PDF The whole landscape for social marketing revolves around creating and sharing content. You can build a sizable following just sharing links to well-selected third-party content; the enduring success of Boing Boing is proof of that. Whenever you’re using social media to promote your business, you need to think more carefully about the mix of content you share. Along with great external links, you need to link back to useful content you’ve generated and to calls-to-action that prompt a trial, inquiry or purchase.
The media practitioners for the social networks offer many different takes on the ideal ratio of third-party content to original content. But first, let’s look at a few ground rules for effective sharing:
- Share for credibility: Think carefully about the third-party content you share. Don’t just link to everything that shows up in your Google feeds; pick and choose. If your audience sees that you consistently share the most useful, authentic and timely content out there it builds your own credibility as an expert. It also establishes goodwill towards you as a provider of useful content.
- Create great content: Don’t just put out marketing spiels. Give your audience useful, lucid and engaging content that relates to your offerings in a way that connects with their concerns. The more you share genuinely informative and entertaining the original content, the better.
- Include a Call To Action: As far as possible, include a call to action somewhere in your original content. This can be a link to an enquiry form, contact details or a page where users can download useful content in return for entering basic contact details.
Here is the magic formula, the golden ratio. Several different possibilities have been offered in the past, with an 80-20 ratio in favour of third-party content gaining the most ground. However, a recent publication suggests a ratio that includes an important element discussed above: the call to action.
Authors Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen suggest a 10-4-1 ration. This means: ten external links, four links to original content and one link to a landing page with a call to action.
It’s possible to debate the exact ratio, but we completely endorse the concept of creating action-oriented landing pages that encourage a member of your audience to take the next step to become a prospect or a customer. Well written and designed landing pages that clearly state a value proposition and offer a response mechanism are an important aspect of your content generation and sharing activities, keeping it real and offering that vital connect back to your sales pipeline.
Need help with structuring a social sharing strategy or crafting great calls to action? Interestingly, these two are a must have and happen to be the specialties of our i-Vista Digital Marketing team!