How to spice up your sharing

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When it comes to social media, it’s not about you.

This is the hardest lesson to digest. Whilst your website can be as glossy and indecipherable as you want to be, if your social media content is, it’s going to cause barely a ripple on the interwebs. The key is to hook your audience with content that resonates with them.

Here are three ways to mix your content up!

1. Your title doesn’t have to be your tweet/LinkedIn/Facebook update

Sounds basic? And yet, this is a common sin. It’s one thing if you’ve spent time crafting a catchy and appealing title, but who is going to click on a tweet that simply reads “Press release – budget 2017”?

This approach also implies that you will only share your article/press release/blog the one time, which is another error. Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself online! It’s more than likely that your audience will miss it the first and second time around.

Here’s what to do instead:

  • After creating content, craft 3-4 social media updates that you’ll use to share the content with.
  • Vary the wording of these updates but also the format (use different hashtags to attract different groups, try out different media, maybe tag a few relevant users).

As an example, instead of “Press release – budget 2017”, try something like:

2. You can involve other people in your social media

If Twitter were real life you’d probably find it odd if someone stood in a corner of a room talking to themselves and ignoring everyone of them. Sure, social media has an element of that, but it really comes alive when you activate the “social” part of that.

This is something that can feel daunting for a business social media profile – but there are ways to open up the discussion. Here are a few ideas:

  • Hosting a chat. Twitter chats are a great way of building a community around shared interests. Your business could use it to elucidate a difficult to understand legislation for example, or bring together similar business owners to discuss a common issue.
  • Hosting a live chat. Similar to the above, you could host a live interview or Q&A, inviting questions from your followers. A tool like Crowdcast lets you livestream to multiple channels at the same time (Facebook, Periscope, YouTube, etc) to maximise your reach.
  • Curating. It’s been around for a while, but social media creates opportunity for imaginative ways to do this: curate tweets into a Twitter Moment, write a best-of article on LinkedIn Publishing sharing extracts of your favourite reads in the industry, etc
  • Ask your audience. Polls are a great way of engaging your audience, and it also leaves you with data that can inspire your next piece of content. Try a Twitter/Facebook poll, or an Instagram Stories poll to get to the heart of what your audience is thinking.

3. Get graphic

Ignoring visual content is foolish when it’s so easy to create these days. Whilst nothing replaces a qualified designer, you can create graphics for your social media updates easily using tools like Canva, Pixlr, Lumen5, Piktochart, Visme, Buffer’s Pabl, and more.

They say an image says a thousand words, and these visuals should grab the attention of a casual scroller, making them want to take the time to read your words.

When it comes to what kind of visual content, you don’t need to stick to just one type. I would recommend trying some of these approaches:

  • A video summarising your article, try Lumen5 as a shortcut.
  • Take a key quotation from your article and turn it into an image using Buffer’s Pablo.
  • Turn your content into an easy-on-the-eye infographic using a tool like Piiktochart.

 

Image made with Buffer’s Pablo in 4 seconds.

 

And finally, move on from the press release

Whilst sharing your content imaginatively will make a huge difference to your traction, if the original content is a dud, then this is a self-defeating exercise. Whilst press-releases have their purpose, they are not going to be of interest to most of your prospects and clients. Keep them, but also make sure that you recycle their main points into dedicated articles and blogs that translate and bring life to them.

Claire Trévien is a guest author for ClearView Social and a B2B Content Marketer, you can connect with her on her website or on LinkedIn.