Virality Strategies

Social Sharing Buttons

Implementing social sharing buttons involves integrating clickable icons on digital content, such as articles, products, or multimedia, allowing users to easily share the content across their social media profiles. This strategy leverages social proof and user-generated promotion to extend the reach and visibility of content.

OBJECTIVES

Extend reach: Social sharing buttons enable users to amplify the reach of content by sharing it with their social networks, increasing exposure and visibility to a broader audience.
Drive engagement: Encouraging users to share content fosters engagement and interaction, as sharing implies endorsement and endorsement encourages interaction.
Generate referral traffic: Shared content can drive referral traffic back to the original source, such as a website or app, increasing traffic and potentially leading to conversions or other desired actions.
Enhance brand visibility: When users share content with their social networks, they expose their connections to the brand, increasing brand visibility and awareness among new audiences.

BENEFITS

Viral potential: Social sharing buttons facilitate the spread of content virally across social media platforms, tapping into users' networks and communities to reach a wider audience.
User-generated promotion: Encouraging users to share content organically generates user-generated promotion, which is perceived as more authentic and trustworthy than brand-generated content.
Increased traffic and engagement: Shared content drives traffic back to the original source, increasing website visits, page views, and engagement metrics, such as time on site and click-through rates.
Enhanced SEO: Social signals, such as likes, shares, and comments, can positively impact search engine optimization (SEO), as search engines consider social engagement when ranking content in search results.

CHALLENGES

User participation: Encouraging users to share content requires providing compelling and share-worthy content that resonates with their interests and motivations, which may vary across audiences.
Platform compatibility: Social sharing buttons should be compatible with various social media platforms and devices to ensure seamless sharing experiences for users, which may require testing and optimization.
Privacy concerns: Users may be hesitant to share content if they have privacy concerns or if the content is sensitive or controversial, necessitating transparency and respect for user preferences.
Measurement and attribution: Tracking the impact of social sharing on key metrics, such as traffic and conversions, can be challenging due to limitations in attribution and tracking capabilities across platforms.

EFFORT

Low effort required for implementing social sharing buttons, but ongoing optimization and promotion efforts may require additional resources

VALUE

Moderate to high value potential for increasing content visibility, engagement, and traffic through user-generated sharing on social media platforms

WORKS BEST WITH

B2B2C, B2C, SaaS, B2B, B2G, C2B

IMPLEMENTATION

Choose social media platforms: Identify the social media platforms most relevant to your target audience and industry, considering factors such as demographics, user behavior, and content preferences.
Select sharing buttons: Choose social sharing buttons that are visually appealing, user-friendly, and compatible with your website or app design, ensuring seamless integration and functionality.
Customize button placement: Place social sharing buttons strategically on digital content, such as articles, product pages, or multimedia, in prominent locations where users are likely to notice and engage with them.
Optimize sharing options: Customize sharing options to allow users to share content on multiple social media platforms, including popular options such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram.
Monitor performance: Track the performance of social sharing buttons using analytics tools to measure metrics such as shares, clicks, and referral traffic, and iterate on strategies to optimize sharing behavior and outcomes.
Encourage sharing: Encourage users to share content by including compelling calls-to-action (CTAs), incentives, or rewards for sharing, and by creating share-worthy content that resonates with their interests and motivations.

HOW TO MEASURE

Shares: Measurement of the number of times content is shared across social media platforms using social sharing buttons, indicating the reach and virality of content.
Click-through rates (CTR): Assessment of the percentage of users who click on shared content to visit the original source, indicating the effectiveness of social sharing in driving traffic and engagement.
Referral traffic: Measurement of the volume of traffic generated from social media referrals, indicating the impact of social sharing on website visits and conversions.

REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE

Company: BuzzFeed (B2C Digital Media Company)

Implementation:

BuzzFeed integrates social sharing buttons on its articles, quizzes, and multimedia content, allowing users to easily share entertaining and share-worthy content with their social networks.
Social sharing buttons are prominently placed at the top and bottom of each article or piece of content, ensuring visibility and accessibility for users as they consume and engage with the content.
BuzzFeed customizes sharing options to include popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and WhatsApp, catering to the diverse preferences and behaviors of its audience.
Compelling calls-to-action (CTAs) encourage users to share content with their friends and followers, leveraging emotions such as humor, curiosity, or shock to prompt sharing behavior.
BuzzFeed tracks the performance of social sharing buttons using analytics tools, monitoring metrics such as shares, clicks, and referral traffic to assess the impact of social sharing on content visibility and engagement.
By creating highly shareable and viral content optimized for social sharing, BuzzFeed capitalizes on user-generated promotion to extend the reach and impact of its content, driving traffic, engagement, and brand awareness across social media platforms.

Outcome:

BuzzFeed's implementation of social sharing buttons contributes to the virality and shareability of its content, leading to increased social engagement, referral traffic, and brand visibility.
Shared content reaches a wider audience through user-generated promotion, driving exponential growth in views, shares, and interactions across social media platforms.
BuzzFeed establishes itself as a leader in digital media and content marketing, known for its ability to create highly shareable and engaging content that resonates with audiences and drives social conversations and trends.