The social factor plays a major role in terms of search engine ranking. But the truth is it’s hard to get social shares for certain kind...
The social factor plays a major role in terms of search
engine ranking. But the truth is it’s hard to get social shares for
certain kinds of content.
In general, more often than not, social traffic is difficult to get.
If you blog about SEO, people who are in the industry and
who interact with your content may not share it on social media sites
because it’s not the kind of content that is generally discussed on
places like Facebook.
Content from sites like 9gag and viral video sites are more likely to do well. Even a generic publication like the Wall Street Journal or Entrepreneur will do well on social media.
But how do everyday bloggers like you and me get the social traffic we crave? Well, there is always a way to do everything…
A great tool that helps with social sharing and shareability is SmartBribe.
SmartBribe,
according to the founder, was born out of an idea from one of Noah
Kagan’s websites. In this website, they collected email IDs in return
for some piece of content (i.e. a lead magnet), but they added a twist to the ‘Thank you for Subscribing’ page.
The traditional way of doing a ‘Thank You’ page is like this one:
But with SmartBribe,
you can add another layer by having your subscriber tweet the content
in return for an extra bonus. This means that there is double the value
for the user if they subscribe and tweet.
The flip side is that if the user does not want to tweet and clicks on ‘No thanks’, then you don’t get the user’s email address. This is one setback.
But if the reader clicks on ‘Click to Tweet’, then…
A pre-written tweet is ready:
Once a person is done tweeting, they go to the next screen
where they are urged to share the content to any one of their email
contacts.
At this stage, they already have access to the extra bonus. So the share to the extra friend isn’t mandatory.
How to use SmartBribe
For SmartBribe to work really well, one has to have very
strong content that is highly valuable to the user. You should also be
able to gauge if it’s worth the risk of losing users because of this extra step.
Do this by:
- Measuring email signups without SmartBribe
- Measuring email signups with SmartBribe
If the difference isn’t too significant, then continue with it because social shares are really important.
Is this the right way of getting social shares?
It may seem overly persuasive, but you are providing value
to the user. For a simple tweet, they will get access to your valuable
knowledge. It’s definitely a fair trade.
Don’t hesitate to use this strategy, but always measure your results. Your data doesn’t lie.
So experiment with SmartBribe today, and let us know if it worked for you in the comments below.