Making Your Blog Posts More Shareable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

As someone who shares a lot of posts, I'm also someone who reads a lot of posts.

Blogs that are writer-focused instead of reader-focused usually need a few components to help them succeed long-term. They need to be useful, friendly, and easy-t0-read/understand.

Some posts start out with a lot of promise, but then tend to ramble a little or lose focus. Sometimes I'll miss perfectly good posts that should be shared to a wider community because the post's title didn't really reflect the content of the article.

If you're a writer who's hoping to share posts with a broader audience in the writing world, here are a few quick tips:

Five Tips for Writing More-Shareable Posts

Keep posts on a single subject.  Sometimes writers share excellent information but cram a lot of material into a single post without really going deep on the subject. Instead, consider dividing the content into two or more posts.

Create a headline/post title that truly indicates what the post is about. I've read a lot of post titles that just didn't give any information about the content of the article or were confusing. Unfortunately, those are the ones that get skipped when I'm reading through my RSS feed reader. It's usually better, when reaching out to a wider audience, to keep headlines boring but specific to the topic.

Link to your social media platforms on your site so others know who to attribute the post to.  When I share content online, I always attribute the author of the post, unless that information isn't available. Believe it or not, some blogs still only list a blogger's first name (a lot of them are on Tumblr: a site that drives me a little crazy).  Your blog should have your first and last name on it. Bonus points if you also list your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or other social media platforms!

Make main points in bold or use lists to help with post readability and skimming.  Most of us spend many hours of the day reading–either our own writing, books, or articles. It really can help when the points of a blog post are easily accessible and readable.

Consider social sharing buttons or plugins like Click to Tweet. I don't use these myself when I share content (I use Hootlet, an extension from Hootsuite), but lots of other people do. I use Click to Tweet here, which does seem to help a lot for sharing purposes.

Do you have any suggestions for making posts more shareable? What are some of your favorite blogs to read?

Five Tips for Writing More-Shareable Blog Posts:
Click To Tweet

 

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