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Tapping into the psychology of sharing to spread your content

Posted by Hannah on July 20, 2011 in Opinion

It takes just one person to start a content sharing snowball. One person’s ‘like’ could lead to another, a single tweet could turn into a retweet-athon, and before you know it, your website has crashed under the weight of all that traffic.

Well. It’s not quite that simple. But it can happen that fast, and often, without clear rhyme or reason. You’re usually left guessing as to how you can do it again.

Thankfully, The New York Times has commissioned a new study around the psychology of sharing to try and shed light on the matter, and answer the question – why do people share online content?

The online survey gathered data from 2,500 people, uncovering some interesting figures around reader motivation factors, including:

• 68% of people share to give others a better sense of who they are and what they care about

• 73% share information because it helps them connect with others who share their interests

• 69% share information because it allows them to feel more involved in the world

The data also revealed six very distinct sharing ‘profiles’ that give us all a little insight into who shares what, and why.

Altruists – want to help others with what they share

Careerists – professional online networkers, sharing for business

Hipsters – the show-off sharers that are always first to pass on the hottest content

Boomerangs – like to start debates, and trigger responses when they share

Connectors – share to stay in touch, and build relationships

Selectives – picky about what they share, and who they share it with

If you’re interested on more detail on these profiles, check out Jeff Sonderman’s article at Poynter.org.

These profiles have a similar thread in that most of the sharers pass on content to others to realize a benefit (whether it be selfless, or self-involved) – and that’s an interesting point to keep in mind when creating your next blog post.

Ask yourself – what benefit will the reader get from this article if they were to share it?

There were a couple of other interesting take aways from the study that could help your content get some sharing action (we made a video about it too!):

• People love to share funny stuff

Of course, we already knew that. But you don’t need to get your  cat to ride an invisible bike – a giggle-worthy blog post could go down just as well.

• Simple content is super shareable

People are busy. They need to be able to skim-read your content and understand it immediately, so they can feel confident they fully grasp and endorse what they’re passing on to their friends. Then they can move right on to the next thing!

• Email is still number one

Surprise, surprise. According to the study, email is the number one, most popular way to share online content. As David Kaplan at Paid Content put it; “The study reminds the technological elite, despite appearances, not “everyone” is on Facebook, and Twitter is still mostly the province of media and tech people.” Maybe an email sharing button after your next blog post isn’t such a crazy idea?

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