Despite Facebook’s dominationA recent study by KPCB found that, worldwide, people are sharing more than two trillion gigabytes of content. That means that every content marketer or social recruiter is facing a lot of competition for content. What sort of content should you create? And how can you give it the best chance of being shared? Here are the latest strategies.
Post in the right places
Industry expert ShareThis — creator of the widget that allows for sharing on 120 social channels — released an eye-opening study that showed Facebook now makes up 84% of all internet sharing. Twitter is next at about 6%, with Blogger at 5% and Pinterest at 3%. Email makes up less than 1% of all sharing, even though many emails include buttons like ShareThis.
Despite Facebook’s domination of all sharing, the study found that it’s actually Pinterest that boasts the most sharing in a number of categories: food & drink, beauty & fitness, home & garden, and shopping. Twitter does best with sports (the games are perfect for live-tweeting) and even beats Facebook in the news category. So if your organization is in any of the Pinterest-leaning fields, or if you have visual content like photos, cartoons, or infographics, you should post them on both Facebook and Pinterest for a one-two punch.
Create shareable video content
Once again, Facebook wins, with more than 80% of all video sharing taking place there, according to Socialbakers. In just the past year, YouTube has dropped from about 35% of video sharing to under 20%. In fact, more videos are uploaded to Facebook every day than are posted on YouTube. The best strategy for video content marketing may be to upload videos to your YouTube channel and then share them via Facebook.
Noticeably absent from both these categories: Instagram. Though it has more than 60 million users in the US, it doesn’t seem to be a factor in sharing, probably since the platform simply isn’t designed for it.
Both the ShareThis and KPCB studies show the importance of mobile sharing. Engagement makes up just 6.7% of desktop activity, but it accounts for 13.3% of tablet activity and 20.2% of smartphone activity. Together, mobile devices make up 65% of all social sharing. The typical user checks social media on their phone nine times a day, but checks the web on their computer only three times.
Don’t forget audio!
Video gets all the attention, but don’t forget about audio; 12 hours of sound are uploaded to SoundCloud every minute. So consider creating speeches, podcasts, and audio-only versions of webinars along with your YouTube videos.
Keep in mind what’s meant by “social sharing.” I agree with Ford’s social media director, Scott Monty, who believes that the “like” is the “minimum comment you can ask from a fan.” Comments are the next best, with a share being the ideal interaction. Keep that hierarchy in mind when analyzing your metrics.
What’s the real-world value of all this sharing?
A 2014 AddShoppers study concluded that a Facebook like is worth $1.41, while a Facebook share is worth $3.58. A Pinterest share comes in at 87 cents, followed by a Twitter retweet at 85 cents. Yet somehow looming above them all? Google Plus, with a value of $5.08 per share — possibly due to the rarity of such a thing. By comparison, AddShoppers determined that an old-fashioned email share is worth an amazing $12.10.
EventBrite came up with its own breakdown for the purchase of an event ticket: A share on LinkedIn is worth 92 cents; a retweet is worth $1.85; and a Facebook share is worth $4.15. This means you’ll have to get away from creating “clickbait” articles that generate clicks and views but no interactions. And no matter how you look at it, content marketing via social media has a financial value and should be part of your overall strategy.
As for the type of content to produce, Likeable Local’s CEO Dave Kerpen recently delineated seven important qualities. The more of these your content has, the more shareable it becomes:
Consistent — Post regularly so readers know when to expect your content.
Useful — Find a way to help, educate, or entertain your readers.
Authentic — Be honest and real instead of writing press releases for your company.
Emotional — The most shareable content often tugs our heartstrings.
Where the audience is — Find the right channels using the statistics given above.
Paid for — Add Facebook’s sponsored posts and Twitter’s promoted tweets to your strategy.
Storytelling — Tell the true stories behind your company, its leadership, and its employees.
Need help determining what content to create and where to post it? Brandemix has a long history of using shareable content to support marketing, branding, and recruiting campaigns. Contact me if you’d like to know more.
Jody Ordioni is President of Brandemix.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.
