Technology Matrix: 6 Tips to Increase Your Social Media Shares

social media how to Do you want more people to share your content?

Looking for more reach via social shares?

By making a few adjustments to how you create, publish, and post your content, you can increase the likelihood that others will share it more often.

In this article, you'll discover six tips to help you maximize your social shares.

Discover six tips to increase social media content shares.

It pays to do your research ahead of time. Having a better understanding of what successful content looks like in your industry increases the likelihood of it being shared.

Use a tool like BuzzSumo to help identify top shared content.

Identify top shared content quickly with BuzzSumo.

You can search for top shared content pertaining to a topic or keyword, results sorted by overall shares.

Use keywords or topics to search for top shared content.

Alternatively, you can search by domain to view top shared content specific to a website.

You can also search by specific website.

You get a comprehensive breakdown of shares per social network, which helps you decide where to focus your efforts.

Search by shares per social network.

PostReach is another great tool to measure content performance across each social network. Simply enter an article's URL in PostReach and run a free report.

In addition, you can also run a total share breakdown report.

Share breakdown by network.

For further exploration, you can view detailed Twitter share activity.

Twitter's performance measured in total shares, tweets, retweets, and total reach.

You can plot Twitter activity across a share timeline.

A timeline helps you identify how well content did over a period of time.

You can also see which users most retweeted the article and view your overall reach through sharer audience sizes.

See which users retweeted your content most.

Finally, you can zero in on specific sharers and potential influencers with a detailed inventory of sharers provided at the bottom of the report.

Zero in on specific users and influencers.

Keep in mind, the purpose of this research is not to duplicate existing content, but rather to identify popular topics in your niche and add something new to the conversation.

Make it your goal to go above and beyond top shared content.

Your audience is more likely to share content when it takes minimal effort. If your website already receives regular traffic, take advantage of the potential social shares by designing your most popular content for easy sharing.

An effective approach is to implement social buttons on your website. If you operate a WordPress site, there's plenty of useful plugins for one-click sharing buttons, including Social Pug.

Social Pug features easy-to-use social sharing buttons for WordPress.

The way your content reads can also encourage social engagement.

Have a great tip to share in an article? Post a share button directly below your article, as demonstrated by Brian Dean of Backlinko.

Have a tip? Put a share button directly below it.

You can create a unique call to action using ClickToTweet. To start, enter your desired text in the text box and click Generate New Link. Make sure it includes a link back to your post.

ClickToTweet will track all clicks on the link.

You can embed the code in the appropriate part of your content.

Embedding these buttons ensures your best content is actionable.

There's a strong chance your content is being snubbed if your headline fails to grab people. It becomes increasingly important to hook your audience with a headline, as online attention spans continue to dwindle.

Social audiences tend to favor snackable content; bite-sized pieces that quickly convey their intent. BuzzFeed articles are essentially engineered to take advantage of this trend: easily consumed and shared. They further entice the audience to read the content by addressing them individually. For example, you'll encounter dozens of instances of you and your throughout.

What else goes into a headline worth clicking? Conductor analyzed user preferences and found that users tend to gravitate towards numbers, personalization, educational resources, and questions. When shared, a well-crafted headline functions like a status update, in that it will summarize the user's opinion or awareness of a subject.

Want your best content to receive more shares across social networks? Start thinking about your headlines in a social context.

Attach images to your posts to help them stand out and benefit your social efforts.

Photos increase social engagement.

Invest resources in quality images to maximize post visibility. Some stock photo sources are free to use, provided you meet the terms of their licensing agreement.

While stock photos provide an option, you may prefer to create custom images that better showcase your brand. Don't have a graphic designer on hand? Use tools like Canva to create images to accompany your post. You can choose from premade templates that can easily be customized with text. It's perfect for adding taglines that complement your attention-grabbing headlines.

You can begin by signing up for a free account. After logging in, click on Create a Design and choose a design. The Social Media Posts section may be a good place to start.

Using Canva is great if you don't have a graphic designer on staff.

Many of the templates are free. Select a template to start work on a custom image.

Canva offers several free templates.

Next, click the text to edit.

In the templates, the text is editable.

It's easy to craft something that complements your headline whenever possible.

Crafting text that supports your headlines will help promote more shareable content.

Audiences vary greatly across social networks and accounting for their unique demographics helps you prioritize those relevant to your business.

Facebook has the largest total user base. Users are more likely to share content that affects them personally because their networks typically consist of friends and family.Twitter has the second-largest user base and skews younger. It primarily functions as a news source and a real-time conversation hub for trending topics.LinkedIn consists of working adults and industry professionals seeking networking opportunities. It's the ideal network to demonstrate thought leadership and provide detailed product information.Pinterest has a large female user base with traffic predominantly attributed to mobile devices. It remains a popular source for more "consumable" shares, including recipes and crafting guides.Google+ still remains active and is considered a hub for tech-savvy individuals, such as frontline developers.

Want to give yourself the best chance possible for social shares and engagement? There's a certain window of time you'll want to target. Posting during peak hours greatly enhances your ability to attract shares and other meaningful engagement.

Know when your followers are online. Image: Shutterstock.

According to HubSpot research, the ideal windows of engagement are as follows:

Post on Facebook on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 1:00 PM, or between 3:00 and 4:00 PM on Wednesdays or 1:00 and 4:00 PM on Thursdays and Fridays.Twitter is typically used at work and at home, but mostly during downtimes like long commutes and breaks. Post to Twitter from 12:00 to 3:00 PM Monday through Friday. Also possibly 5:00 to 6:00 PM on Wednesdays.Professionals use LinkedIn, most often during work hours, but not all day. Post to LinkedIn early in the day (7:30 to 8:30 AM), or lunchtime (12:00 PM), and finally near the end of the day (5:00 to 6:00 PM) on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.Pinterest skews to female users, who are most active in the evening. Post new content to Pinterest between 2:00 and 4:00 AM and evening hours every day. Also, Fridays around 5:00 PM. Finally, the best time to post to Pinterest is Saturdays between 8:00 and 11:00 PM.

It's important to note that there's no universal posting window or one-size-fits-all approach. Engagement is shaped by many factors, including social network, region, goals (clicks vs. shares), and how audiences interact with the social network overall. You'll ultimately want to experiment with your own content to find out what works best for your business.

Conclusion

Winning more social shares for your content means winning over audiences.

You'll need to put in the effort to create the type of content people want to share. With great material in place, you can leverage creative opportunities to promote it and generate more exposure.

Time to get to work!

What do you think? Can you use these tools to drive more social shares? Please let us know in the comments below!