Creating Share-Tempting Contents, Top 5 Ingredients of Highly Viral Contents

Whatever perspective your company or brand views content marketing from, your content marketing efforts is not successful unless it gets widely shared and generates leads for your business. As Google makes link building for SEO tougher, content marketing and social media are definitely going to hold stronger seats in every business’ online marketing campaign.

If you’re going to make a huge success with content marketing, you have to write posts that will tempt the reader to share it with their friends and also cause whoever reads it to also share it along, thereby easily creating a viral effect. By creating viral content, you can easily earn inbound links to your website without having to fear that Google might hit you with a penalty. Without wasting much of your time, the following are five very essential ingredients of creating a share-tempting content on your personal blog or business website.

#1. Exceptional Titles: Upworthy Type of Headlines

Every successful content marketer will always remember to point the success of their content marketing efforts to being able to create exceptional titles. These headlines are what I love to call the “Upworthy” type of headlines. If you’ve been consuming a lot of viral articles like I do, or if you’re constantly monitoring your twitter feed, you must have come across one or two articles from Upworthy!. They always have a way with titles that just make you want to read the post, even if you’re not in the mood for it.

Jon Morrow is an expert at crafting exceptional titles, and he even has an ebook that teaches you how to create headlines for posts that will eventually go viral. By getting your headline right, you are adding extra value to your website in the following way, even without knowing:

• i:) Increase Your CTR (Click-Through-Rate): There is an assertion in the SEO world that Google uses CTR to determine if a website deserves it’s ranking position or not. Take for instance your website ranks #1 for the Keyword Dark-Night Perfume, but does not get clicked as often as the page ranking beneath you, then Google will probably push you down from the first position to the last position.
• ii:) Increase Trust: If your headlines are so powerful that they get clicked a lot, you will automatically earn a lot of trust from any search listings your contents are listed in. Google also factors trust and authority as part of it’s ranking factors and high CTR signals a sign of strong brand and a sign of trust to Google, further enhancing your content’s staying power in Google’s search results.
• iii:) Create a Powerful Brand for yourself: When people are used to your exceptional style of headlines, just as I and many others are used to Upworthy’s style of headlines, then your brand will gradually earn a life of its own. If a reader can single out your content from a list of others just by reading the headline then you’ve created a recognizable brand of your own.

These are additional benefits of creating upworthy style of headlines you will get aside your content getting a lot of shares.

#2. Thought-Leadership: Authority Style and Research-Backed Content

Have you ever wondered why contents written by authorities in any industry get shared so well? You might think it’s because they have a lot of following, but that’s just part of the fact that such a person is an authority. The major reason contents from thought-leaders get shared a lot is because they usually put in a lot of research efforts into any content they produce, thus when people read it they feel that the content is worthy of been shared.

If you’ve been struggling with creating powerful Jayson DeMers or Neil Patel type of contents, I suggest you look into the following shortcuts that will help your content step-up in quality and encourage others to share them more often.

• Interview Trusted Experts in Your Niche: Publishing expert opinions and interviews on your blog might not be as difficult as creating powerful contents that only an authority can produce, but the result can be as powerful if not more.
• Collect and Break Down Complex Data: Truth be told, people are always overwhelmed with the amount of big complex data that is being shoved in their face. A good way to create content that readers will love and will also bring credibility to your blog is by collecting big and complex data and then break them down into easily digestible forms. Think infographics.
• Create a “Top List of”: List compilation is another brilliant way to create authority, thought-leadership style of content. And the good news is that your hard work is always more likely to get rewarded, because you’re more likely to share a list post than an average 500 words article.

#3. Solution-Oriented Content: People Share Content That Solve Problems

What people go to read and search for blogs online is to find solution to a problem. For example, you will read this particular article to the end, not because it’s interesting, but because it will help you solve the problem of your articles not getting shared.

Before writing a blog post for your website, if you want people to share that blog post always think of what solution it will bring to the readers. Another reason people always tend to share solution-oriented content is that it makes them feel good. You know the feeling you get when you’re the one who shared the article that helped solve others troubles? That’s the feeling your readers will crave when sharing your article, at least if it’s problem-solving.

#4. Actionable Tips and Valuable Advices

Now, there is a huge difference between offering tips and offering ACTIONABLE TIPS! Tips in its crude form is just a piece of advice from someone who thinks he knows something, but an actionable tip is an advice that is actually going to work. It is implementable and you(the one getting the advice) won’t have to worry about whether you can do what the writer is advising or not.

For instance, we all know that certain chemicals are strong enough to make anything turn white, but they cannot be used on our teeth. An actionable tip will not advice you to try out the chemical on your teeth because it can make anything turn white, rather it will advice you to use what the author has tried and has worked for him/her and has no side effects.

When you come across an article that offers tips that can be easily applied, your instinct tells you to share that article with others so that they can benefit from your findings, is that not so?

#5. Share-worthy Content, Error-free and Digestible

You get about hundreds, if not thousands of new content shoved in your face everyday. But not all of them are worth sharing because they actually do not meet the standard you’ve set for your social feeds.

If you want others to share your content without objection, you also have to work harder to make sure the content meets the standard that anyone would love to share. If you want to know what will determine whether your content is share-worthy, see the following list:

1. Does not defame others nor insult popular belief: Without saying, everyone knows that content that defames others or is against popular belief does not usually get a lot of shares. People get scared of associating themselves with this type of content.
2. Is free of grammar errors: How do you feel when an article you’re reading is laced with too many and obvious grammatical and spelling errors? Irritated, right? So if you want your readers to share your content always ensure its free of obvious grammar errors.
3. Use easy to read and understandable English: We all know that you hold a PhD in language and communications but no one wants to go back to the lecture room. When writing for a blog, avoid using too long sentences. Use short, easy to read sentences. Also, try to always limit the number of sentences in your paragraphs to three or four.
4. Avoid using jargon: We all know that you’re an expert, but don’t confuse your readers with words that they won’t understand. If your content is filled with too many “hidden” words, people will get frustrated and would leave your content. If your content does not get read to the end, then your chances of it getting shared is low.

Bonus: Always use images in your blog posts.

If all you need to know is the stats, then this is enough: a report by Performics concludes that 44% of people are likely to engage with branded content when they include images. So, if you’re looking to get more shares for your content try as much as you can to always include images.

What other methods do you suggest can help content get more shares? Please let me know in the comment section.