How to Maximize the Sharing of a Blog Post: Part 2

by Scott

In the first part of this post, I discussed ways to encourage sharing once someone has read a post.

But before anyone shares your content from the highest hill in the twitterverse, you must convince people to read your content. This is a whole different challenge. This post will discuss best practices to put your content in play.

Reading

Again, in order for a post to be shared it must be read. There are certain things producers can do to increase the chances of visitor staying to read it:

1. Write a compelling first sentence.

Bloggers compete in the attention economy. Readers have no shortage of content to consume, but a fixed amount of time. Within this environment, you need to capture someone’s attention quickly …
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How to Maximize the Sharing of a Blog Post: Part 1

by Scott

If you’ve ever spent 2+ hours slaving over a blog post only to have 1/2 a spam bot be the sole person to share it you may want to read this post.

Improving the odds of getting people to share your post starts with creating compelling content (or having a lot of money to give entrepreneurs). Assuming you can achieve this, there are certain considerations and practices that maximize the exposure available through social media.

The Sharing Funnel

You can visualize the content sharing funnel by working backwords.

For content to be shared, it needs to be read (unless you have a posse retweet jockeys).

For it to be read, a visitor must perceive that it’s worthy of their attention upon arriving at the post.

For …
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The Humble Brag Economy

by Scott

As Will Dean so insightfully highlighted two evenings ago, the newest luxury goods are experiences.

The dominant conditions surrounding society have made it so. Generally we have less free time which assigns a higher value to anything devote our time to. We also have incrementally more channels to document and share our experiences (facebook, twitter, foursquare, etc).

The humbling result: many people, including myself, actively seek out experiences that provide “humble brag” opportunities.

                                   

Immediate examples that come to mind from my life in my quest to become…the most interesting man in the world:

Krav Maga Classes – Will I realistically use any of this? No, …
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SMB Social Media: Many Are Catching On

by Scott

A trend I’ve been noticing amongst SMBs I interact with is that they’re increasingly using technology to capture value from one-off interactions where they previously failed. Larger brands have long recognized the power of an email address or social media relationship and have provided consumers with incentives to trade this information. This information is a gateway for maintaining relevancy and hopefully cultivating a relationship through the penetration of your inbox or social stream. The diligence of retail brands in this arena serves as a stark contrast from my experience with SMBs. However, a few of my most recent interactions indicate SMBs are now getting in the game:

After putting my name on the waiting list at a local restaurant, the …
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Customer Loyalty: Missed Opportunity at the Cash Register

by Scott

After I made a purchase yesterday the cashier asked me for my email address. For the sake of my inbox sanity I respectfully declined. In alignment with my moleskin diet, I thought about this interaction for a good 15 minutes. It got me thinking, what is the conversion rate on this question and the roi on each email address?

Lets compare this with if she asked me for my twitter handle. Knowing that I’d have to opt-in to receive updates from the brand, I’d be cool with giving that away. Don’t kid yourself, we all want more followers.

Brands can derive a ton of value from their customers’ twitter handles. For starters, by following someone they’re potentially giving them a subtle nudge …
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