Social networks offer us information that is free, fresh and continuous 24 hours a day 7 days a week; each time we decide to get online to our favorite social network, we find new or relevant content catered to our specific interests and timezone. We will always find something that’ll make us stop (even for a few seconds) to take a look to some viral post or comment that our favorite contact posted in an article or video.
The thing is, thanks to algorithms, the posts that might be relevant for us would hardly reach our feed if our inner friend circle doesn’t find it relevant too, and that’s the nightmare of the no-engagement that every creator and curator has had night after night.
Like for like
Then, how do we make people interested on the content we choose to share? There are many answers to this question starting with: KNOW. YOUR. AUDIENCE. While trying to stay away of buddhist subjects in the vein of “to know others you need to know yourself”, we will say that it’s important to walk a mile in the shoes of the consumer before offering any content or product, thinking about (even though we are not the target) how we would like the brand to talk to our need to convince us that this is the brand we want.
Having an idea that motivates people to share content will helps us give it a more clear and defined focus to the campaign, and beyond talking to the consumer in a “hi I am the product” way, talk to him in a “hi, I am the opportunity for you to feel good today”.
Nos let’s talk data. Social Media Today was in charge of compiling the information from many different studies that analyze the habits of the “sharers” in social networks to help them define a little what it is that is needed to make a post worth the share. They found the next data:
Audiences between 18 and 29 years old are found primarily on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, while 30 to 49 year olds are only on Facebook and YouTube. People over 65 don’t tread out of Facebook much.
If we compare the market share per social network, we find that people tend more to share things on Facebook, with a powerful 90%, followed by Twitter with a 6% and LinkedIn with a 2.5%.
The kind of content is also very important; while it is true that people love video, we seem to share more infographics and lists, because if a post contains some fun fact or educational data, it is considered as valuable content for friends and for our own image.
Shareable content?
One of the main reasons people mentioned when asked what makes them share posts, was to feel connected to their friends and contacts in general, this gives informative content added value that a brand can offer their followers, since this can help their need to feel good, informed, connected and relevant.
Now, let’s talk about gender behavior. Women tend to share more content also to feel connected to their friends, but the motive is to make them feel something be it anger, curiosity or happiness.
The frequent sharers are much more selective with their content on social media, they will only share information that will keep a certain image of them; they try to stay away of problematic themes and to that end, from political posts. In general, all people try to stay away from information that will make them “look bad”
Sharing emotions
Finally, we reach the conclusion that’s got us on the edge of our seat: emotions help us share. We only need a post that makes us feel any sensation to motivates to share it, the vast mayority of the shared content in social media makes us laugh or entertains us, however, the feeling that pushes users more is astonishment or to be speechless.
Definitely, sharing on social media is an art: as audience, finding something that motivates us to call the atention of our peers is complicated, and as content creators, hitting the nail with content that is well thought, relevant and wakes up the attention of more than one follower is like finding the black thread of Social Media Marketing.
Sources
www.socialmediatoday.com
www.frac.tl