Over 2 million and in some cases over 100 million online content pieces have been studied to determine these 5 simple strategies to reach a larger audience with your content.  The fine people over at www.buzzsumo.com have presented this information in a recent webinar.

The following are 5 simple things anyone can do to capture a bigger audience and drive more traffic.  Most content creators are not doing this stuff so you can get ahead of the game right here!

1. Quizzes drive awareness

On average most quizzes studied had 1900 shares which is way more than the averages for other types of content.

Quizzes are King for driving awareness.

People like quizzes and like to share “good” quizzes with their contacts.

www.qzzr.com is an example of a newer online quizzing tool with the functionality built in for easy sharing.

Quizzes are great for awareness but are not a good for link building as they receive very little links.

A good strategy for link building is to create good List Posts.

2. List Posts are the most shared type of content

Even if you have never heard the term "list post", I feel confident saying you have read a list post before!

The list post headlines start with a number and provide a list of tips, steps, or other useful information.

List posts get shared as they are good reference material and the people who share them are passing along something which they feel can help or be of interest to their contacts in some way.

Other variations on the list post are the extended list post which provides a WOW factor based on how much good information is listed or the picture post which uses pictures to make a point.

3. Content length matters and longer is by far better

The numbers are in and content which is greater than 1000 words gets dramatically more shares.

Remember this fact is based on a study of more than 100 million pieces of content!

It has been recommended by www.backlinko.com to change your publishing of content from 4-5 smaller articles in a month to just 1 longer good one.

Put the work into one good article to get the WOW factor working for you and many more shares of your content.

4. Pictures every 75-100 words increase shares on average 2.3x more

Highlighted as the golden rule, by www.buzzsumo.com, adding a picture every 75-100 words is the best level of frequency to add pictures to content to increase the shares of your content.

Pictures in general within content increases the shares of the content on average by 2.3x.

Remember to always obtain copyright for the photos you use and www.freeimages.com provides a good starting place for some freely available images to use.

5. Titles with a promise work best

All content has to have a good engaging title.  What has shown to work is a title with a promise.

“10 things to do and you will get this or achieve this”

Most start with a number and the best number is 10 for a posting based on the data.

The second best number from the study was 23 which even the presenter said he needed to study a little more?  I would stick with 10 or under but the data does show 10 as the best!
 
Hopefully these 5 simple strategies to reach a bigger audience with your content will help you increase your audience numbers! If you have any input on this topic please reach out and I would certainly be interested in hearing your story!