Social Media Sharing: Why Do We Do It?

Organic social media is a powerful tool that marketing agencies use to help their clients succeed over time. One of the remarkable things about social media is not only are you posting content about and for your business client, but if it is compelling enough, others will share that content and become warriors in your army. Those who participate in this social media sharing can help spread the word about your client’s brand and drive engagement.

How Does Social Sharing Help My Clients?

Sharing, liking, commenting on and even reposting posts are all an important part of social media. People don’t just consume social media; they engage. Here are some of the ways this helps your marketing clients.

• No platform fees: There is no ongoing cost unless you decide to boost a post. Even if you stop all your marketing for a month or two, your audience will continue to share valuable posts.
• Broader audience: Once you put something out there, others will share it on their own feeds, thus reaching similar audiences who may never have seen your post otherwise.
• Increased brand awareness: You can substantially increase brand awareness by publishing social media posts with your branding and messaging. Others share your posts, increasing your brand awareness even more.
• Community: When you post excellent content to social media, you motivate people to share and to engage. This is a great way to get people talking and interacting with each other and your client about their products. This kind of community building makes for long-term loyalty.
• Credibility: You and your client can talk all day about the wonders of their products and services, but praise rings a lot truer when it comes from a customer who stands nothing to gain.
• Authority: Don’t be so busy selling that you forget to connect with your customers. When you share valuable content and sources with your customers, you show you care about them. You also set yourself up as an expert who is on top of and leads industry trends.
• Increased traffic: When your army of happy customers shares your valuable content, they help drive traffic to your website and landing pages. Increased traffic usually means increased conversions.

So, What Exactly Motivates Social Media Sharing?

Ok, we’ve looked at how social media sharing helps your clients. But why do people share? They don’t just do it out of the goodness of their hearts to support your client’s business.

Connect to Others

We humans are social creatures. We need each other.  Sharing on social media fulfills this basic psychological need for connection and belonging. By posting content, individuals feel more connected to each other and less lonely.

In a comprehensive multiphase research study conducted by The New York Times in collaboration with Latitude Research, it was found that we need this kind of connection so much that 73% of respondents said they process information better when they share it.

Help Others

Related to connecting with other people is our desire to help those close to us. If we see something that we believe others should know or would just enjoy, we want to help educate and entertain them. Often when we repost something about a brand, it’s for this reason.

We might share publicly on our social media feed or share it privately with someone we know would enjoy or benefit from the content. 94% of people sometimes share for this reason according to the same New York Times study.

Bolster Our Image

Everybody has an image they want to project to the world. What we share on social media supports the image we want to portray. Whether someone wants to show the world they are a political activist, an academic knowledgeable about arcane, niche information of a particular sort, an expert in the application of makeup, or just one of the beautiful people, social media is a popular way to express it. We are likely to share things that make us look good or increase our standing as knowledgeable in a chosen area.

Get Validation

Likes, comments, follows and shares all help to validate us to ourselves. When this feedback is positive, it can go a long way to increasing our self-esteem. That can be addictive, so we share even more.

Touch and Be Touched Emotionally

If we see something on social media that touches our emotions, we are much more likely to share it than most other content. Marketers should take note of this, and use storytelling to reach their audience on a human level.

Effective Social Media Requires Thoughtful Strategy

To be effective in making social media work for your clients, you can’t just post any old thing about their brand. You need to understand the science and psychology behind it.

But perhaps social media is not your marketing agency’s niche. No worried. When you resell Umbrella’s white label social media services, your clients get top-flight results, and you don’t lose that business to another agency.

To set up a free consultation to see what our white label social media services can do for your clients, contact Umbrella through our website or call us at (866) 760-2638.