How to Encourage Social Sharing of Your Blog Posts

We live in a social world where much of our news comes from sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To grow your readership and make sure your blog posts get the attention they deserve, you need to encourage your current readers to share what you’ve written on their favorite social media sites. What those sites are will largely depend on the niche your in. Find out where your audience likes to hang out and then focus on getting them to share on those social media outlets to attract more likeminded readers.

Start with Quality Content

Of course it all starts with quality content that your readers want to read and share. No-one is going to spread a crappy post on social media. Start by writing the best blog posts you can and do some research into what your audience wants and needs.

In other words, serve your market well and they will in turn share what you’re writing with their friends and acquaintances.

Make it Pretty

Next it’s time to pretty up your post. Break up your content into small bite-sized chunks so it’s easy to read. Add some subheadings and formatting to make it easy to scan through the content. And don’t forget to add a pretty image that captures the essence of your post.

Step away from your desk and then come back and look at it with fresh eyes. Is the blog post visually appealing? Does it grab your attention? If not, go back to the drawing board and see what you can do to improve it.

When your goal is to get people to share your blog post on social media, you want to make it as easy as possible to share. We talked about what social media sites your audience favors earlier. Make sure you have one click buttons to share the blog post available for all those sites. If you are running your blog using WordPress you should be able to find a plugin to help you do this.

Buttons are great, but sometimes it takes a little extra push to get your readers to take action. Don’t be afraid to ask for the social media share. Close your articles and blog posts with a little sentence or two that asks them to share on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest etc. if they enjoyed the post. And don’t forget to let them know how much you appreciate it when they share the love.