How to Get 100 Shares on Your Next Blog Post [30 Free Tips]
- Simon Zaku
- Jun 6
- 18 min read
Are you frustrated about publishing new blog posts on your blog because they seem to underperform even when you know they're top-notch? Read this 5,000 word guide and learn actionable ways to get 1,000 social shares on your next blog posts.
Hello, and thank you for checking out my blog today. In this week's post, I'll show you the strategies I use and still use to get loads of social shares on my blog posts.
Out of the 12 articles on this blog, 9 have at least 100 hundred social shares. With the highest being 3,000 [without twitter shares].
In this post I'm going to show you actionable tips to get similar or even better results on your new blog.
30 tips sound like 1,000,000? Hit this link and get the PDF version of this post for offline use.
The 100 Shares Blueprint: The Ultimate Course to Get 100+ Shares on Every Blog Post
Publish an expert roundup post.
Yes, if you follow my blog, you'll notice that I'm a big fan of publishing expert round up guides especially as a new blogger.
In fact, with just a single expert roundup post, I was able to kickstart my new blog (this very blog) to 1000s of pageviews in my first 2 months.
My first expert roundup generated over 1000 social shares during the first week of publishing.
Roundups are effective in generating tons of social shares and traffic too. Here are the 3 main steps to publishing your first expert roundup post.
Coming up with your idea.
Finding popular bloggers to participate.
Marketing the published post.
To be able to publish a mind blowing roundup, you need to think outside the box and come up with a topic idea no one has touched.
When I say topic that's not been touched, I mean there's barely any roundup post about it.
This would even get influencers more interested to participate. In my free course, “Expert RoundUp” I walk you through practical steps I took to generate my unique topic idea every single time.
The strategies show you how anyone could come up with potential roundup ideas in about 5 minutes even if you're a complete beginner [yes, trust me].
I wouldn't want to get too deep into it here because I'd already spent quality time putting together this free email course on how to publish your first expert roundup guide.
I walk you through the very first step [coming up with the roundup topic] to getting 1000s of shares. I put this together in just 3 lessons for easy understanding [wouldn't want to overwhelm you].
So sign up for free and learn how to publish a single post that would surpass all other posts on your blog, the Expert Roundup.
Mention Influencers and Email them.
When starting out, you should be generous enough to always link to certain influencers in your blog posts.
This is a strategy I used and still use till date.
Link to their content, find their contact details and hit them up.
There's 90% possibility they'll share out your post. In fact, it's one of the best ways I've gotten influencers to tweet my posts.
Quote expert words.
If you don't want to link to influencers [not a good idea], you could also quote their words within your blog posts. I like to do this when I am not able to find any suitable post from an influencer to link to.
Saves you the time for finding useful posts to link to.
Every expert loves to be quoted because it shows respect and fan-ship.
You show that you've read their piece and respect what they wrote/said. Most experts will be happy to share it out for you.
Write long, detailed posts.
If you blog consistently, you'd know it takes time to put out long form content every time. This is probably so because that's what works today.
Detailed content keeps your readers happy and engaged. Avoid fluffy content if you want to get 100 or 1000 social shares.
A good way to keep balance as a busy blogger is to publish both long [time taking] and shorter posts.
For example on this very blog, I try to keep my articles between 2,500 to 3,500 words but my long form content go as much as 5,000 to 10,000.
Yes, I have a 10k-word article!!!
Publish listicles.
Listicles are articles [or content] written in form of lists.
For instance, “12 ways to make money” OR “101 tools to get more traffic”.
Personally, I find listicles or list-articles easier to create than generic ultimate guides because you have a list of things to cover.
Before I write list articles, I put down the list of all the items I would discuss in the post before I begin writing.
This way, I have a list to follow and I tend to find that a little easy. Also, list articles tend to perform better.
In fact, on this very blog, 4 out of 5 of my most successful blog posts (in terms of social shares) are list articles.
Use responsive and clear social share button.
To be able to get 1000s of social shares, you need make it easy for readers to hit the share button.
The tweet, share and pin buttons have to be exceptionally clear and responsive.
Some social share tools do not offer this and some bloggers suffer from it.
Have you read any post and be like like “wow, I need to tweet this!” but don't see any share button?
Yes, I've faced that severally. In fact, I always tell bloggers to include share buttons whenever I don't see one.
Here are the best social share buttons I've tried on this blog.
SOCIAL WARFARE:
Social Warfare is the best social share button I’ve used. It’s the one I still use on this blog today. The slick design, share counts and responsiveness is what I particularly love about social warfare.
MASHSHARE
I started using Mashshare earlier when I started this blog. What I loved about Mashare is how responsive it is. When it comes to responsive designs, in my opinion it beats social warfare. If you’re looking for a social share plugin that’s extremely simple then I’ll advice you go for mashshare.
SUMO SHARE
Also super responsive and it used to be my favorite share tool [yes, beating social warfare] until it suddenly stopped displaying on mobile devices.
Use buffer share button.
Buffer is a social media management tool that allows scheduling of social media content on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram and Pinterest.
Buffer also has a feature where readers could schedule your blog posts directly from your blog with just a click.
This means, users can schedule your posts to multiple social accounts with a few clicks.
