are primarily visual in nature. Your content will stand out and be easier to digest if it’s written using short paragraphs, bullet points, and lists. Readers are more likely to share “top 10” lists or articles that begin with “5 reasons why” because these are easier to browse through and digest. Make sure that headings, titles, and image captions are both catchy and informative, because this may be the only part of the article that your audience reads. If these capture their attention, they’ll be more likely to repost and share.
Don’t Be Too Pushy with Marketing
Self-promotion is a given in the online environment, but your audience is smart and doesn’t want to feel like they’re being tricked with poorly disguised advertisements. If a post comes across as inauthentic or spammy, you can kiss your chances of it being shared goodbye. Similarly, when you’re learning about SEO writing articles, you’ll find that creating poor attempts at stuffing keywords into otherwise irrelevant content won’t do you any favours. The best content may contain a reference to a new product, your blog, or your business, but it should primarily be entertaining or informative.
Use Visuals
If a picture speaks a thousand words normally, on the internet it can generate a million clicks. If a reader’s casually browsing through their favourite blogs, a strong visual stands a far better chance of capturing their attention than blocks of text. Slideshows are an ideal medium to combine compelling visuals with short blurbs of information, and videos have become an increasingly relevant form of content in the blogosphere. Furthermore, if you want your content shared on primarily visual forums like Pinterest, images must be included.
Building an online community takes time, but by posting topical, entertaining, and unique content and making it easy for your readers to share, you’ll find your loyal readership grow exponentially.