3 Triggers That Make People Want to Share a Site’s Content

When setting up a business online, it’s the simple elements that can make content shareable. The good news is that a company doesn’t have to have a lot of followers to share triggers to work. We cover that in free webinar training and why it’s okay to start an online business and grow it from scratch. Wondering what share triggers are? They’re elements that make an audience want to share compelling content. If a brand knows how to use share triggers properly, then it may prompt an audience to share that content. Over time, a company, will hopefully experience great results. 

1. Create content no one will forget

Content Marketing Institute urgest brands to create content that no one will remember. That means publishing unique content that you don’t see every day. With all of the content out there that’s hard to do, but taking the time to focus on creating compelling content will only help your business grow. 

It’s incredible to think that almost 2.4 million blog posts are published every day. How do you make your content stand out and get lots of social shares?

Create memorable content because it sticks in the minds of readers like glue.

But how?

There’s an easy way to do it and I’ll walk you through it right now. I call it the zig-zag method. It follows the simple idea that when everybody zigs, you zag.

Make your #content stand out. Zig when everybody zags, says @JonathanGorham

You publish a piece of content that goes against popular opinion or you explore a popular idea from a different angle.

Don’t worry, your content doesn’t have to beat the world, it just has to zig.

Here’s an example. In the SEO industry, popular opinion says guest posting (publishing articles on third-party blogs) is a great way to generate traffic to your site, build your brand, and earn some handy backlinks.

Tim Soulo published this article about how guest posting was a bad idea. It grabbed the attention of a lot of people in the SEO space, picking up hundreds of shares and backlinks.

Tim zagged when everyone else was zigging. He questioned the consensus about guest blogging and backed his argument up with credible data. His article was memorable and unique.

TIP: If you use the zig-zag method, make sure to have credible data from a survey or free data available online. In Tim’s case, he interviewed several serial guest posters and used their responses to back up his argument.

Here’s a step-by-step formula for creating memorable content using the zig-zag method:

Step 1: Identify a popular belief/opinion/topic in your industry to write about.

Step 2: Flip that popular idea on its head.

Step 3: Check Google to make sure your unique idea hasn’t been covered a million times before (if it has, then return to the first step).

Step 4: Back your argument up with credible data. This could be through a survey, statistical data, or case studies.

TIP: Don’t overthink it, even a slight twist on a popular concept is enough to pull off this trigger.

Warfare Plugins says that if you’re not going to write informative or exciting content, then it’s not worth the time and effort. Ask yourself whether your audience will learn from your articles and what else you could add to them to create value. 

If your content doesn’t have any of these two qualities–informative and interesting– then don’t use it. Period.

Will your audience learn something from reading your post? Can they walk away feeling smarter or more aware of something they care about?

Is what you’re sharing more of what they’ve already heard, or are you giving a unique perspective that they haven’t seen before? (Hint: the latter is what you’re aiming for.)

Does your content make them laugh? Does it make them cry? Does it evoke any emotion whatsoever?

Keep in mind that the viral posts of today get shared because people found them to be entertaining.

2. Encourage an audience to stay connected online

Creating an online business is just that — being online. Staying connected with your audience is essential, and Entrepreneur also states that you should mingle online. You have multiple channels you can “mingle” on, so get to it!

Human beings are social creatures, and we like to interact in group settings. That used to only happen at places like church, school, work, parties, restaurants — places you went. Now, with social media, we have that same type of group connectivity all the time.

With these online connections, we can’t possibly mingle with everyone in our network — like we can at a party — so our way of “connecting” with everyone in our group is to like, comment and share their posts. Seems basic, but it’s the starting point for understanding why people like and share content.

See, social media is the modern group get-together, except that it never stops. Instead of having conversations with each person (remember AOL Instant Messenger?) we now like, share and comment on posts. But many times, people only interact with posts to make themselves more social. That needs to stop. Stop thinking about what you can do to earn a like or a share, and instead start thinking about how you can help people connect with their friends, family and causes they care about. 

Your content absolutely has to either make them look better or make them feel better by helping other people in their network. After all, deep down inside, the only thing we like more than helping ourselves is helping other people — especially our friends.

Here's an example: You’re scrolling through your Facebook feed and see that a friend of yours posted a picture of his/her new car, so you “like” it. Why? Because it’s your way of saying, “cool car, nice job.” In your mind, you’ve supported that friend and stayed connected, all with the click of one button. Will that friend ever know you liked their post? Maybe, maybe not. If there are tons of likes on it, it’s doubtful they’ll even see it, but it made you feel better because you supported them.

3. Keep it simple

Even though there’s so much to do and not enough time to do it, Warfare Plugins recommends keeping things simple. It’s easy to overcomplicate everything, but that will likely hinder your site’s growth. 

It’s human nature to take the easiest route. If we are presented with two different ways of achieving the same goal, we will always pick the one that is less demanding.

With this in mind, you should realize that your followers are looking for a quicker solution to their problems. And if you wish to get imprinted as a household name, then you should offer them such solutions.

By the way, I am not saying that you should be brief on your descriptions. All I’m saying is that you need to offer them a simple, step by step way of solving their problems.

For instance, let’s say that you want to teach your audience how they can write an epic blog post.

You should then focus on composing an article that is simple to understand yet is provided in a step-by-step manner. Avoid using lots of hard words or jargon. If possible use lots of visuals that give people bite-sized ways to understand what you’re teaching them.

These pieces become highly shareable and people are bound to share them on social media just because it’s easy to understand.

Try to engage with your audience’s content as much as possible.

Now, I know that if you’ve already got a decent sized audience, this is difficult to do. And obviously, you can’t just go around engaging with and sharing every single person’s stuff.

So what you want to do is start with those who are most vocal, most engaged, and who also have a bit of an audience themselves.

Make sure that whenever they post something relevant to your niche, you comment on it or share it with others. Reciprocity goes a long way.

Create that mutual friendship with other bloggers who have common interests.

If I can say there was one thing more important than any other in the success of my blog it’s that I made great blogger friends. I made friends by reading their posts, sharing it out, and interacting with them regularly.

Find the people you want to succeed alongside, and treat them the way you’d like to be treated.

Join us during our next free webinar training where we’ll continue the discussion on how to build your online presence, make more money, and ultimately, become an expert in your field. 

Sources: Content Marketing Institute, Entrepreneur, Warfare Plugins