How to Create Sticky Content to Share on Social Media
There’s a misconception floating around that you should share as much content as possible on social media. However, the reality of the situation is that not all content is well optimized for social media platforms. And if a certain piece of content is optimized for one social networking platform, it may not be conducive to another.
What is Sticky Content?
Sticky content is essentially content that you publish on your website with the intent of getting users to engage with your brand and spend more time on your site. It’s content that adds value to the reader and commands a response.
Sticky content also happens to be shareworthy – meaning that it excels on social media platforms and encourages people to click. Sticky content should not be confused with clickbait, which uses spammy and misleading tactics to encourage website traffic. There’s actual value and the exchange between the brand and user is mutually beneficial.
How to Create Sticky, Shareworthy Content
Most brands don’t have any idea how to create sticky, shareworthy content for their social media platforms. But it’s not as challenging as it may seem. Here’s some advice to get the wheels turning:
1. Understand Platform Demographics
The first key is to understand what type of audience you’re interacting with. It varies from one social platform to the next. Consider Facebook vs. Instagram vs. Twitter:
- Facebook has 2 billion monthly active users and has almost a perfect split between males and females. It also skews heavily toward the older age ranges, with 72 percent of all internet users over the age of 50 using the platform.
- Instagram has 800 million monthly active users and skews heavily female (just 42 percent of users are male). The age distribution is also much younger with teenagers and millenials accounting for the majority of users.
- Twitter has 317 million monthly active users – 53 percent of which are males. Just 21 percent of internet users over the age of 50 use the platform. Twitter, like Instagram, tilts younger.
A piece of content that does well on Facebook probably won’t do as well on Twitter. Not only are the audiences different, but so are the expectations and the delivery. Keep this in mind and create sticky content with specific platforms in focus.
2. Integrate Shareable Elements
Content that’s predominantly textual in nature won’t perform as well as content that has visual elements. If you’re going to share a traditional blog post on social media, be sure to incorporate visual elements into the post. Not only does this make the page itself more digestible, but it also gives you a magnetic element to push out when you post the content on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever platform you’re using to share it.
This page from Henry C. Dailey Law Firm is a good example. Notice how the content uses different graphics to summarize the contents of the article. These graphics can then be used when sharing on social media. As a result, people will be more likely to click.
3. Take a Fresh Angle
People get tired of reading the same old content on the same recycled ideas. Sticky content should be fresh and unique.
The popular article from Seth Adam Smith, titled Marriage Isn’t For You, is a fantastic example. It’s merely an article on how to have a better marriage, but the polarizing headline garnered the post nearly 2 million shares.
4. Get Interactive
People don’t want to sit in front of a screen and read thousands of words until their eyes glaze over. They’d much rather engage with the content.
“Getting readers to participate somehow on your blog is a great way to get them to return! Encourage comments, hold a competition, have readers vote on something, host a giveaway, encourage readers to subscribe, etc.,” marketer Kim Garst suggests. “These types of interactions encourage readers to come back to comment again or view the results.”
Elevate Your Social Media Presence
Social media is too valuable of a marketing channel to keep getting it all wrong. It’s not about posting as much content as you can muster. Instead, it’s about maximizing the quality of the content that you do post. Three or four quality posts each week will yield far more value than 15 or 20 weekly posts that don’t connect with your followers.