You have heard about the importance of spreading your brand and business content on Facebook in order to engage a larger target audience. But have you ever wondered what really makes a person want to share something on Facebook?

✨Every Marketer’s Dream✨

If your content reaches only a few Facebook users, and they share your content, they are practically doing the work for you; they are advertising for you by simply sharing,  and all you have to do is sit back, relax and let the advertising spin on its own wheels. In technical terms, this is called word of mouth (WoM) marketing.

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While many companies strive to market their brand or business through their fan pages on Facebook, not many ask the question: how do you create that type of ‘I want to share this with all my friends’ content?

Boring Facts ?

• In August 2016, the average number of Facebook shares reached an enormous 4.75 billion.
• Each time a Facebook user logs in, they are exposed to potentially 1500 shares.
• Most Facebook users see brand content as spam, and therefore ignore it.

How can you make your brand content appear attractive and share-worthy?

In general, Facebook users tend to share things by WoM out of self-interest, self-presentation, self-promotion or to compliment their online reputation. Let’s not forget also that users share content in order to create social connections. It is very logical to think that users will share content that fulfill their own needs, and if your business content and brand characteristics match or enhance their own viewpoints, lifestyle affairs and personal viewpoints, they will most likely share your content.

For example, from a Facebook user’s point of view, they may think:

?  If I share this, what will it say about who I am?

?What will  my boss or my friends think of me if I share this?

You’ve read so many articles about the importance of launching your brand online, and now it’s time to understand why consumers share content and how to make them want to share YOUR content.

2 Content-Effective Strategies

1. Content quality (narrative style, vividness, interactivity, entertainment, educational quality)
2. Emotional tonality (how much of an emotional impact does your content have?)

After all, we are humans and we want to feel, to learn and to be entertained. Content is usually shared because it is a means of interacting with friends, it provides useful information to friends, and the content shapes a user’s personal style.

Compatible Message Content with a Target Audience

1. A younger audience always likes to meet new people and share ideas. Brand managers should aim their Facebook fan pages to employ communal messages, for example greeting messages for Christmas, tips for cleaning shirts, cooking ideas for college students, or any kind of information that can be spread among new friends or topics that could potentially start a conversation with someone new).
2. An older audience, who has already an established friend group and who is unlikely to make many new friends (e.g. an engineer, a teacher), will always be concerned about self-image. Fan page managers should post content that build and nourish a self-image (e.g. timely sales, announcements, lifestyle affairs, humorous descriptions, time-limited discounts).

Top tips:

Don’t forget that we have a memory like a ?. Your content should engage audiences immediately. They have busy lives and will most likely skim your content. Make it easy for them by using vivid imagery and captivating videos, short/snappy phrases and headings/bullet points.

After reading all this, you probably will only remember the emojis. I rest my case.

Reports show that in 2016, there was a 17% drop in content engagement; that is, people just skim over content, but never actually pay attention to it. But who cares, we will make those figures decrease by creating content we all like and want to share.