Working out how to produce content that will be shared used to be a tricky proposition. However, over the last year or two there has been enough research into what makes content go viral to allow us to have a good idea at least about what to talk about if we want our content to be shared. We are told that there a few specific aims associated with good content, but be warned, they won’t necessarily work all rolled up into one! We’re talking about celebrity, humour, telling stories, creating a feeling of awe, delivering unexpectedness, creating triggers, offering practical value and trading on current social currency. Of course, hit on all of these and you’re probably going to end up with content that doesn’t actually make any sense!
It’s all very well knowing that these things are likely to trigger great swathes of shared content, but it doesn’t make it easy to achieve. We’re all still starting with a blank piece of paper. So here are some great ways to get from A to B.
Understand Your Goals
If you are hoping to increase social engagement on your site, then you should focus upon emotion to trigger shares. If you are more interested in driving sales of your product, then a video offering practical value is much more likely to benefit you. It’s important to match your needs to the different sharing triggers.
Understand Your Audience
It’s all about putting yourself in your client’s shoes. Why do they follow you and what creates their interest in your products? Are they also looking at products from other companies? Do these people understand your brand? Without a great understanding of your clients, it’s so hard to be able to create a strategy that is going to work for them. With a strong understanding of your clients, you can focus your content towards them much more easily.
Deliver Your Brand
Whoever does your writing work needs not only to understand your brand and your core ideals, they need to live and breathe them. They need to have an innate understanding of your company before they can talk on your behalf, so if you are outsourcing your work, make sure the content writers really understand who you are. This take communication and actually, a lot of hard work to illustrate exactly what it is you do and what you stand for.
Good Old Fashioned Brainstorming
There was a time when brainstorming was the new big thing. These days, it’s easy to forget all about it, but there’s no denying the benefits of sitting down with other key workers and throwing together ideas. The great thing about brainstorming is that no one knows where it is going to lead and the sharing and mixing of different ideas tends to lead to more creative and original ideas, which is always a good thing when you’re trying to come up with creative content.
Develop Your Brainstorms
Brainstorming is one thing, but it’s what you do with the results that count. You should be developing germs of ideas, and ranking those different ideas, not just into which are best, but also by separating the ideas into different categories which will work for different types of content.
Of course, this list of ideas doesn’t make creating good, shareable content easy, but hopefully it provides a framework from which to work. If you’re still finding it difficult to come up with the right ideas for your content, you can always contact the Ink Elves, who can come up with all the ideas in the world for your content needs!