Sharing is caring: Creating shareable B2B content to enhance audience engagement.

To generate attention and buzz online—and especially to involve your target audience: Shareable content is ideally suited for this purpose. When your content has that certain wow factor, it will spread among your audience almost effortlessly, without requiring substantial time, money, and effort to build more reach.

So far, this has primarily been successful for companies in the B2C sector, but there are indeed opportunities in B2B as well to organically increase your reach without having to build your own channels with large followings. We'll explain what distinguishes shareable content, what you can learn from a B2C example in this context, and how you can create content that circulates on the web and on social media.

Shareable Content: How to Increase Your Chances for Greater Reach.

There's no magic formula for content that instantly captivates your B2B audience and compels them to click the share button. However, there are overarching principles that define shareable content::

• Visual Appeal: Content that catches the eye and appears unusual or intriguing prompts users to share it with others.
• Emotional Connection: Beyond visual appeal, content that evokes emotions such as humor or provocation tends to be shared more frequently than factual content.
• Practical Utility: Effective life hacks, informative pieces, or great experiences have the potential to inspire users to share them with others.

Shareability in Practice: Lessons from Spotify's Year in Review. 

Let's move beyond theory and examine a practical example of shareable content you're likely familiar with: Spotify's Year in Review. This feature embodies the three characteristics mentioned earlier.

Firstly, Spotify's Year in Review engages users on a personal level by summarizing their individual listening habits over the past year. Users often click the share button to showcase this reflection of their personality, or they eagerly explore the year in review posts of others.

Simultaneously, the review elicits emotions: Users revisit their favorite tracks from the past 12 months and associate them with specific situations and moods, prompting them to share these experiences with others. Shared posts on social media or as links in emails can be enhanced with appealing visuals to immediately capture attention.

Applying to B2B: Encouraging Your Content to Circulate. 

Certainly, B2B content isn't as straightforward as listing favorite tracks. Yet, the principle of shareability becomes clearer with the Spotify example. You can package many content formats attractively enough for your target audience to disseminate them, saving you time and effort. To achieve this, consider these tips:

Utilize Data Visualization & Personalized Reports. 

A key element of Spotify's Year in Review is personalization through data. In B2B, this could translate to data-driven dashboards presenting your customers with essential benchmarks or KPIs at regular intervals, demonstrating how they benefit from your products and services.

Tasks such as data collection, processing, and visualization can be effectively handled by AI tools like ChatGPT or CoPilot. They enable you to create compelling one-pagers and visualizations that convey key insights and are shareable.

"Generating attention and buzz online - and, above all, getting your own target group on board: Shareable content is virtually predestined for this."

Offer Interactive Content.

Content that offers user interaction options leads in shareability. Provide your audience with opportunities to click or interact with your content, as these features significantly boost engagement and increase the likelihood of dissemination within your target group.

In a B2B context, consider interactive ROI calculators that allow users to calculate potential cost savings from using your product or service. The calculator could feature detailed input fields for various cost elements and usage parameters to provide accurate calculations.

Add a touch of gamification to your content.

Gamification elements such as reward systems, contests, challenges, and mini-games can trigger your audience's competitive spirit and motivate them to share content more actively. While the possibilities are vast, even simple strategies can encourage content sharing.

For instance, in B2B, you could host a challenge or contest where users create memes related to one of your products and share them on social media with a predefined hashtag. Recognize the most creative entries with prizes.

Engage Users through Compelling Storytelling.

Shareable content captures users' attention and connects with them emotionally through effective storytelling. Rather than presenting mere numbers and statistics, embed these insights into compelling narratives.

Illustrate the benefits of your products, for example, by highlighting how much time employees save through their application, and let users themselves testify. Consider a before-and-after comparison showcased through video testimonials where customers share how your products helped them efficiently tackle projects or specific challenges.

Shareable content that spreads organically also thrives in B2B.

Shareable content and the increased visibility it brings through dissemination isn't exclusive to the B2C realm. Successful B2B campaigns like Cisco's "The Internet of Everything" or General Electric's "GE Fallonventions" demonstrate that with creativity and a well-thought-out strategy, you can garner the attention needed through content sharing.

Essential tools include innovative ideas, interactive content, and visually striking materials that excite your target audience by standing out from the crowd. Take heart and apply these tips to ensure your upcoming campaigns have the potential to become viral phenomena.

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