With content witnessing rapid growth in the digital marketing space, it is unsurprising to see brands increasing focus on creating compelling content. However, no matter how interesting your brand’s content is, it is of little use unless shared. Although promoting marketing messages via social media is a common practice, the key to content sharing lies in expanding its reach beyond your brand’s followers. By this we mean making it easy for your audience to share this with their connections. The Thismoment team researched how content sharing improves social media interaction and how this can be beneficial:

• According to the AOL and Nielsen study, social media is a rapidly growing medium for sharing content.
• This is good news for brands; the more they encourage content sharing the better chances of having their products recommended and further shared by others.
• Besides improving visibility, content sharing increases social media chatter pertaining to your brand, opening up opportunities for engagement.

A ‘Pinteresting’ Way to Share

While the skeptical few are still testing the waters, big brands like Revlon are making the most of Pinterest. What makes Pinterest today’s hottest social sharing site?

• Although Facebook, YouTube etc are great for sharing content, Pinterest’s impressive referral traffic makes it the much sought-after kid-on-the-social media block.
• If this isn’t reason enough for marketers to get on board, the visual appeal of Pinterest encourages users to share content with others.
• Pinterest can be used for more than just crafting up a sales pitch. This is beneficial for companies who want to promote their brand minus the sales talk.
• The Thismoment DEC platform supports sharing via Pinterest, with more powerful features coming soon.

The Ingredients for Shareable Content

Most brands today are scrambling to create their presence on the plethora of networking channels out there; but the smarter ones focus on increasing exposure for the content they create. What makes their content sharable?

• Industry Specific Content: Users logging on to brands’ social media pages mostly expect to see industry-specific information. While the occasional general chatter is okay, overloading audiences with irrelevant content does not make it worth sharing.
• Video Sharing: Videos are great promotional tools if you’re looking to increase the reach of your brand’s content. The Facebook and YouTube pages for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 (powered by Thismoment’s DEC) generated +15 million views globally. This campaign was a massive viral hit thanks to the highly creative promotional videos that were shared by Potter enthusiasts.
• Encouraging UGC: UGC promotes content sharing. Allowing people to contribute to your webpage and talk about your brand is a great way to make your content go viral.

Preventing Content Stagnation

There are several reasons why some brands find their online content bitten by the ‘immobility’ bug. Despite having followed the content marketing guide, there are some chapters that might have been missed.

• How Do I Share? Not finding the ‘share’ button near the content can discourage visitors from sharing something interesting; therefore, featuring the ‘share’ button in a hard-to-find place is not advisable.
• It’s All in the Headline: Headlines that are either too long to be tweeted or don’t stand out can hamper the ‘shareability’ of an otherwise interesting article. Our advice? Keep it short and interesting.
• Display Related Posts: Displaying links to related posts is a good way of reviving content that would otherwise be archived.

Conclusion

The golden rule of content sharing is to not make it all about you. Content sharing is synonymous with UGC, hence creating content that is sharable, interactive, and industry-specific is the key to extending its reach. That said, brands cannot directly influence or completely control content sharing. What they can do is ensure that their content does not stagnate. A good marketer creates high quality content; a great marketer focuses on improving social media interaction by sharing this content.

- Shama Ahmed
Thismoment