The 4 Things That Determine If Your Content Is Shareable

Everyone wants content that is highly sharable. When you create something that catches fire, is being picked up by other publishers or getting shared and re-shared across social media like a grass fire it is like rolling lucky number seven in Las Vegas. As one of the top web development companies, we have studied and analyzed lots of content over the years and we have figured out the 4 things that determine if your content is shareable.

Content sharing has become a big deal because people love to share! It used to be that someone would read something interesting in a magazine or newspaper and then save that information as a topic of conversation during social situations. Now we just click a button to let our friends, family and acquaintances see what sparks our attention.

So what will get your content shared?

• Useful – Useful content is backbone of the internet. For those who don’t remember, the internet was started as a way to share information that was useful and support research projects. Of course now it is the home to just about everything, but people constantly turn towards it when looking for functional and purposeful information. So look to craft things that use your expert opinion or personal flare to make that content helpful to your audience.
• Passion – Passion creates lots of shares in the virtual world. From politics to sports you have passionate groups of people that can’t wait to digest content tied to their favorite topic. They key is to focus on the topic and the passion while taking the business or selling angle out of it. Otherwise people will see your content for what it is; self promotion rather than content that feeds their passion.
• Interest – There needs to be something about your content that the reader or viewer finds interesting. Regardless what it is, if it makes someone go, “hmmmmm that’s interesting,” then the chances that they will share it jumps to about 50%. There is some psychology behind this in many cases where a person wants to feel smart by recommending something but there is also just the idea of passing information along that friends will find useful or insightful since people often share rather than talk. So what is interesting? Newsworthy content fits this bill along with items that are surprising. Original content can be interesting just because it is new.
• Emotion – Emotion is a huge draw in everything that we do. Some people love comedy which ties into emotions like joy, happiness or amusement. Other people like surprises or excitement. Generally things that makes people feel good or things that tug on an emotional heartstring will get shared a lot with positive items leading the way. A good joke or funny story can run non-stop for days on the internet.

The bottom line is that we humans typically only take the time to share things that we really care about and that is a pretty short list overall. The 4 things that determine if your content is shareable is based on that idea which is one that has been proven time and time again based on reviewing thousands of pieces of content with high share ratings. So keep that in mind as you craft that next piece of content you are hoping becomes a bit hit.

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