5 Important Characteristics Of Social Media Content

Social media websites have been around for only a couple of years yet have gained a huge amount of popularity during that time. Many people are used to calling sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us social media sites while in fact, they are actually social bookmarking sites. Anyway, since that isn’t really our topic for now, I will be referring to social bookmarking sites as social media sites to make it simpler for everyone, including me

Tons of bloggers nowadays aim to hit the front page of Digg the first couple of months their blog is up. What most of them don’t know (or do, but forget ;P ) is that it will take more than their daily posts to go big on these types of sites. If you are expecting one of yours posts to make your blog famous, I assure you that it will need some extra planning and a few more hours of writing than it usually does.

One of the main disadvantages of social media websites is its users (most of them ). They are very picky about what they like and if anything submitted is not up to their standards, they will usually bury the article. Another problem with them is that they come and go like the wind. If you have ever had a huge traffic spike from StumbleUpon, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

These are a few things to remember when writing social media content:

1. Lists, Lists, Lists
Since lists are extremely easy to scan and don’t take too much time to read, they are one of the most successful type of posts on social media websites. If you are aiming for one of your articles to hit the front page of Digg, I would suggest that the post you write be a list, I guarantee it will be a success.

2. A Sense Of Humor Doesn’t Hurt
When you are writing specifically for social media websites, remember, the members are real people with feelings, not cold, lifeless robots. Unless your post if full of breathtaking statistics and facts, people will not enjoy it if it doesn’t contain any humor.

3. Not Too Long, Not Too Short
If you aren’t using a list as advised above, make sure your article is only as long as needed. If you make it too long, people won’t read it, if you make it too short, they’ll just consider it useless. The key importance is to have balance within your post.

4. Nothing To Do With The Word “Blogging”
I have no idea why, but social media users hate anything that has to do with the word “blogging”, “SEO”, “Marketing”, and everything else related to the webmaster/make money online niche. So it’s OK to go a little bit offtopic when writing social media content.

5. Titles That Rock
Since hundreds of new articles are submitted daily to social media sites, it’s up to you to submit your post with a catchy title. Users will usually browse through the upcoming articles till they find a title that catches their attention and then read the article to see if they will promote it or not. If they are anything like me, the title is usually the only thing needed to guarantee a Digg . Next time you write your killer social media post, take a few minutes to think of a killer title to accompany it.

A lot of people argue that traffic from social media websites is useless, I however will prove them wrong in my post tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Has one of your articles ever hit the front page of Digg/went big on other social media websites? What tactics and methods did you use to accomplish its success?

By the way, I just used Digg as an example for everything since it’s the most popular and well known one out there, but these tips will help you out on any social media websites.

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