22 Ways to Increase Social Shares [Infographic]

People love numbers. Numbers like email subscribers and twitter followers are the commonly talked about; they are also considered very important for online success. One other number that new bloggers struggle with but crave for is the number of social shares; this number is a signal for search engines to rank a site or a piece of content. If a piece of content has been shared a huge number of times – it most likely means it is funny, awesome or both. How do you increase the number of social shares of your content? Here is a list of 22 tips that can increase social media sharing exponentially.

You can use any of our Infographics in your site with a link-back to us.

Check out our Tiktok Marketing Tips and Instagram Marketing Tips.

1. Write Something in Detail & Provide Value

When you produce something epic and in detail that provides great value to the reader they naturally tend to share it. This is not about word count but rather the detail. Writing something epic truly takes time but well worth the social media attention. Look at the image below to see the correlation of content length with number of social media shares for a popular blogging site.

To make content socially valuable it needs to stand out from the million posts that come out daily, may be even more. It has to teach something, something the author learned, something the users can implement, tutorials or how to posts, tips and tricks etc…

Stats like number of shares, comments, feedback in social media, new followers or new email subscribers can all give an indication if the content has done well. If the content has not done well then we can check others content that has done well to learn. We can use tools like Buzzsumo or Quicksprout to check on popular sites or popular posts.

2. Create an Awesome Infographic

A good Infographic is tempting to share, something vibrant, colourful and informative. This Infographic ‘Secrets to being Productive’ on Entreprenuer.com was shared 46K times in social media. Infographics are also an awesome tool to convey complex messages quickly and make them easy to understand. Other awesome advantages of Infographics are generating traffic and backlinks to your site or blog.

3. Offer Something in Exchange for a Social Share

You can offer your viewers additional tips, a checklist or a report for socially sharing your content. Adam Connell from BloggingWizard.com does this nicely.

4. Do an Expert Round-up

When you do an expert roundup like the 16 blogging tips on BufferApp.com you can get more shares. Imagine getting each and every expert on the round-up post to share your content? Not all experts will share your content and that’s fine. If your post is of good quality then most of them will. This post received just under 5K shares.

5. Conduct Regular Interviews

It is possible to get great social media attention for one post using an Infographic or by doing a round up post, but what if you want social media love to flow through an ongoing basis? The solution is weekly or monthly interview with top bloggers in your niche. Learning from real life experts is the best education and this works advantageously for both sides; you get some quality content and social sharing while the expert gets further recognition and reach. BloggingTips.com conducts weekly interview series and introduces upcoming bloggers to their community.

6. Create a List of Tools

All bloggers need tools and resources. If you create an awesome list of resources then you are saving others heaps of time. Create a long list of great tools and provide a snapshot of their features, cost and usage scenario to help others. If your list is great like Ian Cleary from RazorSocial.com then you will get some social media shares. Ian got about 15K shares.

7. Incorporate Tweetable Quotes

This can be tips or quotes that are ready to tweet with a click of a button; no need to copy any text. Brian Dean from Backlinko.com does this to encourage and increase social shares.

8. Make Your Headline Irresistible

“A click-worthy title is actually worth a lot more than just a perfectly keyword-targeted title” Rand Fishkin of Moz. This is especially true when it comes to social media. Your content can be shared a million times but if your title is not irresistible to click then your click through rate and page views will be low. Enough said, make your heading red hot.

9. Share Content from Others

It goes without saying that if you want others to share your content then you have to return the favour. Beware, there is a science behind social media sharing like timing, frequency, words, and many more factors that you can find on 20 Social Media Hacks that are Borderline Genius – Infographic. You should also pay close attention to what you are sharing as not everything is share worthy.

10. Include Engaging Images

An alternative to having Infographics is to have engaging images; they help two fold.

• Images are shared more than plain text posts in social media,
• Images help with content engagement and catching a social media user’s attention.

11. Ask Readers to Share

A simple trick that works is to ask readers to share in your posts and even in your tweets. Did you know words like “please”, “retweet” are among the most retweeted?

12. Share Content in Peak Sharing Times

You can look at this in two ways.

• Share content in peak times for a network. For example 5pm to 6pm on mid-week for Twitter or Saturday mid-day for Facebook.
• You can target a time slot when your followers are online the most.

I did not pull these dates and times from the air so do check out 20 Social Media Hacks that are Borderline Genius – Infographic for more details.

13. Create Content that Invokes Emotional Reaction

According to Neil Patel from QuickSprout, content that evokes emotional reaction like fun, anger, positive or negative reaction can bring the highest number of social shares. Use the content’s heading and body to connect with the viewer’s emotional side.

14. Format Post so Scanners can Share

You would have heard many times that there are more scanners than readers. Images can get scanners attention and so can well formatted content. Small paragraphs, bold text, bullet points and images can all improve readability and convert scanners to take action.

15. Don’t Forget Mobile Sharing

We all know there are plenty of mobile devices that people use to go online. This number is only going to increase. Google even takes your website mobile friendliness into account in their ranking algorithm. Make sure you are using social share buttons that are visible in mobile devices, easy to use and last but not least test them. I just tested my mobile sharing buttons while writing this post.

16. Use Online Communities

Use blog syndicators like BlogEngage or online communities like Triberr. There are plenty of other online communities you can use; some are free to use like BizSugar and some have a fee. When you are part of these communities getting social shares is a breeze. In some communities you have to build a presence and share others content before your content will get noticed and shared.

17. Embed Social Sharing in Email

One cool trick you can use to get more social shares is to have social sharing buttons and the latest post in your email. Head to WiseStamp, it’s free.

18. Use Scrolling Social Share Buttons

If viewers to your site have to scroll to the top or the bottom of your content to find the sharing buttons then they will not be sharing your content as much compared to using scrolling social share buttons. Why? This is because of simplicity, ease of use and the buttons are in your eye sight all the time.

19. Keep Sharing Buttons to a Minimum

There are plenty of social media platforms and you cannot possibly put a button for all the available platforms without making your site look clunky. Target a handful of platforms and reduce the number of social share buttons to only those platforms you want to target. Neil Patel only uses 3 of these platforms in QuickSprout; they are Facebook, Twitter & Google+.

20. Use Social Share Call to Action

When you finish your post, have a call to action to share your content. You can also ask people to share your content in the author bio.

21. Tap Social Media Influencers

Another trick you could employ to get more social shares is to find influencers on particular social media platforms. Follow the influencers and share their content and try to build a rapport with them. Hopefully your content and the relationship can do the rest.

22. Use Hashtags and Groups

As soon as I share a piece of content, someone who is not connected to me always seem to favorite it. I did some quick investigation as to how this was possible. To my surprise this was because I was using a hashtag and the person who favoured the tweet was checking out all tweets in that tag or simply checking out their tweet in that tag. Hashtags are essentially a collection of social media activity in a group. For example I use ‘#Infographic’ tag often. You can also share your content to selected groups interested in that topic for more sharing and traffic.

Conclusion

You now know 22 ways to increase your content’s retweets, likes, pins and stumbles but if you don’t put what you learned here into action then your social sharing will not explode sadly, you will. Increasing your social shares is not only good for SEO but also to build your brand and traffic. Go get your slice of the social media cake that is never too low on sugar.

If you like it, share it!

References:

• 8 Proven Methods to Explode Social Shares – SearchEngineJournal.com
• 8 Ways to Get More Social Shares without Annoying Readers – QuickSprout.com
• How to Improve Social Sharing by 97% – RazorSocial.com