“Why People Share … and How You Can Get Them to Share Your Work” plus 1 more

Why People Share … and How You Can Get Them to Share Your Work

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 12:02 PM PST

This guest post is by Jonathan Goodman of www.viralnomics.com.

It's Friday night. You just pulled your new shirt over your head and sprayed on some cologne. One look in the mirror is enough to remind you how awesome you look. Time to roll out.

The party doesn't disappoint. 50 of your closest friends are here and you see the object of your affection in the corner. She's a natural beauty, brunette and curvy with a smile that lights up the room. Feeling a little sub conscious and emotionally unstable you grab the box next to you and step on top of it. Taking in a deep gulp of air you yell, "Everbody! Stop what you’re doing. Tell me how good I look. Like me and tell your friends how good I look."

Sounds silly doesn't it? But this is what happens every day online.

In this post, I'm going to use research to explain this phenomenon of selective self-representation. Once you understand it, I'll show you how to take advantage and make people want to share your blog posts material as a way of boasting.

Facebook narcissism

Research from Jonah Berger at the Wharton School of Business showed that that people with low emotional stability update their Facebook statuses more. [Reference - Eva Buechel, Jonah Berger (Under Review), Facebook Therapy? Why Do People Share Self-Relevant Content Online?] As a result, they are over-represented online. The status updates act as a form of therapy and both Likes and "atta boy" comments are medicine.

If you go back to my party example above, a person's social network online is their trust circle. The user's perception of how their trust circle views them is immensely important to their well-being. In fact, perceived social support has been shown to be more effective than actual received social support. [Reference – Wethington, E. and Kessler, C. (1986), "Perceived Support, Received Support, and Adjustment to Stressful Life Events," Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 27 (March) 78-89.]

It boils down to four things. Everybody wants to show off to their network that they are intelligent, intellectual, attractive, and funny. Communication channels online are asynchronous. This means that the user has time to think both about what they are going to say and how that will make them look.

Therefore they selectively self-represent using status updates, and choosing material that will make them look intelligent, intellectual, attractive, and funny.

So how do we use this information?

No matter what your industry is, you're here because you want to learn how to promote yourself using social media. It's up to you which of the four traits you want to help your users self-represent with. What's important is to appeal to the already converted, and to avoid being profound.

People who are already having success using your product or service will want to show it off. Those who haven't discovered you yet aren't interested in your product or service, so there's no point in trying to get them to share it.

Instead, appeal to those who will share it—they are the ones who want to show off that they are intelligent for having already found it.

Perhaps the biggest blogging mistake I see is people trying to be profound. Unless you're a leading researcher what you are writing about on your blog is nothing new. It has already been said a thousand times by others online, and for free, and will be said a thousand times more.

Because of this, phrasing becomes important. You must give people that are in the know a reason to share your materials. Make them feel special that they already know the subject of the article, and they will share it as an extension of their own thoughts. They do this because your article shows to their audience that they're intelligent or intellectual (or funny or attractive).

Don't believe me? Look at the wording people used when they shared an article from Darren Rowse's Facebook page called "How to Get Overwhelming Things Done". In his brief article Darren advocates setting aside 15 minutes a day on what you want to achieve. Good advice but nothing new. So what did people preface the article with when they shared it?

"Great advice for new bloggers and freelancers"

And

"Anyone has the time to blog. Very good tips from Darren Rowse"

Within the article itself some of the comments read as follows:

"You could not have said it better, I have taken this attitude and I do get things done. Great advice."

And

"I agree … I think the biggest accomplishments we achieve in life depend on what we focus on each and every day on the journey towards it. Great advice… "

People are rarely interested in adding to the conversation

It's a nice idea to think that people are going to want to read your blog and interact intelligently. It's an even nicer idea to think that people will go to your blog to learn.

I consider myself much more realistic than that.

The goal of a blog or social media is to attract an audience to buy your high-value materials. This might be information or it could be a related product. Either way, your sole purpose is to create your message in a way that it spreads. A blog post is a tool, not your end game.

The way to do that is to allow your reader to take ownership of the material. If you write it in such a way that allows for them to self-represent, they will share. Everybody wants to be perceived as intelligent, intellectual, attractive, or funny. We all have our own version of a beautiful brunette that we want to impress.

Jonathan Goodman is a 2X author. His second book recently reached the #1 spot on Amazon in both the marketing and web marketing categories. Aside from consulting, he is currently writing Viralnomics: How to Create Directed Viral Marketing. The sections are being published for free online as they are produced. You can get up to date at http://www.viralnomics.com.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Why People Share … and How You Can Get Them to Share Your Work

How to Name Your Next Blog Product

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 06:01 AM PST

This guest post is by Greg McFarlane of Control Your Cash.

Here are some sample products, most of them ebooks, that I recently saw available for sale and/or free download on some popular blogs:

"Ten Steps To A Better Golf Game"
"Creating Your Personal Life Plan"
"How To Make Money Online"
"23 Gluten-Free Recipes For You And Your Family"

Alright, I lied. I made up some of the titles, but I defy you to tell me which.

What do each of these titles have in common? Not much. Just dreariness of the first order, that's all.

I'm repeatedly amazed at how so many bloggers can have scintillating information to share with their readers, and then, when it comes time to ask those readers to commit additional time and or money, opt for the uninspiring.

