WritingThoughts

©iStock.com/Hreni

What you share on social media is important. The quality of your shares can add to or detract from your personal brand.

I didn’t realize this until I started to receive compliments on the quality of the posts and articles that I share.

More than one social contact has complimented me on sharing relevant and helpful information. Some have asked how I do it.

Most writers understand that they should share more than just their own content to engage their audience. But where exactly do you find the right information to share?

If you struggle to build your freelance writing brand through social media, use this post to improve your brand with social sharing. I’ll go over three easy steps for effective social sharing and list three tools to help you find good information. You can find even more information in my post on Content Creation vs Content Curation.

Step 1. Know Your Audience

As with your writing projects, it’s important to know who you are trying to reach with your social sharing. If you’re a freelance writer, your primary audience is your prospective clients.

If you have a specialty, finding your audience is easy. For example, if you’re a medical writer your audience is probably doctors, medical companies, or even consumers who are interested in medical topics. If you specialize in writing for real estate agents, then that’s your audience.

Your shares should be interesting and helpful to the audience you are trying to reach. Too many freelancers share haphazardly (or even worse, they share only their own posts and articles). Then they wonder why their social media efforts aren’t working.

To determine who you’re trying to reach through social media, take a look at my tips for figuring out who your audience is in this post.

Step 2. Have a Go-to List

One quick and easy tip for finding good material to share is to maintain a list of websites that regularly publish high quality posts and articles. This is your go-to list. Sharing from sites known for their expertise and reliability only enhances your brand.

You probably already have certain blogs that you read often. If these blogs are relevant to your audience, they can be a great start for your go-to list. Add new blogs to your list when you can.

An easy way to manage your go-to list is by using your feed reader. When you discover you a site with high quality material, add that site to your feed reader so that you don’t miss a post or article.

I use Feedly, which has social sharing features built-in. Feedly also categorizes content from other users.

Step 3. Only Share the Best

I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will. Read what you share. Even the best blogs have off days, so don’t assume that everything on your favorite blogs is good.

Remember, you want the quality of your shares to improve your brand. If your shares are consistently well-written and helpful to your audience, they help your brand.

If your shares are sometimes good but often mediocre, your brand is not helped. Sharing poor quality content might even hurt your brand.

For guidelines on what comprises high quality content, review this post.

Don’t forget to add your own opinion to your social media shares to add even more value to your shares.

3 More Tools for Finding Good Content

Are you struggling to find information relevant to your niche for sharing? Of course, you can always use the search engine to find information, but there are also other ways to find good content.

Here are three free tools to help you find good content:

1. Alltop. This site lists the latest posts from the top blogs by category. Find posts on topics ranging from finance to healthcare to real estate and more. This tool is especially good for building your first list of high quality sites for sharing.
2. Klout. You may remember Klout as the tool that people used to give each other plus ones for various topics. If you haven’t seen Klout for a while, they’ve branched out. A new Klout feature recommends web content for sharing. You can find content sources that aren’t already well-known.
3. Topsy. This tool helps you to search for popular posts on Twitter. There is a pro analytics version of this tool, but some features are free and you don’t need to log in to use those. Use Topsy to find influencers and look for current social trends.

Your Turn

How do you decide what information to share through social media? Do you have any favorite tools for finding good content?

Share your thoughts in the comments.