Shares have become the social media marketing equivalent of gold, especially for small businesses. Each share is a chain reaction where brand messaging is relayed to an entirely new audience, which can greatly help generate leads and sales. As it stands, Facebook is the undisputed king of social shares, making up for over 90 percent of shared articles in the first half of last year.
Shares are what can bring brand messaging to a worldwide level. Take Poo-Pourri for example: they started off as a small company that sold toilet deodorizers, not exactly the most glamorous or exciting product. But after releasing some humorous video content, they quickly gained popularity. One of their YouTube videos boasts over 39 million views!
So what are the tips and tricks to help boost your content strategy and take engagement to the next level, like Poo-Pourri?
1. Create compelling headlines
One of the most important elements, if not the most important, of your social content is the headline. This is what grabs people’s attention. Creating bland and boring headlines is one of the biggest sales-killers of online business. Your headline needs to be enticing, but also clearly explain what sort of information you will be sharing. This is one of the best ways for small businesses to set themselves apart on social media.
Buzzfeed is a site that has truly mastered the tantalizing headline. They post multiple articles a day, and each one features a title that is designed to grab attention by using humor, asking an enticing question, or providing unusual or interesting information.
The reason that Buzzfeed articles are so popular and are shared thousands of times per day is because the site utilizes the concept of “thinking fast and slow” with their content. This model means the headline allows readers to think fast, meaning it’s short and simple to understand, and typically piques some interest. Then the body of the content requires a slower, more concentrated thinking, like reading the full-length article.
This tactic attracts audiences because it is easy to browse through and read headlines quickly without much effort before diving into the deeper content.
This simple example illustrates the importance of nailing the headline. With attention spans shortening even more thanks to the ever-increasing amount of distractions online, using a striking headline will do wonders to increase clicks and shares, as long as you don’t fall into the clickbait trap.
2. Choose effective visuals
Including a visual element like a picture, video, or gif exponentially increases engagement. In fact, Buzzsumo found that updates with images resulted in 2.3 times the engagement than those without.
Like the adage says, a picture is worth a thousand words, so…
