Remember when your Mom used to say, “you need to share with your friends so they can have a turn.” I remember those days, and they were a loooong time ago, before the Internet was born. When my kids were young I passed along that same brilliant thinking to instill “sharing” in them. Maybe I should ask them if they learned to share their toys or learned to social share? Hmm… probably the latter.
Little did I know that social sharing would be one of the things marketers crave for their content and need to have in order to survive in our digitally-crazed world of 24×7 content flow – maybe our Moms knew more about the future than we thought? They usually do.
Google’s looking more and more at social shares as a signal of content quality — and thus, a reason to elevate a site’s content in the SERPs. So for better SEO, you should be incorporating social sharing and social media marketing into your inbound marketing.
Encourage Social Sharing
According to Melissa Leiter, she says there are three things we can do to encourage social sharing.
- Create good content
- Share your content
- Include social sharing icons on our content
Melissa is absolutely correct. Without great content, your persona may never read it, care about it, be interested in it, or worse, may never find it. If the brand doesn’t share the content, it will miss out on a golden opportunity to be exposed to the vast social-sphere and also allow those recipients to share the content with others. Lastly, having sharing icons on or near your content means you are making it easy for your readers to read the content and share it right from the same page.
Half of social network site users have shared news stories, images or videos , and nearly as many (46%) have discussed a news issue or event.
Create It Once – Share It Many Times
I think you probably get the idea. All of us need to share, share, share. Don’t create content once and use it once. Create it once and share over and over again. One of the most important things you can do with all of your content marketing once it’s completed is to share it as much as possible (without going overboard of course). You don’t want your content to be alone, reveal it, share it, expose it, let the world know it exists… besides, it’s good stuff, so don’t be afraid to let everyone know.
You’ll create a branded image, add some crisp copy and then have the option to tweet it, Snapchat it, Pin it, share it on Facebook, post it to Instagram it, or all of the above.
It’s All About Mom
Let’s get back to Mom for a second. If you are a marketer like me, you need to go thank your Mom because she is the reason why you are sharing on social media. Mom is also the reason why your brand is doing so well on all your social channels… you should give her your next bonus check – Okay, maybe you don’t have to go that far.
If you are unsure where to start or how to create a social media strategy, contact YourBrandExposed.com. We love helping small businesses tackle digital challenges. YourBrandExposed is designed to look at digital with an eye into the future using a creative, innovative marketing perspective. We’re a consultative and tactical resource for companies looking to leverage the power of digital, web, social and content marketing strategies.
Scott MacFarland
Web: www.Yourbrandexposed.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/scottmacfarland
Twitter: @scmacfarland
Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-macfarland/
Email: Yourbrandexposed@yahoo.com
Sources:
- http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/post-hummingbird-search-glossary-seo-list
- http://www.melissaleiter.com/social-sharing/
- http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/24/how-social-media-is-reshaping-news/
- https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-frequency-guide
- http://read.percolate.com/marketing_clock_designing_more_effective_marketing_process.pdf?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonuqjJZKXonjHpfsXx4uwrWLHr08Yy0EZ5VunJEUWy2YEAT9Q%2FcOedCQkZHblFnV8ITK2wRLYNrKUK
Photo Credit: HubSpot
Graphic Credit: Canva