We are experiencing a shift in the way we market ourselves, our websites and our businesses. With the power of social media being completely and utterly unavoidable and undeniably effective for engaging targeted audience, the honing of our rules of engagement has morphed from quantity to super-high quality. Which is why I wanted to focus this blog on providing your followings with uber engaging content and hopefully give you food for thought when you approach your new content marketing strategy.
Why?
Loads of articles and therefore loads of links to your site does indeed create higher visibility (or at least that’s the theory), but once your regular following realise that your copy is rushed and there’s no thought gone into providing them with any real value, they’ll no longer keep clicking the links, and more worryingly, they’ll certainly not share them. And it’s this that is key to real visibility, sharing, opening up new realms of audience, new visitors to your site.
So how can you spice up your content?
According to BuzzSumo: “50% of Content Gets 8 Shares Or Less” – I hope that the following ideas can help you nail truly shareable content and then not only will you reach more people, but you’ll do so over a longer period of time.
You can mix it up, or you can experiment to see what works best for your following, it shouldn’t be hard to tell by taking a look over your stats and comparing the traffic and levels of engagement on each post. So here are a few options for different ways to communicate with your followers and prolong your reach:
Use Gifographics
As the name suggests:
GIF + INFOGRAPHIC = GIFOGRAPHIC.
Gifographics can save space on the page, taking the reader straight into a complex topic in a more visually impactful and engaging way that allows for quicker consumption of the topic in hand – which cannot be a bad thing! It’s not always appropriate to use one, and you shouldn’t try to force it to work, but when used correctly, it can be very effective!
Furthermore, it is alleged that this funky new form of infographic is an SEO gem that will considerably boost your rankings (we’d love to hear more about your experiences of this please!)
Perhaps the most tempting reason for us to use gifographics however, is the ‘shareability’ factor that they have for social media! They’re super easy to integrate into posts and make a big impact into driving traffic to your post. This is the crux of what we’re trying to achieve with our content, quality over quantity that leads to more shares and buffer reach!
Here’s one as an example.
How a car engine works GIFographic
Use Polls
Unlike Gifographics, polls have been around for decades, centuries (I’m sure someone will point out millennia to me 😉 ), yet we don’t use them anywhere near often enough. Many of us ask for comments below etc. But people can’t always be bothered to do this, even if they have an opinion, and so why not make it as simple as a click to get their reactions/opinions? The more people engage with it, the more other people are tempted to vote. What is more, it gives an immediate visual of the reader’s sentiment – which comments cannot do quickly without reading as least 5 or 6 (which again, takes time).
There’s a lot to be said for sparking debate in the comments however, as it provides the perfect opportunity for a more detailed discussion. A poll is a great way to give the impetus for such a conversation.
The poll itself is a great thing to be able to share on social media and induce a click from the following who will want to find out more about why people’s opinions are what the poll shows – or maybe even to give their own vote. Plus, now Twitter have introduced their new polling feature, you could even take this onto Twitter directly 🙂
Finally, consider all those posts collecting dust on your blog that haven’t had so much as a view, let alone comment in months. Why not revive and regain that lost momentum them by adding a poll to the post and asking people via social media to give their vote on the article to help you with another post. (click to tweet after voting is a no-brainer in my opinion).
Make sure you choose your polling options carefully to provide you with useful/interesting data.
Use Quuu…. durrr 😉
We don’t like to blow our own trumpet, but hey, we shouldn’t be in business if we don’t believe in our own product! Besides we use Quuu ourselves on our personal and company account and we know how positive the effect of the service has been on our growth. So here’s how it can help if you submit content to Quuu!
Because you articles get pushed to Buffer from Quuu every day to those who are interested in your area of expertise, this means that your article will be getting posted to multiple social media channels day-in-day-out with relevant hashtags and usernames, thereby prolonging the activity of your article for as long as it remains in Quuu.
On your own, on a normal day you can send your new post to your mailing list, and you can post to your social media. Now consider hundred, even thousands of other people doing the same to their social media channels on your behalf. Watch your referral traffic explode and wait until you see how many notifications you get on Twitter from people you’ve never encountered (our Quuusers) mentioning you and your article – then take a look at your traffic stats on your site. We are quietly confident that you’ll be pleasantly surprised 🙂 There’s no trickery involved, it’s not phantom traffic, there are no bots – it’s all organic traffic from people interested in the same stuff that you’re writing about.
By default, this naturally increases your social following because you’re on people’s radars consistently, so whether you’re sharing your own content for Quuusers to share, or you yourself are sharing high-quality content from our Quuurators, you’ll notice an uptake in following and engagement.
Focus on verbs, rather than adjectives
In the wise words of our very own growth advisor, Sujan Patel in his article: ‘17 Copywriting Tips To Boost Your Website Conversions’
Adjectives might seem more descriptive, but it’s really verbs that tell the story. Compare the two examples below to see why:
“Cathy is a talented, hard-working and insightful business consultant”
Versus…
“Cathy’s advice helped me to grow my business by 35%, create better brand recognition and reduce churn among my customers”
In the first sentence, there’s nothing super compelling about Cathy as a person. It isn’t until you incorporate the verbs in the second instance – “grow,” “create” and “reduce” – that you see what she’s really capable of.
So make sure that you keep your copy concise and avoid noncommittal flowery language, it’s the facts and actions that compel us to read on and share!
Research the topic
Include your own opinions as well as others you’ve encountered during your research, this type of content provides the reader with a sense that the article has been thoroughly researched and in doing so you’d be amazed by how much you learn about the topic on which you’re writing!
It’s important to back up your advice with results, this adds a level of credibility which allows the reader to engage more fully in what you’re saying and trust your content implicitly. If it is purely an opinion piece then make it clear that it’s merely your own theories and invite others to share their views.
As always we really do want to hear your comments, it’s an opportunity to spark a debate in more detail so let us know about your experiences, thoughts and tips!
