5 Ways to Create Shareable Content
In today’s highly digitized world, plenty of people are turning to online avenues like social media and company websites to attract the attention of customers.
While in-person marketing is still very much alive, your campaign won’t be able to fully take off without some help from these online platforms.
But what’s the secret to great, shareable content? Here are five ways to get the right mix:
1. Choose the Right Topic
The first step to creating engaging – and, in effect, shareable – content is by choosing the right topic. An appropriate subject for a specific audience will certainly be the first step to winning them over.
If this isn’t your first time engaging in content marketing for a wide number of audiences, it’s time to analyze your previously successful works. Considering your audiences’ preferences haven’t changed, what has worked for them before, and how can you recreate it with a fresh twist?
But if you’re just starting out, there’s definitely a lot of help you can get out there. The safest way would be to first ride the trends, and make it relevant to your own offering.
Invest in tools like Buzzsumo to see what types of content are most shared by people, and how recent they are. Or use Answer The Public, this free tool will help you to find out the topics and questions that your readers are searching for
Trends are there for a reason – it’s because they’re close to people’s interests. Tapping into them can give your brand a great advantage.
2. Create Valuable Content
Reeling the audience in this far should merit just as much hard work from your content marketing efforts.
Some people might say the value of one content is subjective, but there are definitely some surefire techniques that can help you start out.
As a rough outline, you can draft your strategy with the following guidelines in mind:
- Write with personality – Your brand voice should never be lost to the audience. This is how they will know your specific style and filter it from the rest of the content that comes in on their notifications. Make sure this brand voice represents everything you stand for, whether it’s being fun, professional, or simply informative.
- Write a good story – A narrative structure will help you plot out your content from start to finish. This will also make it easier to write. Since most stories have information you need to fill in, like the setting, protagonist, and main plot, just think of your content writing as a story as well.
- Write something surprising – Readers can get tired of the same old topic, but if it’s written in a new light, they might actually find it engaging again. Surprise people with a new take on even old stories, and you’ll still gain quite an audience.
- Proofread content – Now that you’ve gotten all the content in place, it’s time to run over everything again to check for mistakes. Look for anything you missed in terms of content, structure, and grammar. To really get it right, you’ll need to move away from your work for a while. But if you can’t afford too much time for rest, there are also professional writing service that can help you out with proofreading.
- Have a clear CTA – Of course you will still need to insert your agenda somewhere in your content. But you can do this quite subtly with good content, and a clear CTA, or call-to-action. Do you want them to subscribe to your brand, buy your products, or check out your blog? You decide.
3. Create a Perfect Headline
Let’s face it: not everyone will read the entire body of your article. But they might be interested in what you have to say if you reel in their attention from the get go.
Riding on people’s interests can be a bit difficult, especially if you’re aiming for a more diverse crowd.
However, you’ll turn the right heads with the perfect headline. It won’t really take much for a headline that both intrigues and informs people. You just need to be wary of some crucial elements.
For instance, you need to explain the Who, Why, What, and How in a creative manner.
Don’t go for generic and overused headlines that give your topic away quickly as it is. Instead, put an interesting new take. Plenty of online sites can help you generate a good topic and headline.
Input the appropriate nouns, verbs, and other essential info you want your headline to have, and the site can do the rest of the work.
Other helpful materials, like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer, can let you think up of your own headline. Its job is simply to tell you how engaging your idea will be based on emotional impact and creativity.
4. Use Pictures and Infographics
A vast majority of people nowadays identify as visual learners. Infographics and other related types of visual aids can let the readers’ eyes rest for a while but still engage their senses.
The question now is – where do people find these great images? Well, there are plenty of online resources at your disposable, but believe it or not, you can also make your own pictures and infographics.
For infographics, tools like Easel.ly can give you great output that arranges all your data in a visually appealing way. On the other hand, sites like Canva cover a wide variety of visual content, from posters to simple pictures.
5. Distribute Your Content
The last step to make perfectly shareable content is content distribution. You can’t get anybody interested in what you’re doing if you don’t put yourself out there enough.
That said, visibility can be a problem even for the best content. Make sure you keep yourself updated on the peak times to post content. This will ensure that a wide range of your intended audience will be able to see your post, since most of them will be online at that specific time.
Learn to perfectly manage your social media posts and get your best content into people’s news feeds. You’ll produce shareable content in no time!