One of the best ways to increase the reach of your content is to encourage your audience to share it themselves. Since many social networks prioritise content posted by users over that posted by brands and many users have developed an aversion to explicit marketing, creating sharable content has become a major part of the marketer’s role.
But, in such a saturated online space – where brand content competes with content from friends, family and colleagues (not to mention other brands) – getting eyes on your content is difficult.
So what can marketers do to make their content stand out?
So-called industry best practice can only get you so far. Since so many other companies will be following precisely the same guidelines, the profusion of best practice techniques has only made competition fiercer.
There’s a need, then, for progressive marketers to break the mould. Unconstrained experimentation can lead to wildly unpredictable results. But, with the right framework, strategic experimentation is what makes an average marketer a great one.
Science can provide marketers with just this framework. The more social media has penetrated our lives, the more scientists have begun to study how we use it and how it affects us. This means that a wealth of social media research literature exists, and some of this is directly relevant to today’s marketers. Indeed, some of it describes the mechanisms that make people decide whether or not to share content.
In this article we will look at just one element – motivational factors – which plays a role in the consumer’s decision to share.
Motivational factors and sharing
The reason social media exists and the reason it’s so popular is because of the way it facilitates communication between people. This may sound trite. But it’s something that brands should keep in mind: social media does not exist primarily to help marketers sell their goods.
That said, used correctly, social media could be a brand’s greatest asset. Part of this means understanding your audience, engaging with them on their own terms, and opening up a dialogue with them. With this achieved , brands will be in a position to create content that resonates with their audience and which, therefore, consumers will feel compelled to share.
All of this is made easier if you know why people use social media and what they are seeking to get from it.
The New York Times Customer Insight team recently surveyed 2,500 moderate to heavy online sharers and found that the most common reasons people share content are:
- Cause/issue awareness (84%) – by sharing content related to the issues they care about social media users are able to get the word out about the things which are important to them.
- Developing 0nline relationships (78%) – sharing content can help people create and sustain relationships with other social media users who share their interests.
- Self-fulfilment (69%) – when a piece of shared content is well received by others, the user who shared it will often feel happy, involved and connected.
- Defining oneself to others (68%) – sharing content that people feel is in tune with how they feel about themselves (their opinions, tastes and ideals) helps them sculpt their online identity.
- Network value (49%) – when users feel that a piece of content is particularly valuable (whether humorous, insightful, shocking, novel, etc) they feel that by sharing it they are improving the experience of their network.
Additionally, the researchers created six personas of online sharers, defined by emotional motivations, desired presentation of self, role of sharing in life, and the value of being the first to share:
- Altruists – likely to share via email, altruists hope that the content they share is helpful, reliable and thoughtful. They also have a strong desire to stay connected.
- Careerists – by sharing content that relates to business interests, careerists (who most commonly use LinkedIn) wish to build a network using valuable, intelligent content.
- Hipsters – by strongly identifying with the content they share, hipsters use the most popular social networks to share cutting-edge, creative content, and are often the first to do so.
- Boomerangs – using social media to provoke a reaction, boomerangs enjoy watching the reactions of others, as well as validating their own points of view through positive engagement.
- Connectors – using social media to stay organised and connect with others, connectors share content creatively and in a relaxed fashion if they feel it will bring them closer to those they know.
- Selectives – resourceful and careful, selectives choose the most informative and thoughtful content before sharing it with certain specific people (often via email).
By analysing their social media following, marketers are able to use this research to identify which personas belong to their audience and why they are motivated to share content. This will help them create content that’s more likely to resonate with their followers and which they will be more likely to share.
This is just one example of how current research can be used by marketers to increase the quality of the content they produce and how they present it.
If you’d like to find out more about how marketers can use science to enhance their marketing efforts, our new The Science of Shareable Content whitepaper goes into more detail about the mechanisms that make consumers share content. You can download the whitepaper here.
We are a pioneering team of scientists, storytellers, and strategists obsessed with brining science to the art of brand storytelling. To find out more about StoryScience, visit our site.
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