The Simple Secret Behind Getting Your Content Shared

Content marketing is obviously about sharing content with your followers.  More than that, actually, content marketing is about getting your fans and followers to interact with the content you publish. The best case scenario is to get your followers share your content, basically doing the job of spreading your content so you don’t have to pay (often a lot of money) to increase your reach and brand awareness.

Everyone out there will tell you that for your content to have an impact among your followers, it should be original, well written, well organised and, of course, interesting.

But how do you really make your content something people will want to interact with and share?

Also Read: The Complete Guide to Creating Perfect Social Media Posts

First of all, let me clear the sky: there is no certain way of achieving social media engagement. No matter how good your content piece is, no one can guarantee it will be shared or engaged upon. Whoever tells you so, is simply planning on using a lot of advertising money to reach a maximum of people who may or may not care at all about your brand, content or product.

There is, however, one simple truth behind whether content will be shared or not: It must be a story worth re-telling.

A Story Worth Re-Telling

A story, no matter what the story is actually about, which industry it covers or whom it was written for, is interesting if it connects to the person reading it in away that will make this same person want to re-tell the same story to their friends.

Yes, your content becomes interesting for your followers when it makes them feel powerful about themselves. How? Because it changes their state of mind, challenges their knowledge or make them feel good about themselves.  It is that element of your content that will get people to share it.

Guy Kawasaki refers to this element as enchantment.

[quote]Enchantment: The art of changing hearts, minds and actions.[/quote]

Enchantment is about inspiration, entertainment, enlightenment and education. Enchantment means that people will like, comment and share your content because they feel it connects to them, not because they care for your brand.

People Do Not Care About Your Brand

Your fans and followers probably genuinely like your brand. They use, wear or consumer your products because they like them, because it makes them feel good. And this brings them back to your brand again and again.

However, when it comes to sharing your branded content, they will only do it when they think doing so makes them look good, them, not you:

• – People do not share social media content to promote your brand, they think it is your job to do so, not theirs.
• – People do not care if you gain more followers or not
• – People do not share your content because of your product’s value or benefits

In fact, no more than 33% of social media interactions with a brand have to do with the product or brand experience.  The majority of content sharing occurs for very personal and selfish reasons.

People Share Content Because It Makes Them Look Good

Yes, we are all selfish individuals, on social media at least. People will share content on social media because it makes them look cool, smart, controversial, funny, insightful, or trendy. In fact, selfish motives cover more than 66% of the reasons why someone will share information.

May I remind you of how popular selfies are?

Let’s Sum Up

People will like, comment and/or share your content because:

1. They love it
2. They identify / It had an impact on them
3. They think it will make them look cool

People will not interact with your brand because:

1. They want to promote your products
2. They want to help you gain followers
3. They are proud of being one of your customers

Great content is about making an impact, getting people to identify and making them believe they will look great when sharing it.

What do you think? Will you share this story? ;)

Related Stories:

• With Save, Facebook Lets You Bookmark Posts For Later
• Are Social Media Managers “Just Posting Things on Facebook”?
• 5 Things To Check Before Publishing Your Next Blog Post

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