All organizations want more exposure for their website content but most manufacturing companies stop at creating the content. Social sharing of content through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and other platforms is a good way to distribute your content and drive traffic back to your website.
The key is to create quality content (that is shareable) and to be consistent.
Here are a few things you can do to increase the possibility your content gets shared.
Be Visual
Images and rich media are more engaging than text alone, so it’s important to add relevant images that are appealing and optimized for social networks.
Sites like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest usually feature the main picture from your post. A great post can get lost without something as simple as a unique graphic.
Pictures not only grab the viewers’ attention, but help communicate your message in a deeper and more layered way. Photos can often be used to communicate a metaphor or create a certain feeling.
Use Meta Data
Review your meta data, as in the page title and description, for social media posts to ensure they are clear and concise. On Facebook, for example, the four things people see when sharing a web page are the image, title, description and comments from the person sharing the page.
Include keywords in the meta tags as most social networks have their own keyword-based search engines, but not at the expense of communicating clearly to your audience (don’t stuff keywords). You can stay visible not only in the main feed, but also to anyone searching for the topic on that social network by using the right keywords.
Use Google Keyword Planner, or the search engines within each social network to find relevant keywords and use those keywords in the title. A good title could be the difference between 10 views on a post and 1000. So a do a little research beforehand, and thank yourself later.
Make your content is mobile-friendly
Traffic to websites from mobile devices have grown exponentially. Are your social sharing icons working correctly for mobile? Is your content(website) mobile friendly? If your content is not optimized for mobile, you are potentially losing traffic and conversions as users are more likely to bounce off the website.
Add Share Buttons
You want to make sure your content is easy for people to share on their social networks. But before adding social share buttons, mull over which ones suit your web page design the best. Focus on only the most relevant channels to your manufacturing company. If you are not active on a platform and you notice your audience is sharing your content, consider building out this social platform.
If you want all-inclusive plugins, AddThis works well, however you can also get buttons natively from individual platforms.
Automatic shares
You can set up automatic sharing of content. So, consider telling your audience how they can automate the process of sharing your content as soon as it’s published. You can use tools such as Dlvr.it where you specify the source, that is your site, and the destination, which would be the social media profiles (you can opt to share to multiple sites or just one).
Increase Your Social Base
You have to grow your set of followers on one or more social platforms to maximize sharing of your content. IF you do not have any audience, the first thing you may want to do is focus on building a seed list (audience) with a small paid advertising campaign. A small hyper active audience will market, share and defend your content and brand.
Give Visitors a Reason to Care
You have to know what topic your audience really cares about and cater to that. If you don’t know, ask. Use surveys to find out what really matters or use your social media platforms to engage (that is what they are for after all) and find out what your audience is interested in learning about your products or industry.
