How to Craft a Social Post that Gets 779,295 Shares in Half an Hour

How to Craft A Social Post

Remember Oscars 2014 when Ellen DeGeneres literally made Twitter crash after tweeting a photo of her with some of the most famous Hollywood celebrities?

Ellen's Selfie

This nabs most retweeted tweet of the year 2014, reaching 779,295 retweets in approximately half an hour. But, notice how (aside from this most retweeted photo) every post from all her social accounts gain thousands of retweets, shares, favorites and replies?

You’d think that maybe it’s because she’s too well-known and humorous that it doesn’t take too much effort for her to compose a sure-fire and engaging social post?

Well, not really.

In this entry, I will show you Ellen DeGeneres’ (unintentional yet very effective) tactics to creating social posts that catch audiences’ attention, and how to become worry-free about your social media campaign success and spend more time doing fun stuff – like skydiving or playing with your kids.

1. Face Recognition

If you’re following Ellen’s Instagram account, you’ll know that she regularly uploads something that will make you ROFL (Roll On the Floor while Laughing).

Remember when she replaced one of the Destiny’s Child’s face with hers and shared it on all her social accounts?

Ellen Degeneres and Destiny Child

Funny, right?

But, it’s more than just being funny that makes her posts so engaging.

Jakob Nielsen, a user-interface design expert once said that a large part of the human brain is confided to remembering and recognizing faces. That is the reason why most of the time we remember faces, not names.

So, when posting, try to include an image of a person – it doesn’t have to be funny, or photoshopped. You can use photos of your product users, celebrities, or even yourself.

Changing your primary image with the face of your CEO or founder like what we did with most of our social pages is also a good way to be recognized.

SEO Hacker Twitter

H3sean Facebook

It’s not vanity, but psychology.

2. Nice and Short

If you know Ellen by heart you’d know that she’s a very articulate and contextual kind of person, and that’s probably why she’s an award-winning host. But, it’s amazing to see how her social posts are so short and straightforward.

Using short paragraphs intrigue minds, creating a jolt of excitement, and pushes us to read more, reply, retweet or repost.

Ellen Short Tweet

Key Takeaways: In Twitter, it is imperative to make your tweet under 140 characters to give more space for RT’s. While it’s okay to post over 140 characters in other social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Google+, it’s better not to as it will only lessen the excitement, and increase the probability of being ignored.

3. Ask Away!

The best way to increase engagement is by asking questions. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be too technical, or even related to your niche.

As a start, it’s okay to ask off-topic questions. This will give you ample of time to categorize your followers, and shortly, you’ll have ideas of their real interests. Then, slowly transition to asking questions that will lead you to offering your products or expertise.

Ellen Question

Key Takeaways: Ask questions to start engagement with your audience. You can also take this opportunity to actually ask for advice, things you don’t know the answers to – followers like to be recognized. Showing that you’re interested and that you’re giving value to their answers will make them stick with you and return the favour.

4. The Selfie Nature

It doesn’t always have to be about you.

You don’t always have to share about yourself or your brand. You can promote others successes too.

Sharing stories of others, whether it’s directly affecting your niche or not, puts you away from what they call “hard selling.”

Ellen Other Post

The good thing about selflessness is that other brands will notice it, especially if you tag them, and eventually they’ll do the same thing over you, or perhaps thank you. Either way is fine.

5. Hashtags

Hashtagging is a good way to label your post, and make it appear on the feed where you can see people who use the same hashtag. In Buddy Media research, they found that tweets with hashtags doubled online engagement.

Ellen Hashtag

While you can create your own hashtag, if you’re just starting to build your identity, I’d still recommend using the common, existing ones since it will more likely broaden your reach.

Lots of tools are available to help you analyse hashtags, and give you a strong gauge of what to use, and how these can affect your posts. Right now I’m using RiteTag to choose the best hashtags. You might want to give it a try too.

Key Takeaways: Hashtagging could be fun, but be careful not to overdo it. The maximum number of words that you can conjoin to form a successful hashtag is three, and the maximum hashtags in a post is two – more than this can drop your engagement by 17%.

Conclusion

If you want to have successful and lasting social media marketing without it eating up all your time, start evaluating your strategies – try these five simple tactics now and watch your social engagement grow in no time.

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Sean Si

About Sean

is a Filipino motivational speaker and a Leadership Speaker in the Philippines. He is the head honcho and editor-in-chief of SEO Hacker. He does SEO Services for companies in the Philippines and Abroad. Connect with him at Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Check out his new project, Aquascape Philippines.