How to Create Share Worthy Content and Viral Campaigns for Social Media

This is a guest post written by Patrick Meninga of Make Money With No Work.

Does your social media strategy consist of integrating Facebook “like” buttons on your website?

Most people will hesitantly agree that this is pretty much the case, so let’s dig deeper for a moment.

Promoting your business should always include some form of content planning.

The goal is to publish content on your website that invites your site visitors to share it with others and help spread your message in a viral fashion.

Social media sharing is one of the end results, but we can shape this process by focusing on our content creation process.

If you want people to share your message, then build better stuff to begin with!  Let’s look at a few different ways that we can do that.

Use existing data to point you in the right direction

Your website should already have some clues as to what type of content is a winner for your audience.  Look in your Analytics package and sort to see your top content by pageviews or visits.

You might ask yourself a few questions about the top 20 articles, such as:

• Which articles have the most comments (and thus user engagement)?
• Which articles have the lowest bounce rate (and thus have a message that resonates well with your audience)?
• Which articles have the most incoming links?
• Which articles have done well in the past via social media?

When you are planning out future content, consider what your audience has responded to in the past, and use that as a guide to create more “winners.”

Promote, test, measure, repeat

Creating share-worthy content should become an iterative process for you.

This means that you are going to consciously create new content with the goal of surpassing the performance of older content.  What you choose to measure is up to you based on the goals of your promotional strategy, so you may be judging your content based on the number of reader comments, number of Facebook likes, or whatever the case may be.

But each new piece of content should seek to set a new record when measured against your older content.  If it fails to do so, then you have learned something, and you can then try something else.

If it succeeds, then you are onto something, and you should run with your idea and see if you can create more “winners.”

The web makes it very easy to test and measure success in this manner, so take advantage of the lessons you are learning when your audience responds (or does not respond) to your new content.

This testing process is important because eventually you can use this information to create custom content that you know will do well with your audience.  You can then be more confident that any dollars spent promoting such content will be well spent, and your whole marketing strategy will become much more effective.  You will create less content in the future that fails to engage your audience.

Crafting share-worthy content for your website

So how do you get started creating share-worthy content?

Start with your users, your audience.  What is their most burning desire?  What do they most want in the world, based on the fact that they are visiting your website?

Start with that hypothetical “burning desire” in the mind of your audience, and then work backward.

Special attention should be given to the headline of your content, as that is where much of the “share-ability” comes from.

One strategy is to start with your headline, make a huge promise to your audience, and then write an amazing article that actually delivers on that promise.

For example, your headlines might be things such as:

“How to Double Your Social Media Engagement in 30 Days or Less”
“Use this Simple Social Media Trick to Double Your Website Traffic Overnight”
“How to Write Articles that Sell Themselves and Spread Like a Virus”
“10 Steps to Building a Social Media Following that Has a Positive Impact on Your Business”

Using the iterative testing process, you might brainstorm several dozen of these headlines, then get together with your team and pick out the top five.

Then, carefully write and polish an article for each headline, making sure to test the response that you get from your audience.

I recommend that you focus on delivering real value to your audience with such articles rather than aiming for hype or sensationalism.  That way, your articles will stand the test of time and continue to deliver real value and engage your audience for longer periods of time.

Successful social media starts with conscious content planning

There are thousands of cheap tricks and gimmicks when it comes to social media promotion, but a strong campaign starts with careful planning.

Start with your audience in mind and create genuinely valuable content that makes a big promise using a catchy headline.

Over-deliver with your article and then carefully measure the results of your content based on the metrics that are most important to you.

Keep brainstorming new content ideas and headlines, then test new content you create against your existing data.

Constantly refine your content offering based on the response and engagement.  Continue to test and to measure new content until you have reached your social media goals.

Related posts:

1. Social Media And The 80/20 Rule
2. What is Social Media Consulting and why does it matter?