5 Tips for Giving Good ‘Share’

Have you ever gone to share something online but been disappointed by the default preview content that comes up in social channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter?  If not, you probably haven’t ever shared content online before.

But seriously, this is an area that almost everyone can improve on, myself included. I recently developed a guide to optimizing web content for social sharing. Here are 5 of the key points:

1. Make the title engaging and include appropriate keywords

2. Always, always, always include a good, relevant image in your pages, posts, etc.

3. Create robust, enticing, keyword-rich descriptions (aka meta descriptions) for all your content

4. Include share links in your content (Facebook Like button, Twitter Tweet button, ShareThis button, etc.

5. Don’t ignore channels you don’t participate in personally. People you want to reach might be using channels you are not.

Bonus tip: Ask for the share. If your content is good, people are likely to share it with their friends and associates, but it helps to ask.

In the example on the right, these are two videos that were shared on Facebook.  Which one do you think is more likely to get people to click on it?  Can you see how important it is to have all of the fields filled out appropriately when you post content?

In the Guide to Optimizing Online Content For Social Sharing, I go into greater detail and show examples of good, share-friendly content as well as not-so-good content that doesn’t stand a chance of being shared. To receive the complimentary guide, subscribe to my blog updates and I’ll send you a link to download the guide for free.

What do you think? Do you give good ‘Share?’

If you found this helpful, I hope you will share it with others. 🙂