Successful Quick Shares – Lessons from Lowe’s Home Improvement
Last week, I made the “less is more” argument regarding web content to a client. We were debating the benefits of putting ALL her information on a certain topic on her web channels vs. strategically selecting and highlighting three key statements.
If I had wanted to take our content strategy discussion up a level, I would have made some suggestions on making the content not just consumable, but shareable. In today’s social + search world, we don’t want people simply to absorb our content, we want them to share it. (If “social + search” is a new term for you, check out Mashable’s Social Search definition.)
Yesterday, I stumbled across Lowe’s Home Improvement “Quick Shares” on Facebook. Taking note that over 1,000 people had shared that day’s “Quick Share,” I had to stop and examine why people were inspired to click that golden “share” button. Here are three observations:
- They are labeled “Quick Share.” There’s a double-meaning here. They are sharing this tip with you. You should share it with your friends.
- The written text is concise. Making it easy to understand and easy to pass along.
- Images are included – for multiple reasons.
The images that Lowe’s has selected for their “Quick Shares” stand out beautifully on the company’s Facebook Page. The pictures are nice, but they also take up more screen real estate than a text-only post would. As a result, each time a fan shares a “Quick Share” tip, the image (and a link to the Lowe’s Home Improvement Facebook Page) stands out great on their post for their friends to see.
Lowe’s wisely has started repurposing these images – sharing them with their Pinterest followers on the Lowe’s Pinterest Helpful Hints board. (Kudos to their content marketing team for using this one piece of content on multiple channels in smart ways!)
Lowe’s “Quick Shares” on Facebook are excellent examples of succinct, easy-to-understand and not-too-self-promotional posts that fans enjoy sharing.
Question: What content do you have or could you generate that could be your “Quick Shares?”