Gifs, videos, memes, news stories, articles, and more, the potential content that can be shared to help build your brand is almost endless. Any story, idea, or topic can be shared across the internet to gain your business exposure and build its credibility. But, just because you have a lot of options for shareable content doesn’t mean it can easily be used to build your brand up.
If you haven’t been using shareable online content to promote your business, you’re potentially missing out on exposure and customers! In this article, we will take a look at some of the challenges, benefits, and tips for using shareable content to build your brand’s credibility!
What Makes Shareable Content Hard
Running a business in today’s market is complicated and getting more complex every day. You’re constantly facing increased competition and a customer base that is better informed than ever before. Using shareable content to promote your brand isn’t going to be easy either, but it is worth it! Take a look below at some of the hurdles you will face using shareable content to promote your brand.
- You are going to have a lot of competition. Every brand on the planet is looking to increase its visibility just like you. A large portion of them will be using the same social media networks you are to try and make this happen. This can make it hard to stand out and become noticed. But it is worth the effort!
- Facebook remains the number one social media platform in the world. This ranks it among the best choices for sharing content with potential customers. However, traffic to the site has been slowing in recent years. To keep your shareable content effective, you will need to stay on top of which social platforms your customers use the most.
- For the world to be so plugged in now, personal connections mean the most to consumers. People are looking to relate with someone like them over a company’s brand. This is evident in the rise of influencers online.
Why Shareable Content is Important
As hard as gaining visibility with shareable content can be, it needs to be a vital part of your advertising campaign. Spending for online ads continues to increase yearly. Let’s take a look at some ways shareable content builds your brand with minimal cost to you.
- When a piece of content goes viral, it can become a self-perpetuating source of shareable content. When people see the content you have produced that they find interesting, they will happily share it with their friends and family. Then they will share with theirs, and so on. Your content will be shared, liked, and viewed by potentially thousands of possible customers with minimal cost.
- Search engines love content that is heavily shared and linked to. Every mention of and link to your content will drive you higher and higher in the search engine’s rankings. This increases your business’s visibility, traffic, and potential sales.
- Sharing unique, witty, humorous, or emotional content humanizes your brand. It allows consumers to relate and connect with your business on a personal level. Teasing new products or allowing glimpses behind the scenes can make people feel as if they are part of something special, building an emotional connection with it.
Tips on Using Shareable Content
Now that you know why shareable content is essential and better understand its challenges, let’s look at a few tips for using shareable content to help build your brand’s credibility online.
Do Your Homework
Not sure what you want to produce and share? The solution is simple, search out your competition online and see what they have been up to. See what social media sites they are on the most, and adjust your content to less competitive platforms. If a specific style of content seems to be connecting well with your competitors’ customers, it will work with yours as well!
Follow the Trends
The amount of content online is staggering, and people’s feelings toward content types are constantly shifting. To help your shareable content better build credibility for your brand, you need to follow what is trending! What issues are topical at the time, what current news story is most relevant to your business, what season are we in? All of these questions can be used to guide the shareable content you’re producing.
Craft a Compelling Story
People have gathered together to hear a great story since the dawn of the human language. Crafting a unique and powerful story can captivate and pull people in closer to your brand. There are three main components to telling a compelling story that will connect people and drive them to your business.
- Identify their problem
- Provide them a solution
- Present a call to action to use your brand as the solution.
Build a Bit of Controversy
Bland middle-of-the-road content won’t capture one person’s attention, much less a large portion of the internet. Controversy, on the other hand, will spread like fire! People will often click on a piece of content they don’t agree with simply to see how someone could have such a different opinion than them. Challenging people’s ways of thinking and their feelings will have them engaging with your brand and telling everyone your stance on a particular issue. Just be consistent and not over the top!
Focus on Values
You know your customer base, and what matters to them. Explore the things they care about the most and focus on producing shareable content they will care about the most to build your brand’s credibility. This is an excellent way for people to feel you understand them and builds trust that you can provide the products and solutions they are looking for.
Now that you have a better understanding of how shareable content can be used to build your brand’s credibility, put it to work for yourself! It’s a minimal cost that can have an incredible impact on your brand’s performance. Web Rocket Media can help you create the shareable content needed to build up your brand, contact us today.