The Art of Aggressive Social Sharing

Social MediaHere is an excerpt from an article written by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick for Harvard Business Review and the HBR Blog Network. To read the complete article, check out the wealth of free resources, obtain subscription information, and receive HBR email alerts, please click here.

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At its foundation, social media is simple: if you share good stuff, people will reshare it, and you’ll get more interaction and more followers. Everything else is optimization (or delusion). This article (an edited excerpt from our new book) explains what it takes to create perfect posts that will add value to the lives of your followers, build your platform, and spread your story. We advocate the most aggressive sharing practices on social media, so buckle your seat belt, and put on your helmet.

Be valuable. What do we mean by “share good stuff”? Your social media posts should come in four forms:

o What happened? Example: Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel says that he’s open to reviewing the role of transgender people in the military.
o What does it mean? Example: Mother Jones explains why Uruguayan soccer star Luis Suárez’s biting incident during the World Cup was a big hygienic deal.
o How can I do that? Example: CNET explains how texting to 911 works.
o What the hell? Example: Every year, two churches in Vrontados, Greece, stage a mock rocket war to celebrate Easter.

The goal is to emulate the NPR model. National Public Radio provides great content 365 days a year. Every few months, it runs a pledge drive to raise money. It can do that because it provides such great value. Your goal is to earn the privilege to run your own “pledge drive,” which in this context means promoting your organization, product, or service.

Be interesting. Many people and most organizations mistakenly assume that their followers want to read about only a narrow band of subjects. Should we share only stories about entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology or about social media and blogging? Should Motorola share only stories about Motorola? The answer is no. To do so would be boring, and boring doesn’t work on social media. You should think more broadly and take more chances. Here are some examples of how organizations can remain on-brand and at the same time be more interesting:

o Restaurants: Atomic particles help solve wine fraud; the scientific way to cut a cake
o Motorola: The 100 best Android apps of 2014; six great Android tips
o Airlines: The last drive-in theaters in America; mindful travel photography.
o Design agency: Why it’s okay to have an ad below a Web page’s fold; key findings about retail-customer loyalty
o Monster: “Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody of Pharrell Williams’s song “Happy”; fun/scary jumps

If you share this kind of interesting stuff, you’ll earn the NPResque right to promote yourself to your followers, and your followers will help you get more followers.

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Here’s a direct link to the complete article.

Guy Kawasaki
is the chief evangelist of Canva, an online design service, and an executive fellow of the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. Previously, he was the chief evangelist of Apple and special advisor to the CEO of the Motorola business unit of Google. His latest book is The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users (Portfolio, 2014).

Peg Fitzpatrick is a social media strategist and popular blogger who has spearheaded successful social-media campaigns for Motorola, Audi, Google, and Virgin and been a brand ambassador for Kimpton Hotels. She is the co-author of The Art of Social Media.

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