It seems like a no-brainer: for people to share your nonprofit’s content, you need to create materials they’ll love. When people share your content in their online communities, your reach increases exponentially. Your post could even go viral!
But it’s not always that simple. With the 2 million blog posts, and hundreds of millions of videos, status updates, and photos posted every day, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. Use some of these tips and your followers won’t be able to resist sharing your nonprofit’s content!
1. Be Relevant
It’s never a bad idea to tap into what’s trending among your followers. When a topic is “trending,” that means that a significant portion of social media is talking about it.
Trending-related content is more likely to be shared because it is relevant to your followers. You can find trending topics on both Twitter and Facebook in their sidebars. Google Alerts is another way to stay on top of trends in your industry.
2. Know Your Audience
A crucial, though often overlooked, step of creating social media content is knowing your audience. If your audience doesn’t have an interest in the topics you cover or the pieces you create, they won’t share your content.
To get to know your audience, ask yourself if you’re speaking their language. Are you focusing on topics and ideas that will resonate with them? Also, when is your target audience online? Timing is a crucial component of content strategy. You don’t want to create awesome content that no one will see because they’re not online.
3. Include Visuals
The human brain is wired for images; we process images 60,000 times faster than text. In fact, 90% of information transmitted to our brains is visual. This tendency towards visual literacy is why it’s so important to include photos in your content.
On Twitter, for instance, people are 94% more likely to share your post if it includes a photo. Including photos will increase the scope of your message which will in turn boost engagement, galvanize support, and inspire action.
Not a photographer? No problem! There are plenty of free stock image sites like Unsplash and Pexels. Infographics are another way to share a large volume of information in a visual format. Canva and Piktochart are two free online tools that create professional looking infographics quickly and easily.
4. Make it Easy
If someone really likes your post, they will likely share it. But if you don’t empower your audience with easy social sharing options, you’re doing yourself a disservice–people won’t do it! Make your Facebook and Twitter sharing options highly visible to increase the likelihood of a share.
A click-to-tweet plugin for your blog is another great trick to increase shares. This tool allows you to select a portion of text and make it shareable with a single click. Interesting facts, data points, or quotes make for great tweetable content. Include this plugin on your WordPress site and watch your shares multiply!
5. Use a Call-to-Action
Sometimes, people need to be reminded to share your content. A solid call-to-action like “Retweet if you support the United Way!” is a good way to encourage social sharing. The numbers show that this works. Pinterest pins with a call to action get 80% more shares, and Tweets that ask followers to retweet get 51% more shares than those who don’t.
Conclusion
These are just a few ideas to get you started on the road to viral success on social media. There are dozens of other tips and tricks out there that were not covered in this article. Some of these tactics may be better suited for your nonprofit than others.
Just remember: Creating shareable, engaging content takes a lot of work, trial and error, and persistence. Keep at it, and you’ll find what works best for you!