The act of buying your blog product involves minimal expenditure of your readers-cum-customers' energy—just a few clicks are required. It takes almost no effort for them to buy. But it takes even less energy for them to ignore what you're selling and move onto the next, flashier thing. So be that flashier thing.

Your product might have amazing and helpful content, but I'll never know that if I can't make it past a dull title that doesn't compel me to buy.

Swap generic for specific

Take the first example above. If you're a golfer, there isn't a magazine, instructor, nor smug low-handicap playing partner on the planet who hasn't offered to improve your game via one method or another. Of course your readers want to improve their game. That's what golfers do! In fact, it's all they do. Even Rory McIlroy would like to find a way to shave off a fraction of a stroke.

So here's a blogger with a legitimate offer, presumably, yet he gave it as generic and unexciting a name as possible.

To create a worthwhile title, one that gets readers' attention and compels them to act, you have to tailor it. Quantify. Be specific, not general. Swagger a little bit. Regarding our example, here are some ideas:

"Never 3-Putt Again"

The bane of the weekend player. Nothing's more frustrating than sweetly swinging one's way onto the green in regulation, only to end up bogeying. A title like this resonates with its audience, who can immediately empathize. Granted, it doesn't say a word about wood and iron play, but being specific (obviously) requires you to omit certain stuff.

Or if that title doesn't strike your fancy, how about:

"Don't Toss Your Bag In The Ocean Just Yet"

Again, every golfing reader has been there and done (or certainly contemplated) that. "I was this close to selling my clubs on Craigslist and taking up pottery instead. But you're saying I might not have to?"

Speak to your readers

This goes back to knowing your audience: what they want, what they're visiting your blog for, why it matters to them. Gently persuading your blog's visitors to maybe, if they're not doing anything else, perhaps give serious consideration to possibly buying your products doesn't work. It can't. The volume of similar messages is just too overwhelming.

Like it or not, blog products are impulse items. Someone with an itch and a few shekels to spare sees what you're selling and decides to buy. This isn't as involved as shopping for a car or a house is.

My blog's topic, personal finance, is more universal than golf. All of us, from the destitute university student to Gina Rinehart, would prefer more money to less. But if I wrote an ebook titled "Your Money-Making Action Plan", my site's online store would be covered with cobwebs.

Instead, I tried to err on the side of snappiness and provocation when naming the products I sell on my blog. They include:

"Your Boss Is Smart. You're The Idiot"
"The Unglamorous Secret To Riches", et al.

Not to ruin the surprise endings for you—not that there are any, anyway—but "Your Boss Is Smart. You're The Idiot" is about how to start your own business and, by extension, stop having your employer be the primary beneficiary of your toil.

Meanwhile, "The Unglamorous Secret to Riches" is about how to find underpriced stocks with the potential to appreciate. Which is done by the decidedly prosaic means of perusing financial statements: looking at balance sheets and their ilk with a critical and discerning eye. The activity itself is somewhat mundane, but on a per-hour basis it can pay handsome rewards.

Titles that touch a nerve

With the first title, I again empathize with readers, and touch a particularly sensitive nerve. Most of us have, or have had, bosses whose judgment we've questioned. We think, "I could do that easily. Why aren't I in the corner office?" Well, here's why. And maybe you don't want to be in the corner office anyway. It just means that there'll be one fewer level of management on top of you.

But if you start your own business—taking the necessary precautions beforehand, having the requisite capital available, and knowing which forms to fill out—you can enjoy the self-determination that you're missing out on in your current and unfulfilling employee/employer relationship.

Titles that buck the trend

With the second title, I turn the idea of a "get rich quick" scheme on its head. Most of my personal finance blogging contemporaries also write for-profit products that ostensibly teach readers how to build wealth. But those bloggers seldom do more than tell those readers to clip coupons, hold yard sales, downsize their living quarters, etc.

Few bloggers in my realm tell their readers, "Here's what to do with your savings. Forget about building an emergency fund. Instead, buy stocks. But not just any stocks, and not just well-publicized ones. And here's the truth—there's nothing exciting about the groundwork involved in doing this. It involves dry columns of numbers that you'll have to decode the meaning of. But as boring as that sounds, if you want to make additional money, it beats the heck out of taking additional shifts at work. The excitement comes in the future, when the investments you bought (and that everyone else ignored) finally start to increase in value."

Create a difference that sticks

With tens of thousands of blogs in existence, the tendency is toward homogeneity. Right now, without exaggeration, I could find you a thousand "mommy" blogs that all say essentially the same thing: here are some foods you should never feed your kids, here are some Halloween costume ideas, here are some unsubstantiated threats to children's safety that I'd nevertheless like to blow out of proportion and share with you.

It's hard enough to find a unique, singular voice in a crowded marketplace as it is. But by giving your products names that stick in your readers' minds, you're giving yourself a crucial point of differentiation.

Greg McFarlane is an advertising copywriter who lives in Las Vegas. He recently wrote Control Your Cash: Making Money Make Sense, a financial primer for people in their 20s and 30s who know nothing about money. You can buy the book here (physical) or here (Kindle) and reach Greg at greg@ControlYourCash.com.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Name Your Next Blog Product