Social sharing is growing at a rapid speed. At present the Facebook platform makes up for 52% of all social sharing, with Twitter and Tumblr growing their individual social sharing rate exponentially.
Social sharing is the fundamental mechanic behind what powers social networking platforms. It’s the tool that amplifies your customers’ and prospects’ respective voices. As a brand you’re probably pretty keen on being a part of that context and the content that is being shared (given that it’s somewhat a positive sentiment).
Search engines like Google and Bing are looking at what’s being shared on social networks and are using it as signals to their search algorithms. If authentic users are sharing something it must be relevant content, and search engines wants to deliver exactly that.
What your connections are sharing is trusted, the rest is advertising
If you want visibility on the Facebook platform you’ve a few options;
- Buy advertising space
- Create a Page
- Create an application
- Entice your customers to share your content (somewhat includes 2 & 3)
Needless to say it’s advertising space that Facebook wants us to buy, that’s their primary sources of revenue and that’s why Facebook can stay a free service for its users.
However, regardless of the platform is called Facebook, Youtube or Mashable, advertising will always be perceived as advertising. If the platform itself is social or not doesn’t matter, advertising is advertising and typically we’re ignoring this type of content.
Inspiration taken from David Armano’s original social stream graphic.
Above I’ve illustrated a typical newsfeed stream, this could be any social network as the principle is the same. I’m not saying that advertising on these networks are worthless, but don’t get fooled by the sharp marketing teams at these social networks. You’re buying advertising no matter what they call it or how they brand it. You’re probably already good at advertising so that’s not what we need to worry about now.
Equally, if you setup and run a branded Page, the messenger is you. It’s not paid advertising, it’s permission marketing based push content with some functionalities for having a dialogue. The problem remains though that in most cases brands will treat this the same way they treat advertising space.
The real value lays in the trusted content from real connections. The content may be sponsored or paid for, but the messenger is a customer or a prospects. If done right, this heavily increases trustworthy of the content.
60% of consumers say they would share their purchase in return of a free perk
Social sharing is growing at rapid rate – In recent a study conducted by Beyond, 60% of the respondants said they would happily share a purchase on Facebook in return of a free perk.
Getting you customers’ to share their purchase, or the product they are considering, is obviously not for everyone. But as we’re getting more and more born digital natives into our buying demographic, this is going to increasingly cater to more people.
It doesn’t have to be rocket science
Spotify was one of the first services that tapped into the frictionless sharing into the Facebook Timeline. it’s simple, whatever you listen to is being updated on your Timeline and appears in your connections ticker.
Getting your product pages ready for social sharing is essential, having an interesting product is essential. When tapping into letting customers speak on your behalf there’s simply just no possibility that anything but excellent product and services will survive.
The future of empowered customer will simply bring better products and services to the market.
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