Need to know how to create Facebook posts that gets shared? Comments
are powerful but nothing cuts through the dreaded Facebook algorithm like
shares. Today we'll talk quickly about the psychology of what gets posts shared
and how I've used these things to get tons of organic reach for my agency
clients, alright? Let's get into it
Hey busy people, welcome to Five Minute Social Media. If you have had "figure out
my social media" on your to do list forever, for a long time but it just keeps
getting shoved down the list 'cause you're overwhelmed, you don't know where
to start, you're in a great place. Every week we put out a quick video to help
you with a different piece of your digital marketing strategy. If that sounds
like something you could benefit from take a second, click Subscribe, click that
bell and that way you'll be notified whenever a new video comes out. My name
is Jerry Potter (yes it rhymes with the boy wizard) and we can connect on social
media @mrjerrypotter. Today we're talking about how to create content that
gets shared. Sharing is the ultimate when it comes to reaching more people with
your social media content and social media algorithms love shares. And this
goes beyond Facebook as well, like on Instagram if somebody shares your post
via DM or into their story, that helps you a lot to reach more people. Three
things I'm gonna cover today: What to keep in mind when you're creating your
posts so that you get more shares with your content, I'm gonna share a few
posts that I've done for agency clients that have gotten a ton of shares and talked
about why those ones worked in particular, and third, three easy things
you can do after your post is up to get more shares. Now if you're already about
to turn this video off listen to this one thing. The one thing to keep in mind
when you're creating content and creating posts is to create something
that causes an emotion in somebody. When somebody feels an emotion from your post
that is the number one indicator that they're going to share it. There's
nothing more powerful than emotions and they are contagious
Let's unpack that a bit here. An emotion can be anything anyone feels - so
making them laugh is great - happy, sad, patriotic, even angry counts as an
emotion - if you make somebody feel something. Nostalgia counts as an emotion
Now even though sadness and anger are emotions and they can lead
to shares, the University of Pennsylvania did a big study and they
found that positive content got way more shares than negative content. Most of us
don't want to share doom and gloom with our friends and family. But if that makes
sense for your brand people will share things that make them upset and angry
Basically the stronger the emotion they feel the more likely they are to share
it. So how do people decide what to share? Well most people are motivated to share
based on their networks online who are their friends and family. Who are they
going to be sharing with? The New York Times did a massive study about why
people share content and these were the top five reasons people share content on
social media: Number one, they wanted to better the
lives of others. Whether it was a motivational quote or something like
that, they wanted to improve the lives of their friends and family by sharing
Number two, they want to spread the word about something they believe in. This could
be a political thing, this could be a charity thing, anything that they believe
in. By sharing it it's part of their identity. Number three, they share because
they like the idea of having people comment and engage. So they share
something because they think their audience, and again I'm talking about an
individual, their friends and family, will engage with it. Number four, they want to
grow and nourish relationships. This again comes down I think to their
identity to an extent. Like you share something that you're into, then other
people realize you're into it they go, "Oh I didn't know you were into that I'm
into that let's have coffee! Let's talk! Let's talk in the comments section!" And
number five kind of sums it up, they want the content to reflect their online
identity. So how do you create more shareable content? Well first of all try
and make it fit into one of these three categories. They did a huge UCLA study
and the majority of things that get shared online fit into one of these
three categories. Number one, utility. We like to share things that we think will
be useful or helpful to other people. Life hacks is a huge one of these. Number
two type of content people share: entertainment. Obviously we all love to
be entertained so if we see something that makes us really happy or amused or
something from a reality show or makes us laugh, we want to share it for other
people to feel that same thing that we felt. And the third category of most
shared content is inspiration. Things that inspire us are very sharable, and
it's not just inspirational quotes, like that's where my mind
went first. It could be an inspirational story any number of things. Now keep in
mind as you're trying to create shareable content for your brand, even
if you look at some of the biggest brands that get the most shares (like
BuzzFeed for example), every post doesn't get 500 shares or whatever it might be
Only some of them really take off like that. So for you don't focus on trying to
create 30 pieces of shareable content a month. You'd be better off focusing on
trying to create one or two and going from there. I wanted to share a few posts
that I've done for clients that have gotten a ton of shares and just kind of
talk about why I think they worked, although the third one was a bit of a
mystery so I'll show you that one here in just a second. This first one was
right after the Seattle Seahawks had gotten bounced from the playoffs and I
put this up for a sports bar/tavern. You know I think it caused an emotion for
people because it reflected the identity of them in that moment. The fans were
devastated but at the same time really happy with the way the season came out,
and because of that, again, caused an emotion, reflected how they felt and
reflected their online identity and let others know how they were feeling. It got
shared 271 times. This next one was for a collision center and this is a little
simpler - didn't have to be topical or anything like that. It caused an emotion,
in this case nostalgia, perhaps joy, seeing a photo of that car. This was not
a special photo, this was just a stock photo that we found and we put up and
obviously it did really well, it got 113 shares. And the last one honestly a bit
of a mystery; this was for a car dealership and the air show was coming
up including the Navy's Blue Angels, and it caused an emotion of some sort. I
don't know, it could have been some patriotism for people maybe in the Navy
or it could have just been the emotion of, "Cool! Jets!" And it got 46 shares. So a
few examples there of posts that have gotten shares and why based on the
psychology that we just talked about. I hope those examples were helpful and
let me just say those were some that did really well. I create stuff that does not
do well all the time too. It's definitely an art to get it to go and it doesn't
always get shared. Alright, last thing:
Your post is up you feel like you should be getting more shares. What can you do?
Now three things you can do to get more shares once it's already up. 1) Ask
people to share it. Not in the post - Facebook doesn't like it when you use
engagement bait language like, "Share if you love puppies too." But you could DM a
few key friends or people that you know have a good following that would be
interested in that anyway - think about the type of people you ask - say, "Hey would
you mind sharing this and adding a thoughtful comment to the top?" Nothing
wrong with doing that. A few of those can really get a post going. 2) Share
it yourself. If it's on your business page share it to your personal page and
add a comment to it. Share it in some Facebook groups. Every time you share it
it increases the little number at the bottom of the posts says "3 Shares." If
somebody sees a post and it already says "3 Shares," that's sort of a psychological
nudge of, "Maybe you want to share this too, huh? Huh?" I'm a terrible winker. And number 3)
Get people to tag friends in the comments. You might start this on your
own - you put something up on your business page and then you go down to
the comments with your personal page and say, "Hey @Sarah, thought you might like
this too." And then she comes and checks it out and then maybe she shares it
You're just getting new people to the post by tagging them. Again, don't spam
your friends too much - this is all to be done within reason - but every little bit
helps if you have the time. Alright best of luck with getting more shares on
Facebook. Do not be discouraged - most things are not going to go crazy
and get shared - but every little bit helps. And of course create the best
content that you can, that's also the ultimate to getting shares. Thank you so
much for watching. If you have more questions about this you can drop them
in the comments or join us in our free Facebook group, just search Five Minute
Social Media on Facebook. If you liked this video give it a Like, hit sSubscribe
You're not only supporting me but also my two tiny superheroes at home