Social Media will be the next big thing. In fact, it already is. It has been suggested that every year, on average, we share twice as much as we did the year before. Looking at the following three trends in social sharing, it becomes evident how important it is to ensure that any content you produce is a shareable as possible.

Like and Share Buttons

You’ll have a hard time finding a current blog now that does not have some kind of sharing button within. Long gone are the days where if you liked an article you would print it out or copy and paste the URL into an email to share with a colleague. Nowadays, you have a huge number of platforms to share to, with the most prevalent being Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg.

If you run a blog, ensure that you have your sharing buttons and plugins installed. Increasing the shareability of your content will allow for its rapid distribution online, leading to more impressions, viewers and opportunities.

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking combines the concept of bookmarking a website you like and the facility to share your favourite content. Establishing an account on social bookmarking sites forms a portfolio of the sites you have liked and chosen to remember for viewing at a later date. These platforms then use your social connections to recommend to you and to your friends more articles and content that may be appealing.

For blog owners, create an account on Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon and bookmark your articles. Ensure that you tag them into the appropriate categories so that the readers who fall upon your articles are more targeted and therefore more likely to enjoy and share your content to their social network.

Social Advertising

Last, but not least, the trickiest of demons: advertising on social networks. Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter allow you to create extremely targeted ads that can help you increase exposure to your blog, business or personal brand. Advertising on social networks can be very effective as long as you keep one important rule in mind: your advertisement must be social in nature!

Most people do not spend time on social networks to shop or be marketed to. Therefore, advertising on these channels requires a level of subtlety and appeal that will draw in interested people without offending their sense of privacy. There are numerous resources and blog posts about how to create these ads and maximise your cost per click, but at the end of the day, the best ad is one that does not seem like an ad at all. Try inviting the people you advertise to to join you in a conversation or engage with you directly, rather than throwing a product or discount at them. Content is king and good material will be shared, so focus on making whatever you produce absolutely fantastic.

Do you have any other tips for social sharing that you have found effective? Drop a message in the comments below!

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