Shareable content is essential for standing out and gaining traction on social media. With algorithmic feeds, organic reach is limited, so creating content optimized for sharing is key. By incorporating specific elements that tap into human behavior and emotions, you can produce compelling content that people naturally want to pass along to their networks. This guide will explore some of the key factors that make content shareable, including emotional appeal, relatability, humor, surprise, controversy, utility, visual appeal, and tapping into current events.
Crafting content with these viral characteristics and social triggers will increase your odds of earning likes, comments, reshares and driving more users to your profile or site. Shareable content leads to greater engagement and better brand awareness. It’s about understanding your target audience and what motivates them to take action. With thoughtful strategy and the right mix of share triggers, you can create captivating social media content worth spreading.
Emotional Appeal
Emotional appeal in content refers to connecting with your audience by tapping into shared experiences, emotions, and desires. By crafting content that resonates at an emotional level, you increase the chances of it striking a chord and prompting shares.
Some tips for appealing to emotions in your content:
- Tell compelling stories and anecdotes that relate to your audience. Stories capture attention and help readers see themselves reflected in the narrative. Use vivid details and descriptive language to bring the story to life.
- Discuss shared experiences your audience can relate to, like nostalgia, challenges, dreams, etc. When you tap into common experiences, readers feel understood.
- Use emotive language and metaphors that conjure feelings. Phrases like “takes your breath away” or “warms your heart” stimulate imagination.
- Feature real human interest stories, not just facts. Put a “face” on content to build empathy and connection.
- Ask thoughtful questions to encourage self-reflection. This engages the reader’s imagination.
- Use humor when appropriate to amuse readers and create a bond. Laughter brings people together.
When content creates an emotional impact, readers are far more likely to hit the share button. Structure your content to appeal to hearts, not just minds. Share your passion!
Relatability: Creating Content People Can Identify With
Relatability is key for creating shareable content. Your content needs to resonate with your audience’s interests, values, and experiences. Use language that is inclusive and avoids niche jargon.
When crafting relatable content, put yourself in your audience’s shoes. What do they care about? What problems do they face? What makes them laugh? Communicate in a friendly, approachable way. Use examples and stories people can see themselves in.
Focus on universal human experiences like love, family, friendship, success, and overcoming adversity. These emotional hooks grab people’s attention across demographics. Tailor the specifics while keeping the underlying relatable theme.
Share thoughts, lessons learned, and humorous observations from your own life. This authenticity and transparency forges a connection with your audience. Just be sure to keep it focused outwardly on the reader, not inwardly on yourself.
Relatable content meets people where they are. It acknowledges shared hopes, dreams, and challenges. This sense of seeing themselves reflected builds rapport with your audience and earns their investment in spreading your content.
Humor
Humor can be a great tool for increasing shares if used appropriately. Funny, amusing content naturally triggers people to share it with others for a laugh. The key is using wit and humor carefully for your target audience. What a young, hip demographic finds hilarious may fall flat for an older, professional crowd.
Understand the sense of humor of your followers and create funny content tailored specifically for them. Inside jokes and memes can work well when crafted for a niche audience that will appreciate them. Just be cautious about humor that could come off as too silly, random or childish unless you know your audience will respond well to it.
Subtle, witty humor often has wider appeal than slapstick jokes or over-the-top satirical humor. Aim for amusement that makes people chuckle and think rather than laugh out loud. Clever plays on words, amusing observations and gentle irony tend to be safe options. Ultimately, humorous content needs to feel authentic to your brand voice rather than forced. Find your comedic sweet spot that aligns with your audience and personality.
Surprise
Sharing increases exponentially when content contains an element of surprise or unexpectedness. Our natural instinct is to share something that catches us off guard or reveals something we didn’t know before.
Using cliffhangers and avoiding obvious conclusions are great techniques for building suspense and surprise into your content. For example, posing an intriguing question or presenting a scenario with an uncertain resolution encourages readers to share it to satisfy their own curiosity or get input from others.
Surprise can also come from revealing an unexpected insight, fact, or statistic within your content. When you make readers exclaim “Wow, I didn’t know that!” you instantly increase the chances of them passing it along to their networks. Just make sure your surprise element is relevant and not random.
Overall, surprise helps content spread by tapping into our innate desire to collectively make sense of or speculate about something unexpected. With careful construction of intriguing narratives or framing of information, you can incorporate the viral power of surprise.
Controversy Carefully Cultivates Community
In moderation, sparking debate and discussion with controversial opinions or ideas that go against the grain can be an effective social media tactic. When aligned with your brand identity and values, voicing a well-reasoned but divisive stance invites commentary and conversation.
