Ever wonder why some posts to social media are shared and others are skipped? Well, there are many variables that go into whether or not people engage with your posts and pages. From the content you share, to the time and day you share it, all the way to the tone of the content and the emotional reaction it evokes on your audience.
-
Content- is the content interesting and have value to the reader or is it simply trying to sell them something?
Some people would agree that content is king. If you’re writing articles, designing advertisements, making movies, writing books, making photographs, designing a website, writing songs, playing music, even your product standing alone; what all these have in common is they are mediums of which to disperse content and their sustainable, long-term success depends on the quality of that content or product. There are several proven types of content that perform better than others and presentation strategies to keep in mind include:
- ‘How-to’ posts that walk the audience through resolving a problem and lists of no more than 10 items average better performance.
- Video-based content is rising in popularity and response
- Long-form written content typically out performs shorter form written content in number of shares
- Having at least one image will lead to more shares. People are more likely to click on unique professional images rather than stock or amateur photographs.
- Lists and infographics have a higher average share than other content
-
Timing- are you posting at peak times when people are most likely on social media?
In today’s world of overly saturated markets, content can’t purely exist on its own. It needs a vehicle to help it appear in front of a targeted audience. It needs to stand out on social media. So if content is king, it’s vital to remember distribution (social media) is queen and what day of the week and time of day you choose to publish your posts to social media can have a huge effect on its success and engagement.
- The best time to share on social media varies on the platform
- There are competing statements about the best time to share, so do some testing on your own to see when you get the most engagement for your audience.
- This infographic is a good starting point
-
Emotion- what type of mood and feeling does the content of your post fuel and what is shared most?
It’s no surprise that successful posts tend to appeal to a person’s narcissistic side, and for that matter, it is a platform for obsessions of self-image. People like to share things and talk about themselves. But that’s not all:
- Practical and useful content and content that arouses emotion are two takeaways from a study called ‘What Makes Online Content Go Viral.’
- According to this study, the most popular three forms of emotional arousal from a sampling of the top 10,000 most-shared articles are awe (25%), laughter (17%), and amusement (15%).
- Positive content is more viral than negative content, however, content that evokes a high arousal emotion reigns.
- People share content as a way to grow and nourish relationships as well as define ‘self’
- Trustworthy and valuable content is more likely to be shared. Remember the 80/20 rule- 80% of the time you should be sharing educational content and 20% of the time it should be posts geared towards your brand or company.
There are endless variables that have significant roles on social media engagement and sharing and there are some common social media mistakes that can do permanent damage. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to define what your company and brand image will be and your strategy going forward. Are you a quiet company, or do you want to cause a little social-media stirrup to gain traffic? There is also an opinion that content is less effective than, say, stirring an emotional reaction to drive traffic. While that tactic may work in the short-term, ultimately you’ll see a greater ROI with loyal, returning customers if you offer quality vs. jumping into a flow of gimmicks that are “here today, gone tomorrow.”
For more information about marketing in the digital age, be sure you check out Paveya’s digital marketing blog.
Information for this post was compiled from research by Hubspot, KissMetrics, BuzzSumo.
