This is a guest post from Lior Levin.
You work hard to create relevant, engaging content for your blog and you want to be sure that it has as many eyeballs on it as possible. Sometimes, getting the job done can be discouraging and leave you feeling like you are completely reliant on your audience to do the job by engaging with your post on social media.
But the successful brands who keep blowing up Facebook with huge numbers of shares aren’t doing so by chance. There are strategies and tips that can guide you on when to post to your blog, how to best engage social media and how to create a killer title that will have your post making the rounds on every social media channel.
Weekend is The King
If you run a blog featuring professional content, it seems like a no-brainer to publish your content during business hours, on weekdays. Yet a study done by TrackMaven last year of over 4,500 blogs showed that blogs that chose to publish content on the weekend received the most shares on various social media channels. In fact, even though only 13% of blogs were published on the weekend, they saw 18% of the total social shares gathered in the study.
Aim For Leisure Hours
As it turns out, there is negative correlation between when a blog is posted and when readers have time to properly digest it. Readers may see your new post pop up in their inbox or newsfeed at 10am, and as engaging as your title is, they may not be able to get to it in the middle of their busy workday. This means that regardless of your content (whether it’s professional, educational, financial etc) you need to time your posts to go live during your reader’s leisure hours if you want to maximize engagement and shares.
A Bold, Brilliant Title With a Question Mark
Speaking of maximizing engagement, an interest-catching title is a must to increase your clicks and shares. There are a few strategies that can guide you as you craft titles that are sure to turn views into clicks and clicks into shares. First off, make sure your title is highly informative and speaks to the specifics of what readers are going to find in your post. Secondly, use strong, vivid words and phrases that grab a reader’s attention such as brilliant, love, hate and “you won’t believe.”
Don’t be afraid to try alluring alliterations as well, readers rarely ignore such lively language. Third, consider using question marks in your post-title or perhaps consider phrasing your title in the form of a question altogether. Studies show that posts which contain one or more question marks receive social shares 46% of the time.
Highlight Value
It’s a loud internet, so you need to have posts that speak to the real value that your blog and brand have to offer. You don’t want to get a reputation for deceiving readers and followers with hype and promises that your blog post won’t deliver. Consider illustrating the value found in your post by using brackets at the end of your title such as: Major Marketing Mistakes [Free Printable] or What Do Your Readers Need From You [An e-book that will change your brand-strategy].
Knowledge is, of course, power and the more you use your metrics and data, the more you understand how and when to reach your reader.
Lior Levin is a consultant to an rss feed api service and also works for a company called ily who invented a new phone for kids.
