Use Hootsuite To Amplify Company News

One of the most effective ways to drive more traffic to a website is to publish regular news, blog posts and feature articles. However, sometimes this does not have the desired effect and even the best news stories and most informative feature articles fail to reach a wide pool of users. 

Hootsuite has launched a new product that may help businesses reach a much wider audience.

Hootsuite has launched a new mobile app, called Amplify, which enhances the desktop controls to make it easier for employees to share their company’s news. By encouraging their staff to share stories, companies can increase the chances that a story will go viral on social networks.

Social media marketing is already one of the most important channels for some businesses, overtaking organic search. In the past, staff of a company would not be involved in the marketing of business news in any way at all. However, some companies have realised that their employees represent a huge, untapped resource, which if mobilised, can share company news with thousands of other people.

For instance, if a company has 100 employees, all of whom are on Facebook, and each one shares the latest news with all of their friends, this can result in over 10,000 people instantly seeing the article. If friends start sharing the news story, the figure will very quickly rise.

The new product allows managers to see which employees are sharing the most content as well as highlight which content is most popular.

Write Sharable Content

Of course, Hootsuite’s new service does not alter the biggest challenge for businesses - to produce news that is interesting enough to be shared. Generally, company news is dry, formal and, to be honest, not very interesting.

However, taking some tips from journalists, it is possible to write interesting stories with engaging headlines that people will share. One unusual aspect of social media, especially Facebook, is that people tend to “like” and share news without reading the whole story.

A good headline, eye catching image and brief description is often enough to prompt a like or share, and this alone can result in a story going viral. In fact, the headline and image really is more important on social media than the actual content – the same rule applies to traditional news journalism – headlines sell newspapers. What few people realise is that professional web copywriters are behind some of the most popular business news stories on social media.

Remember, this strategy is as much about promoting an online brand as immediately driving new leads to a website.

Highlight the Most Engaging Headlines

To learn what might work best on social media, look at how other companies use Facebook. For example, the BBC used the headline “People who like their coffee black are more likely to be psychopaths, plus more news nuggets” to promote its “10 things we didn't know last week“ page, which itself is used to generate more social sharing. All the stories shared are interesting reads, but the lead about drinkers of black coffee being psychopaths is designed to attract people’s attention and lead them to share the Facebook post.

By mobilising employees, companies can greatly increase their digital brand on social media. People tend to trust stories more if they are shared by friends - and of course, it is much cheaper than paying Facebook for sponsored posts!

Author bio:
Danny Hall is a co-director at Freelance SEO. Danny believes that the cornerstone of a good SEO campaign is building a high quality website with great content that other people naturally wish to link to.