How to Get Your Users to “Pay” with Social Shares

Are you looking for ways to increase social media engagement to drive traffic to your website?

Of course you are. It’s a social web. It’s a social world. We all want more people to share our stuff.

By completing a few simple steps, every time you post new content you’ll expand your social media reach, increasing brand visibility and driving revenue.

In this article you’ll discover how to get users to “pay” you with the currency of social shares.

Obviously, your content is free. (As it should be.) But you should still be doing all you can to squeeze every last possible social share from each piece of content. When users share your content, they are — in a way — ”paying” for their use of the content.

How do you boost social sharing of your content to the next level?

#1. Connect Your Blogging Platform to Your Social Media Accounts

SproutSocial recently published statistics showing 63 percent of millennials stay updated on brands through social networks and 46 percent rely on social media when making an online purchase.

This makes integrating social media with your website no-brainer business decision, as 78 percent of companies now say they have dedicated social media teams.

WordPress is the most widely used blogging platform, so we’ll start there. Connecting social media accounts to WordPress is actually quite simple. After signing into your site, click “Settings” to bring up the submenu and then click “Sharing.”

This brings up the Sharing Settings menu. In the Publicize section, you’ll see 6 popular social media sites that can be connected to WordPress: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Path, and Google+. Click the “Connect” button in each section to log in to the social network and grant permission for WordPress to post to your account.

You’re then given the option to allow access for just you or everyone who posts on the account. To get the most bang for your buck, it’s recommended that everyone who contributes to the blog link their social media accounts for all users’ posts. However, this decision should be based on the specific dynamics of your business.

After setting up these accounts one time, every new WordPress post will list all connected social media accounts in the “Publicize” section within the “Publish” section. Any accounts that are having connection issues will be highlighted.

When each new post is published, it will automatically be shared on every social media account listed, giving you immediate shares.

To connect other social media accounts such as Instagram, Pinterest, or Reddit, or when using other blogging services, such as Blogger/BlogSpot or Tumblr, an online utility called If This then That (IFTTT.com) is the easiest way to connect social media accounts.

Registering for IFTTT is as simple as clicking “Sign Up” in the upper right corner of the screen, entering your email for the username, selecting a password and clicking “Activate.” Then you’re presented with a dashboard. Type either “WordPress,” “Blogger,” “BlogSpot,” or “Tumblr” in the search bar at the top, and you’ll be presented with recipes.

IFTTT recipes are bots that detect when a new post appears on one site and automatically reposts them to another. Find the specific social media accounts you wish to promote your posts on and click the button to bring up the Channel activation options. Click each connect button and log in to your accounts and give IFTTT permission to access them.

After completing this initial setup, each new post on your blog will automatically appear in the selected social networks. Now, instead of posting on one site, you’ll be adding new content to multiple websites with one click of a button, exponentially multiplying your reach on all future posts with no extra effort.

#2 – Add Social Sharing Buttons to Posts

Search Engine Land found that social media shares are increasingly becoming a factor in search engine rankings, as search engine companies like Google, Bing, Siri and DuckDuckGo attempt to present users with the most relevant information possible.

While posting to your own social media accounts is helpful, you also need to give readers an easy way to share content with their social circles. Providing a simple call to action that allows a one-click share on social media greatly increases the chances of a post being shared. This is accomplished by adding social sharing buttons to your posts.

In WordPress, you can do this in the “Sharing” section outlined above. Scrolling down from the “Publicize” page, you’re presented with options to enable sharing buttons to your site for Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, Google+, Pocket, Email, Print, and Skype. You can even add whatever other services you’d like by clicking the “Add a new service” link.

Simply drag buttons from “Available Services” to “Enabled Services” and choose which ones should be shown and which should be hidden behind a “Share” button. You can then customize the button style and sharing label and click radio buttons to determine if these share buttons should be displayed on the Front Page, Posts, Pages, Media, Orders, and Projects.

When you’re done customizing your share buttons, click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page.

