Content SharingIf you don’t have a good content sharing strategy there is no point in writing content!

Do you have a really effective content sharing strategy already in place?

In this article, we look at how you can come up with an effective strategy and what content sharing tools can be used to help.

1.  Automatically Share to relevant platforms

When you post your content you need to  share to platforms that you are active on. Some of this has to be done manually and some can be automated.

There are various content sharing tools that can help automate the delivery of some of your content.  For example, if you have a blog post you could use Dlvr.it or Twitterfeed to automatically pick up your content and share to a range of platforms.

In the example below, any new content from RazorSocial is automatically shared using dlvr.it to:

  • My personal twitter account
  • My business twitter account
  • Delicious (bookmarking site)
  • App.net (competitor to twitter)
  • Google + business page
  • LinkedIn Profile (Status Update)
dlvr.it
dlivr.it will pick up new content from the source and deliver to the destination

Automating at least some of the social sharing ensures that all new content is shared out consistently.

The reason that I don’t share automatically to Google + personal profile is that Google hasn’t given access to developers to build a product to support this.  The only ways around this that I’m aware of are:

Google Chrome DoShare Plugin – With this plugin you can schedule the delivery of a post to Google + but you need to have your browser open at the time it is shared.

Nextscripts – This is a plugin for WordPress for auto posting and claims support for Google + personal profile.  I still have to test this out so can’t recommend it at this time.

2.  Share New Content Multiple Times

Sharing content multiple times is a controversial issue but for a platform like Twitter it doesn’t make sense to only share a great piece of content you wrote once.  The same applies to Facebook.

“Pages organically reach about 16% of their fans on average. To make sure your fans see your stories, sponsor your posts to increase the reach of your content” – Facebook Marketing Team

If you have followers/fans in different time zones how is your Australian buddy going to see your content if you are based in Europe and post at 4 PM (they’ll be in bed)?

It’s not about annoying your followers or fans but you just want to give people the best chance to see your content.

There are various content sharing tools that can help.  For example, you could schedule your content for sharing on social media with SocialOomph or Hootsuite.

If you wanted to do it on Hootsuite you just schedule the post multiple times.

Hootsuite Publisher
Hootsuite allows you to schedule the same or different posts multiple times

I’m currently investigating another option which includes a better scheduling option for blog posts.  Ideally, you want a quicker way of setting up scheduling such as above.

3.  Share Existing Content again!

Evergreen content is content that is just as valid as it was a year ago.  If you write good content why not share it again and again!  As your social media presence grows your followers and fans will probably increase so you have some new audience.  Also, many people may not have seen your content or have forgotten about it!

Here are 2 content sharing tools that will help.

TweetOldPost – This is a WordPress plugin that will pick up your older blog content and automatically send it out.  It works well if you configure it correctly.  Configuration items include:

  • Choose the time between tweets.
  • Choose the number of tweets to Tweet.
  • Use hashtags to focus on topics.
  • Exclude categories
  • Exclude specific posts.

This really makes sense if you have a lot of blog content and it’s evergreen.

Social Oomph  –  Part of Social Oomph functionality allows you to set up a queue of content from your old blog posts.  With the posts you can enter in multiple variations of possible tweets related to the posts.  Socialoomph picks out posts from the queue and then alternates the tweet based on what you have configured.

In the following example there are 3 different tweets configured which all send people to the same link.  SocialOomph will randomly pick one of them:

{3 essential tools to find great content to share|Looking for tools to share content|3 Great tools to find content to share} http://bit.ly/18vMAPV}

4.  Strongly encourage people to share your content!

Here are 3 very useful ways to encourage people to share your content.

a. Social Sharing Plugins

If you have content on your website you should strongly encourage people to share it.  This means providing social sharing plugins that stand out on the page.

It also means doing some sharing yourself immediately when you have a new piece of content.  Your visitors like social proof so when they see content is shared already they are more likely to share.

Read our post on tools you can use to get your posts shared

b. Set up Click to Tweet

When you write your blog content if you have some interesting quotes you can encourage people to share them by including a click to tweet button.

David Halpern Click to Tweet
Include this within your content

This is easy to set up.  Go to Clicktotweet.com and enter in your tweet and generate the code you include in your blog post.

c). Encourage people to share after they subscribe to your mailing list

When people are just after subscribing to your mailing list that you can strongly encourage them to share.  This share could link to your latest blog post.  Most people will subscribe after reading your latest blog post so it’s likely they will share.

John Chow, a very well known blogger, gives people an incentive to share content.  When they share they get extra free guides.  He uses a WordPress plugin called List Eruption which provides an easy way of setting this up.  I plan to test this out.

d). Encourage sharing of images on Pinterest

You  may not be on Pinterest but your website visitors may be.  A useful plugin for Pinterest is called ‘J Query Pin it’.  When you blog visitor hovers over an image it provides the option to share on Pinterest.

5.  Share to Other Platforms

Here are some other useful platforms to consider when sharing your content.

Scoop.it –  This is a content sharing site.  You create boards of content around a particular content area and people start to follow, track and share the boards.  This can be a great source of good relevant traffic.  Read this article on how to use Scoop.it.

Triberr – Triberr is a community of bloggers that share each others content.  A tribe is a group of people that have content around a similar area that get to know and trust your content.  If you join the right tribes you can easily find great content but also get your great content shared out.  You can set Triberr up so that content is automatically picked up and posted to Triberr from your RSS feed.

Inbound.org –  This is a place to share Digital Marketing related content so only applicable if you’re in the Digital Marketing space.  It is, however, a good place to keep up to speed on Digital Marketing.

Inbound.org
Inbound.org is really focussed around Digital Marketing content

LinkedIn Groups –  There are various content sharing tools which allow you to automatically post content to any LinkedIn Group you are a member of. The one with the best tracking facility is Oktopost.   You have to be careful when sending your content to multiple LinkedIn groups.  If you just ‘dump and run’ you’re not going to get much benefit.

The best option with LinkedIn groups is to test out which groups works best for you and post to these groups only.  Also when you post make sure to try to generate conversation as opposed to just providing a link to your content.

Oktopost Report
Oktopost provides great reports on what you shared and the benefit you got from it

6. Monitor your social performance with Semrush

Semrush’s Social Media Toolkit gives you four tools to make your social media routine and analysis easier. These tools help assist the workflow of a social media manager. The tools allow you to create posts and monitor their performance, benchmark your progress against your competitors, and also create your own compelling Ads.

What’s included:

  • Social Media Poster
  • Social Media Tracker
  • Social Media Ads
  • Social Media Analytics

Get your 14 day free trial and see for yourself!

Summary

The difference in having a content sharing strategy and not having one is a huge issue in relation to traffic you get to your posts.  So having a clear strategy is really essential.  What can you use from the tips above and based on your knowledge what works best for you?

photo credit: Tim Ebbs via photopin cc


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