Congratulations on starting your blog! It’s an exciting time, but after writing a few posts, you may be wondering if anyone is even listening to you. Getting your content circulated is a big battle, but here are some tips on how to get more social shares on your blog posts.
1. Post Quality, Engaging Content
Good, quality content is the key to encouraging readers to pass it along. Aim to post blogs that provide value and have a lot of information. Research the keyword or words you want to target within your article and use them throughout your content, headings, and images. Long-form articles are great for SEO and can help you score a spot as a Google Featured Snippet.
2. Use Visuals
People love pictures and other pretty graphics. Try using screenshots or free high-resolution images from sites like Unsplash to illustrate your content. Create a shareable image for the social channels you want to target and use the recommended image sizes for popular networks.
3. Use a Social Sharing Plugin
Implement social media buttons in prominent locations on your blog to encourage sharing. AddThis Share Tools for WordPress supports sharing to over 200 services, allowing your visitors the ability to share anywhere they spend their time on the web.
4. Share It Yourself
Don’t shy away from self-promotion. Share your post on all your social media channels with a creative and catchy tagline and relevant hashtags. Use the sharing tools that are implemented on your site for social validation.
5. Ask Your Readers to Share
Create a call-to-action to share your content with website overlays or text highlight to tweet features. You could even provide a little incentive for people to win something if they share your blog post.
Encouraging social sharing on your site does not have to be complicated. The key to success is being consistent with posting and promotion. Don’t give up if you experience a slow start, with time, you’ll get more social shares and see those numbers start to rise.
