4 Tactics That Guarantee Content Engagement
The internet is the number one source for information which means if you're not actively engaging with your target audience on social channels you're missing out on a large percentage of new business. According to the Pew Research Center, 62% of adults in the United States get their news from social media. Creating content is only the first step, creating engaging content is the ultimate goal and priority. Engaging content drives reach and awareness which is why in this article we're going to focus on the top 4 headline/post title tactics that will drive people to engage and share your content.
Use Numbers/Data Driven Headlines
Numbers make people pay attention and allows them to quickly consume the information they need or are interested in. The average attention span for humans is 8 seconds, so you need to ensure you're capturing their attention within the allotted time frame.
Make Your Audience Feel/Evoke Emotion
Emotions compel humans to take certain actions and influence our decisions. Thus, it makes sense that people will gravitate towards emotion provoking headlines. Emotion based marketing is so influential that articles and posts are rated with an EMV (Emotional Marketing Value) score. A study done by CoSchedule showed that posts with higher EMV scores were shared more that posts with lower EMV scores.
Explanatory & How To Headlines
Explanatory headlines tell the people what it is they'll be getting from clicking on your post, blog, or website. Whereas "how to" headlines guarantee an almost step by step process which will allow the reader to walk away having learned something. People like sharing entertaining and educating content because it allows them to feel like they are contributing valuable information to their friend group.
Additional Information on Content Sharing & Society
A study on impression management conducted by Jonah Berger revealed that of the participants in his study, 69% shared information because it made them feel like they were apart of society. Whereas, 73% of people in a New York Times study on sharing information stated that sharing information helped them to better understand the information they were viewing; and 85% agreed that reading other people’s responses to their shared information helped them process the information more thoroughly. Lastly, an article written by The Washington Post uncovered that 46,000 people shared a post from a satirical news site based on the headline alone.
Always remember that while we want to capture your audiences attention you want to provide them informative information that is valuable.