In Blogger, adding share buttons requires editing the blog template, which is accomplished by clicking “Template” in the left menu, then clicking the “Edit HTML” button. Once your site’s HTML is displayed, press CTRL-F to search the text and type: <data:post.body/>

This will highlight the section, <span expr:id=’data:post.id’><data:post.body/></span>. Directly underneath this section, copy and paste the following code:

<span class=’st_facebook_hcount’ displayText=’Facebook’></span>

<span class=’st_googleplus_hcount’ displayText=’Google+’></span>

<span class=’st_twitter_hcount’ displayText=’Twitter’></span>

<span class=’st_sharethis_hcount’ displayText=’ShareThis’></span>

Then type </head> into the text search bar to highlight that text in your template. Directly underneath, copy and paste the following code:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=https://w.sharethis.com/button/buttons.js></script>

<script type=”text/javascript”>stlight.options({publisher: “074821ed-063e-4ae5-bad9-3e26ecf249f3”}): </script>

Click “Save,” and each post will now have buttons to share content on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook, along with other services hidden behind the ShareThis button.

By adding social media share buttons to your website, the engagement rate and search ranking of your website is increased twofold, as more users are clicking links within your page, and those clicks promote your site to new users who would otherwise be unaware you exist.

#3 – Engage Your Social Media Audience

When the power went out during the 2013 SuperBowl, Oreo was quick to capitalize with a now infamous tweet, “Power out? No problem.” featuring a picture of an Oreo cookie with the tagline, “You can still dunk in the dark.”

The tweet was an instant hit on all social media channels, trending on Twitter, and even receiving mainstream media attention. By understanding the users of the popular social media site, the brand fueled a renewed passion for the iconic cookie.

With business-related posts already being automated through the website and IFTTT, focus social media efforts on having fun and engaging with the audience. Only one out of every seven social media posts should be salesy. The rest should show off the company’s personality, quirkiness, and provide reasons for people to follow you.

Don’t simply focus on dry material related to the business. Human beings are multi-faceted, and we want to know the businesses we’re supporting are just as well-rounded.

If you’re unsure what to post, start browsing the pages of your followers to see what they post. It’s acceptable to even comment on their posts like any other friend, fan, or follower would.

This builds a relationship of trust that increases the chance that users will share your thoughts, ideas, and other posts with their social circles.

Also be sure to join and participate in groups on LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook. These groups are filled with thousands of people who are interested in the general subject of the group.

Brainstorm 10-12 keywords related to your business, brand, or subjects you’re interested in, and search these social networking sites for groups that focus on those keywords. This opens you up to new audiences outside your follower base.

Be careful not to be self-promotional within groups, as this will get your posts removed and may get you banned.

Instead, contribute to the group as a knowledgeable expert to encourage group members to follow your account, expanding the audience that will see your promotional posts.

#4 – Use Unique Images to Stand Out

On the surface, you wouldn’t think Denny’s would be responsible for some of the strangest and most interesting social media posts, but the company gained over 1 million Facebook likes and 290K Twitter followers by posting some very strange things.

Instead of filling your site with boring, stale (or, even worse, stolen) images, start being creative.

Millennials are much different than previous generations in that they never knew a world without the Internet and cell phones. Visual images are important to capturing the attention of a generation that is used to having everything at their fingertips on demand at all times.

It doesn’t take a professional $3,000 DSLR camera to produce great images. Simple screenshots and even cell phone photos and videos are commonplace in our society. People are used to seeing these images, and are often viewing them on their smaller-screen mobile devices anyway.

After posting a pic to a webpage, consider captioning it with a humorous or provocative statement. Often, the image itself will encourage users to share a post and others to click it or reshare.

According to HubSpot, when people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10 percent of that information three days later. However, with a relevant image attached, people retain 65 percent of the information.

Visual marketing is a key ingredient to attracting more people who are more likely to connect to the brand message than with text alone.

Conclusion

Now it’s your turn.

Social media is a vital component of any brand’s online strategy. Increasing social media engagement increases brand visibility on both the social media site and online search engines.

By providing easy share options, automating social media publicity, and creating a community atmosphere, you’ll drive traffic to your website, increase leads, and increase profitability.

What social media strategies have you successfully utilized to enhance sharing?