Shareable Content: Post, Share, Repeat

Every marketer in the country would sell a kidney for more shareable content. It is free distribution, it is social proof, it is third-party endorsement all rolled into one. And yet most small businesses churn out content that nobody would share if you paid them. Let us fix that.

Why People Share Things

Nobody shares a post because it is beautifully branded. People share posts for reasons that are fundamentally about themselves. They share because it makes them look clever, kind, funny, informed, or in-the-know. They share because it says something they wish they had said. They share because it is genuinely useful to someone they care about.

If your content does not hit one of those buttons, it will not be shared. Full stop. "Here are our opening hours" is not a share. "Here is a product we love" is not a share. "Here is a genuinely unhinged fact about our industry that will make your mam laugh" is absolutely a share.

The Five Categories of Shareable Content

• Practical: A tip, a how-to, a checklist. Useful enough that sharing it makes the sharer look helpful.
• Emotional: Makes people laugh, cry, feel nostalgic, feel seen. Feelings get forwarded.
• Identity: Confirms who the sharer is. "This is so Newcastle", "This is so me", "Tag a mate who does this".
• Status: Makes the sharer look clever or ahead of the curve. Data, insights, early-access info.
• Controversy: A strong opinion on something the sharer also feels strongly about. Use with caution.

Formats That Travel Well

Some formats are inherently more shareable than others. Carousels beat single images, because people can swipe through and save them. Short videos beat long videos, because the barrier to watching is lower. Memes beat branded graphics, because they feel native rather than corporate. Screenshots of tweets and text messages beat almost everything, because they feel like overheard conversation rather than marketing.

A good rule: if it looks like it could be an advert, it will not be shared. If it looks like something a friend sent, it will.

The Hook Is Everything

Most shareable content lives or dies in the first three seconds, or the first line of text. Spend disproportionate time on that hook. "We spent £3,000 testing this so you do not have to." "The one thing every Newcastle business gets wrong about Google." "Nobody tells you this but..." Hooks set up curiosity. The content pays it off. Without the hook, nobody gets to the content.

Specific Is Better Than General

"Tips for small businesses" is not shareable. "Five things every Newcastle cafe should do on Instagram in 2022" is. Specificity signals that the content is for a particular person. That person then feels seen and shares it. Generalist content tries to appeal to everyone and ends up resonating with no-one.

Make It Easy to Share

Sometimes the difference between a share and a scroll is pure friction. Is your post easy to save? Does your graphic make sense without context? If someone forwarded it to a friend in a DM, would the friend get the joke? If the answer to any of these is no, tighten it up.

On your website, include proper share buttons that actually work on mobile. Format blog posts so that individual paragraphs can be screenshotted and shared. Our piece on editing apps we love includes some tools that make this much easier.

Build a Library, Not a One-Hit-Wonder

One viral post is a lucky night out. A library of reliably shareable content is a business. Track which of your posts get shared, which get saved, which get tagged. Look for patterns. Do more of what works. Kill what does not. Our piece on organisation tools includes the systems we use to track this.

Repeat Yourself, Shamelessly

Here is the bit people hate hearing. Your audience has not memorised your best posts. Most of them did not see it the first time. Republish. Repurpose. Remix. Your top-performing post from last year, with a tweak, will almost certainly perform again this year. Marketing is not a showcase of novelty. It is relentless, cheerful repetition of the things that work.

Shareable content is not magic. It is craft. Hook strong, be specific, make it easy, repeat what works. Do that for six months and your content will start doing the hard work of distribution for you. Which, given how much everything else costs, is a rather lovely state of affairs.