How to Get Your Content Shared More Than Ever Before

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How to Get Your Content Shared More Than Ever Before 2

Every blogger wants to get shared of their blog posts but the contents get shared when the content is awesome. Sometimes, your readers would like to share your content, but they just can’t be bothered to find the share buttons to do so. If you make it easy for them, then they will definitely do it.

But, why should they do it anyway?

Why Should You Get Your Readers To Share Your Content?

Doubtlessly, this is a great way to create quality backlinks to your blog, when other sites share your blog post or URL. It’s like they cast a vote for your piece of content. So, the more backlinks and votes you have out there, the more Google is going to see your blog as popular and of high authority.

You’ll then get priority over other blogs and that means more traffic to you!

So, the more you can get your readers to share your content, the more you are going to create a social buzz, get backlinks, and higher rankings. Take advantage of the free “word of mouth” advertising that social media offers. And every marketer needs some social proof. Now, are you missing out on getting your content shared by your readers? Let’s recap on some of the mistakes that I shared in my previous post:

Now, are you missing out on getting your content shared by your readers? Let’s get traffic

1) Do you have too many share buttons on your blog?

You are presenting too many options to your readers and you are therefore making it difficult for your readers to make a choice. And you know what, they will make none

I see this on many blogs and I was there too. I used to have the Only Wire buttons, Sexy bookmarks buttons, Wibiya bar as well as Twitter and Facebook buttons – all below my posts. What was I thinking? Did I really expect my readers to use all of them? Not a chance! No one has got the time for that. Besides, there was duplication as well.

Solution: Get rid of too many options and leave only those that your readers will use, my previous I have done.

2) You’re not asking your readers to share your content

Do you ask your readers to share your content? If you don’t, they will probably not do it. It does help to give your readers a call-to-action, asking them to share your content if they found it valuable.

Solution: Give a call-to-action at the end of each post, as I do below.

3) You have not configured the buttons properly

Have your readers tried to retweet some content you have just read-only to find that the blog name/title is so long and the characters exceed 140 and you have to edit to fit everything in? So annoying!

And some bloggers also forget to add their Twitter name in the Tweet meme settings – @username. So, their retweets are nameless, with just a shortened URL, not good for personal branding, is it? Furthermore, they will never know who has retweeted their content.

Solution: Configure your buttons settings and test them yourself, to see that everything works well.

4) You are not displaying social media buttons at all

It’s so frustrating when you have just finished reading some awesome content and you can’t locate the buttons to share it. You end up wasting time scrolling up and down, trying to locate them. It’s even more annoying when you realize that you wasted your time for nothing. They are just not there!

Solution: Get and display the share buttons right after reading this post! We want to share your content.

Where Can You Find The Social Media Buttons?

There are different options out there to suit your taste and style. You can download the icons and add them to your theme or install popular plugins such as:

1) Get Social

Get Social adds an intelligent, lightweight, quick to set up a floating social media sharing box on your blog posts.

2) Digg Digg

Digg integrates popular social voted count buttons and offers flexible button display controls.

3) ShareBar

Share bar adds a dynamic and fully customizable vertical box to the left of a blog Just like contains links/buttons to popular social networking sites.

4) Smart Sharing

Just like Get Social and ShareBar, Smart Sharing adds a scrolling box with social media icons on single post pages, so as your reader scrolls down the page, they will continuously see the share button.

… and more…

What’s My Recommendation?

As I mentioned before, I got rid of the many social media sharing buttons for practical reasons. I thought by displaying the buttons at the bottom of each post, my readers will not have to scroll up to share my content. I know some bloggers display them at the top as well as the bottom of their posts.

I could never understand the idea of putting them at the top only though — I want to read your content before I give it my vote and I don’t like scrolling up to do that!

And here is the thing with displaying the buttons at the bottom of your posts, you could be losing your readers’ votes. Sometimes readers just skim through your content without getting to the bottom of it, just to get a gist of it.

Now, I’m always looking at different ways to improve my blog and to make my readers’ visit pleasant. While visiting other good blogs, I discovered that the floating, vertical boxes were user-friendly – your readers can’t miss them. Can you see it as you are reading now?

Whether they are in the middle of reading your post or commenting, the box is there. And what would they do? They would feel obligated to click on one of the buttons – the job is done!  So, I went ahead and installed the Smart Sharing plugin.

And the result? I saw an increase in my social media votes/counts on my blog, which resulted in a buzz on social media sites, especially on Facebook. I have my posts shared all over the place there, encouraging interaction, driving traffic to and generating exposure for my blog.

Key Takeaway:

If you want to get more social media votes, give your awesome content the exposure it deserves and drive more traffic to your blog, then make it easier for people to find the social media buttons on your blog, by using a floating, vertical sharing box.

Over to you now: which social media sharing setup works well for you? How do you get your readers to share your content?

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