Engaging the audience
The traditional marketing means involved putting your message on a banner somewhere on the street and hoping a passerby will notice it. However, the 21st century brought us a rapid transition to information society dominated by social media, customized content, and short-living trends.
There’s a huge benefit to all that: the audience now does all your work in the terms of marketing. Every time people find something engaging, they will share it with their friends via social media and thus further empower your campaign. In order for you to reap all the benefits of social media sharing, our team here at BBox has done all the necessary research and compiled a few hints you should consider.
Easy to share
The first one is painfully obvious. The content you post online has to have an option for easy sharing, because people, and this may sound cruel, can’t afford spending too much time. Imagine yourself riding in public transportation, there’s a huge crowd, you have only one hand available and just enough space to move your thumb up and down.
There’s one clever little thing you can do. Apart from using only hyperlinks, you can add some hashtags and a custom title to your sharing buttons, so your audience wouldn’t have to spend any extra effort on coming up with a snarky title.
A picture speaks a thousand words
Humans have been using visuals to convey a message since the early days of cave-dwelling. It outdates written words by a couple of orders of magnitude and it’s no wonder marketers have been tirelessly utilizing its advantages. Just look at any user guide for any home appliance and you’ll get the picture (drum roll).
Jokes aside, here are some quick facts: over 70% of our sensory input goes through our eyes, 50% of your brain is dedicated to visual processing and it takes a tenth of a second for your brain to process the image once you see it. So make sure to add a video or an image to all of your content and try to make it simple yet eye-catching. Avoid graphs and even if you don’t have images of your own, try some stock images instead.
We all need to belong
From Aristotle’s Zoon Politikon to Thomas Hobbs’ Leviathan, there always existed awareness of people’s need to belong, whether to small groups or bigger and more complex social structures. Social media is, therefore, no phenomenon, but a natural progression of social networking in the Age of the Internet.
Your biggest priority is understanding your demographic. What is it that makes them tick? What are they passionate about? Try to make your message about a cause everybody can rally behind. That way, your audience will feel connected to a bigger group of people and are more likely to share it further.
Make it interesting
Belonging in a group is just one half of the picture. The other half is making an impact as a unique individual. Everybody wants to be considered smart because it boosts our self-image and self-respect. Ultimately, the society is the only provider of the sense of self-worth.
Our research shows that, when asked what kind of stories they share on social media, a staggering 48% percent of people surveyed claim they share things their friends will find interesting. So whatever you do, try to make your content funny and ticklish just enough so that people can get hooked.
Make it useful
A quick question: what would you rather follow? A Youtube tutorial with or without any links? That’s right! Our research shows that content that has practical use in real life garners way more attention, especially if there is something to take away.
Whenever you have the opportunity, try to infuse some advice or a practical piece of knowledge. If the type of content you’re providing doesn’t allow for that, at least try to reward your audience in any way possible or try to create an incentive of some kind. Sometimes, a simple link to your sources can lead you a long way.
Make an impact
Do you remember your first birthday? Or your first kiss? Of course, you do, because those were unpredictable, new, and fantastic events you never took part in before! Same goes with content: originality is what makes people freeze on the spot, take a look at your message, and acknowledge it.
Finding something rare immediately makes it special and valuable, and it’s the same case with content. People are more likely to share something they or their friends have never seen before. Remember, it doesn’t have to be something unheard of, just a simple little gimmick like a meme or a viral video can make a lot of difference.
Let’s sum it up
If you combine all these factors together you get what is known as share triggers. Content rich with share triggers is the one that’s easy to distribute, interesting, original, emotional, and useful. Our experts here at BBox advise making your message as visual as possible avoiding long forms, and tedious details.
Once again, we point out that not all content is the same nor does it require the same set of share triggers to succeed. Learn about your audience, see what brings them together and try to tailor a content suitable to their needs.