Dissenting perspectives cultivate community around shared interests by creating an opportunity for healthy discussion and vigorous exchange of views. Conversations thrive when there are multiple sides being represented. Social channels lend themselves to debates that might be stifled in other mediums.
However, brand accounts should tread carefully when wading into heated conversations to ensure the engagement remains civil. Content that alienates users or seems purely provocative is likely to damage credibility. Controversial statements should further a thoughtful dialogue, not just stoke outrage and toxicity.
Focus on facilitating valuable interactions, not just driving up comments. Disagreement and discourse are hallmarks of an actively engaged community, but healthy discussion requires some moderation and thoughtful framing of controversial topics.
Provide Useful Guidance and Advice
People love to share content that gives practical, actionable tips and advice. Identify knowledge gaps your audience has and provide useful guidance to fill those gaps. Useful content feels like getting insider information that makes life a little easier.
For example, create step-by-step tutorials, how-to guides, or easy recipes. Or provide expert advice to common questions your audience may have. When creating content, put yourself in your audience’s shoes – what type of advice would they find most helpful?
Useful content provides real value to your audience. It gives them knowledge they can apply in their own lives. So focus on sharing genuinely helpful tips and expert guidance. This type of practical, utility-driven content will get widely shared.
Visual Appeal
Including compelling visual elements in your social media content can significantly increase engagement and sharing.
People are drawn to eye-catching images, infographics, videos, and other multimedia. Our brains process visual information 60,000 times faster than text, so posts with relevant graphics tend to get more attention.
When creating visual assets, ensure they are high-quality and visually appealing. Strive for original photos and graphics made specifically for your content whenever possible. Avoid generic stock imagery that feels disconnected from your message.
Aim to use visuals that create an emotional reaction or illustrate your central point. Imagery that elicits joy, surprise, curiosity, or other emotions is particularly shareable on social platforms. Infographics that clearly communicate complex information also tend to get shares.
Ensure your images and videos align with your brand identity and style. Maintain visual consistency to reinforce your brand across channels. Repurpose top-performing visual content by sharing across multiple platforms.
Compelling visual assets boost engagement and give viewers a reason to stop scrolling. When paired with thoughtful copy, relevant graphics and multimedia make content irresistibly shareable.
Current Events
Thinking of current events and trends when creating social media content is a great way to make your posts feel timely and relevant. Linking your content to major news stories that your audience is already talking about can help gain traction.
The key is to put your own unique spin on the news. For example, when there’s a big celebrity scandal, consider how it relates to your niche or brand. Can you provide commentary from your industry’s perspective?
You could also leverage trends like new music releases, TV/movie premieres, or viral videos. Share your reactions or create content that ties into pop culture moments. This helps position you in the conversation.
When covering current events, make sure to share your distinct viewpoint rather than just recapping the news. Add insights that your followers won’t get elsewhere. Think beyond the obvious angles and provide unexpected analysis.
Timing is important too. Stay on top of the 24/7 news cycle and trends. Jump on stories quickly when they’re hot to maximize shares and engagement. But don’t force connections that feel like a stretch. Focus on newsworthy moments that authentically fit your brand.
With a savvy, strategic approach, current events can be powerful social media content fodder. You just need to put your own stamp on the story.
Conclusion
The key to creating viral content is understanding what motivates people to share online. Appealing to emotions, using surprise, relating to your audience, and providing utility are all effective ways to get people to spread your content on social media.
Here are some key principles for creating shareable content:
- Focus on eliciting an emotional response like joy, inspiration, anger, or surprise. Content that evokes a strong reaction is more likely to be shared.
- Make your content relatable and relevant to your target audience. When people see themselves reflected in a piece, they want to share it with their networks.
- Use surprising facts, statistics, images, or narratives that people won’t expect. Unique or shocking information piques interest.
- Add an element of controversy or debate to give people something to discuss. Sparking conversation through disagreements leads to more shares.
- Offer utility and tips people can immediately apply to provide value. Useful ‘how to’ advice or productivity hacks are very shareable.
- Optimize visual elements with bold images, info-graphics, and videos that grab attention in feeds. Appealing design showcases quality content.
- Tie content to current events and topics already trending online. Timely, newsworthy hooks drive relevance and sharing.
Creating viral content takes experimentation and keen awareness of your audience’s interests. But optimizing your content for social sharing can expand your reach exponentially. Focus on providing value, entertainment, or information your followers urgently want to pass along to their own networks. With thoughtful social content strategy, you can captivate wider audiences and grow an engaged community around your brand.