Do not jump into Social Media if you do not understand the psychology behind sharing. Too often I have seen people sharing multiple mindless posts on social media, just because they need to share. They believe by just sharing they will increase their following and gain traction to pull people towards their brand. It is one of the biggest mistakes because \”just sharing\” is not going to increase your following.
Let\’s first understand why people share? What makes a post go viral?
The first thing to recognize is no one can set out with the intention of creating a viral post and be guaranteed success but understanding why can greatly improve your odds. Therefore, it comes down to knowing the purpose of social media and why people sign up in the first place.
People sign up for social media because it is a form of communication. They want to stay in touch with friends, they want to express themselves and they want to share content that will help them in one way or another.
When we socialize in the real world, a lot of this involves thinking about the image we want to portray. That’s why we wear certain clothes, buy certain things and believe certain stuff. It’s also why we’re so keen to tell people all about ourselves! That narcissism is even more apparent on social media where most of what we post is about ourselves!
So if you create an online quiz, then you can understand why it is likely to be very successful with people sharing their results! Moreover though, if you create a blog post with a very clear identity that says something about your readers – then people will share that as a way to show that they identify with what you’ve said and this, in turn, allows them to express themselves in that way.
Whether you make a blog post or create a survey about fitness, lots of people in the fitness industry will share the content to show who they are and that it forms part of who they are.
The other reason someone might share content is to show they’re thinking of someone and to show that they understand them. Again, this is why it’s such a good idea to post with a very specific target audience in mind and not to try to cater to everyone! If you write a post about the health benefits of stretching, then you’ll find that people share it with their friends if they know that their friends like to stay healthy. Try to trigger the ‘Ooh, Sarah will like that!’ effect.
This will only work if your posts are highly valuable. Your post title can be as on-point as you like but that will only take you so far if your content is poor. If your friend tagged you in a post and you read it only to find that it was poorly written and very dull, you’d likely just be annoyed at them!
So make sure that your content is of good quality and that means not only in terms of the subject matter and offering value but also in terms of the way it is written and even the way it is presented.
Great content is long, in-depth and filled with useful takeaways.
In Builderall we now have another method in creating awesome posts – the Quizz Builder. Creating a personality test for an example, will surely create a viral effect if it was created for the audience in mind.
Try it out today. If you do not yet have a Builderall Account. Get yours today.