What Is the Concept of Content Shareability?

The fourth concept you’ll need to understand is “content shareability.” In other words, what makes content sharable for a clearly defined audience?

Although “shareability” isn’t included in the definition of content marketing, it is absolutely essential if content marketers hope one of their videos will “go viral.”

Original research from more than 2 years of work, five different data sets, around 1,000 videos, nine individual studies, and a large team of researchers from the Ehrenberg‐Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia found the following:

• Videos that display personal triumph appear most likely to deliver sharing success. But content creators rarely use personal triumph as a creative device.
• Weather/science/nature also achieved very good sharing rates. But these are also rare.
• Videos of babies outperform many other creative devices, but only when the video evokes intense emotions.
• Using poorly branded advertising is like throwing away your marketing budget.

Shareable content is also important for B2B marketers. Gartner research has found, “The typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 decision makers‚ each armed with four or five pieces of information they’ve gathered independently and must deconflict with the group.”

Gartner has also found that customers who perceived the information they received from suppliers to be “helpful” were “three times more likely to buy a bigger deal with less regret”—even if that information is shared with other decision‐makers in meetings instead of online.