What Makes Brands’ Facebook Content Shareable?

Summary

Sharing is the fastest growing type of human interaction on Facebook, more so than comments. But what kinds of content are viewed as “shareable”? Tania Yuki of Shareablee, discusses the rise of the sharing culture, what it means for content creation, as well as insights on what drives consumer sharing across different demographics, and industries.

By understanding consumer motivations, brands can craft their social content to inspire audiences to share content on their behalf (drive sharing). To uncover these motivations, Sharablee tested the top 120 most-shared posts on Facebook with a national representative sample of 10K+ U.S. respondents.

The following are key findings on what made content shareable on Facebook:

• Social video is highly shareable. Videos are 3X more likely to be shared than other posts, including photos.
• 45% of people agreed that storytelling was a driving factor, followed by usefulness (39%) – except for 18-24 year olds.
• Appearing “In the Know” is the most significant driver for sharing among 18-24 year olds (55%).
• Negative content (angry, sad) is not very shareable. Happiness and content deemed inspiring were the largest movers.
• People want to look knowledgeable, look good to others, and feel part of the community. Looking funny and looking intelligent did not score as highly.
• Women look for useful content, while men look for amusement and excitement.
• For Finance and Media, inspiration and happiness are emotional drivers, but for Auto and TV, excitement drives sharing. Storytelling still matters with Travel & Leisure, Publishing and Business Services.