Smooth Sharing on Social Media: How Easy is it to SHARE Your Blog or E-zine?
If you are using social media as a business marketing tool and you haven’t yet read Seth Godin’s book, Unleashing the Ideavirus, I strongly urge you to do so. There is a good reason why it is the #1 selling e-book of all time.
In the book, Godin suggests that “the future belongs to marketers who establish foundation and process where interested people can market to each other. Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk.”
“It is imperative to stop marketing AT people. The idea is to create an environment where consumers will market to each other.”
– Seth Godin, Unleashing the Ideavirus
But here’s the catch: if you want to create an environment where your consumers market to each other i.e. help spread the word about YOUR products, services, ideas and messages, you have to make it as fast and easy as possible for them to do so. Sounds simple? It is. How often is it done? Not nearly enough, I can tell you that.
Here’s a prime example:
When I receive an e-zine in my e-mail inbox from a person whose products or services I have used in the past (and am obviously pleased with because I have given them permission to stay in contact with me), if what I read or view or listen to resonates with me in some way, I am happy to share their message/article/idea/podcast/video etc via social media. But 9 times out of 10, what happens when I try to do so?
I can’t find any sort of share button in the e-mail!
OR if I do, for example, find the option to share the item on Twitter and then I click on it – only to find that the tweet created doesn’t actually link to where the article lives on their website…it just leads to the home page. And what good is that? I will share your ideas or articles but don’t expect me to just blindly send people to your homepage for no specific reason.
In Ideavirus terminology, Godin uses the word “smoothness” to describe this quality of being able to quickly and easily share an idea, blog, message, etc.
So if you are a small business owner using social media to market your products, services and ideas, my question to you is this: how easy is it for someone, such as myself, to help spread YOUR word?
Because if you are going to put in all the time and effort to write a blog and send it to your existing customers, please try and make it as easy as possible for the rest of us to help share your work.
Here are 3 simple ways you can help increase the smoothness of spreading your ideas:
1. Make sure you have the option to share on social media from your blog (on your website).
2. Make sure you have the option to share on social media from your e-zine.
3. Make sure the social media share options actually work e.g. if a reader clicks on the Twitter option, does the tweet that comes up actually take one to the correct place/blog/article?
Here’s to smooth sharing on social media in 2015!
Related Blogs:
Social Media Marketing Tips for Frustrated Small Business Owners
Pssst…Might Sharing be the Secret to Social Media Marketing?
6 Tricks to Getting More Marketing Mileage Out of Your Blogs
Maryanne Pope is the CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions and Chair of theJohn Petropoulos Memorial Fund. She is the author of A Widow’s Awakening and the executive producer of the documentary, Whatever Floats Your Boat…Perspectives on Motherhood. If you would like to receive her weekly blog, please sign up here.