According to ComScore, social media is now the number one online activity.
Facebook notes that there are 60 billion 'likes' every month and 250 million photos uploaded each day.
YouTube shows that 100 million people take a social action (defined as a like, share, comment) every week on their site.
So how is your brand encouraging users to engage with content?
Here are three sure fire ways boost the amount of social sharing that happens on your website.
Remove the hassle of sharing
A couple of tips here:
- Fill your posts with concise, shareable meta data ... That way, when someone shares your content an accurate description will accompany it, making it more likely that others in the users social network will check your brand out
- Place share buttons in easy to find locations across your website
Incentivize Sharing
Using an incentive to encourage users to share your content is a great way to create buzz around your brand and/or product.
A couple examples of incentivized sharing could be:
- Sweepstakes
- Giveaway
- VIP access to premium content
- Sneak peaks at content
- Content download triggered by a social share
Choose your social networks wisely
It's likely you've seen websites that have 50 share buttons across the bottom of all their blog posts -- in fact, I doubt that you've actually heard of more than a couple of those social sharing networks!
Chances are that if you haven't heard of those social networks, then neither have your customers. To help make the decision on which social networks to include, ask yourself the following questions:
- Which social networks are currently driving the most traffic?
- Which social networks have a large enough audience to invest your time in?
- Which social networks are your competitors using?
How many social networks does your brand use?