Here's how it works:
Your reader jumps on your blog post, reads and decides to tweet but then notices the ”buffer” button and he's like “oh, easy, I'll just buffer this!”.
The reader clicks on the buffer button and is taken to his or her buffer dashboard with the link and title of your post.
There the reader is able to schedule it multiple times to any social media platform.
Here's the thing…
At the moment, I only know of one social share tool which displays buffer button which is SUMO SHARE.
It's another feature I also miss out on Social Warfare.
Use sticky share button.
Have you read any piece and wanted to share but had to scroll all the way up or down to get the share button?
Yes, a lot of times.
Using sticky share button will save your readers seconds of scrolling up or down.
I use sticky button on both desktop and mobile versions of this blog.
If you're reading this guide in mobile, then you'd notice the beautiful, responsive button stuck at the button of the page as you scroll.
For desktop viewers, the sticky buttons are on the left side of the page.
Create pinterest worthy images.
I started this blog without a pinterest account.
Even though I wished I started leveraging pinterest from day 1, I don't regret it because my posts without a pinterest account [or images] are still one of my best.
But with pinterest, you get a spike in social shares. Pinterest is a thing now and you wouldn't want to miss out.
In fact, since starting pinterest and creating pinterest images for my blog posts, I've seen a huge spike in social shares.
Also, pinterest has become one of my most shared social button on my most recent blog posts.
Embed click-to-tweets.
Click-to-tweet [CTT] is a content marketing feature that's used to create customized twitter share links. This feature allows you to share certain quotes from your blog posts to twitter.
Readers are able to share this quote on twitter by clicking on it.
I used the free WordPress plugin, Better Click to Tweet, to embed CTTs in my posts. On the other hand, you could create CTTs online on clicktotweet.com.
Highlight-to-share buttons.
Highlight-to-share is pretty much the same with Click-to-tweets but with more features.
Click to tweet supports just one social platform, Twitter, but Highlight-to-share supports more: Facebook, Twitter…
Whenever a reader highlights any part of your content, the share buttons pop out, prompting the reader to share.
I love how hubspot uses this feature all the time. I've not used this before but it's a great strategy to boost social shares.
Avoid clumsy content.
Spread out your content to keep your readers engaged as they read.
The more engaged your readers are, the more shares you'll get.
Try to keep your paragraphs between 2-3 sentences.
Use bucket-brigade
Bucket-brigades are words or phrases you use in your content to keep the reader interested. Your reader will close your page if it's boring.
Examples of bucket-brigades are:
“Here's the thing:”
“Guess what?”
“Rear on!”
“Confused? I'll explain”
This keeps your content fresh and far from boring making your readers engaged and excited to read more and more.
PS: I want to give credit to Brian Dean of Backlinko.com. I first came about bucket-bridgates on his blog.
Share to your email list.
Your email list should be your number #1 priority as a blogger. Most new bloggers forget this; I did too when I was just starting.
Your email subscribers are usually your biggest fans. What I do whenever I publish a new post on the blog is I send an email with a long excerpt from the blog post with a link to continue reading at the end.
I also urge my subscribers to share the post after reading.
Here's the thing:
To be able to drive traffic and shares from your email, you need to grow it first. Without an email list with 100s or 1000s of subscribers, you would not be able to drive traffic and shares.
Smart bloggers know that to grow their email list effectively, you need a conversion focused list building tool. Now, there are several list building tools you can use on your blog but I always use and recommend Thrive Leads.
With Thrive Leads, you can create effective sign-up forms like Popups, Embed forms, Screen Filler, Ribbon, Slide-In and more.
In fact with Thrive Leads, I was able to more than triple my sign up conversion rate on this blog in less than 2 weeks.
Link out to other bloggers.
Links, links, links!
People will almost always share your content when you link out to them.
In fact, after writing every content for my blog, I carefully go through it to see if there's any word or phrase to add a link.
I then go through certain influencers [that I'm friends with] and find any of their articles that I could link to.
For example, if a blog content I'm about to publish has a keyword phrase, “drive traffic to your new blog”, I'll find a blog post on how to drive traffic to a new blog and link to it.
Please note that this must not be articles by influencers.
Look for average bloggers that put out great content and link out to them. They'll be more than glad to share out your post everywhere.
Recommend other people's content as “Further Resource”.
This is a little bit different from linking to relevant content from your posts.
In this case, you add similar content to what your post is talking about.
I got this idea from Wikipedia:
It's an effective strategy to getting people to share check your content and ask for shares.
Bloggers always appreciate backlinks thus will be more than happy to check your content and share it out.
Be sure to personally go through each content before recommending it in your post.
Here's the template that I personally use whenever I recommend any blogger’s content in mine:
__________
Hi, Rob.I came across your article about picking a blogging niche a while back via twitter and I particularly love how you point out the importance of picking a blog niche.I decided it'll be useful to my blog readers so I linked to it in one of my recent posts. Here's the link (Just search "rob"):http://simonzaku.com/get-top-blogging-influencers-to-share-your-content/Let me know if you'd want me to change or update anything at all. Also, I'll appreciate your honest feedback on the post. Thanks, Rob.
___________
And here's the reply…
__________
Great article, Simon! Just shared it on Twitter. Thanks for mentioning me!Best wishes,Rob
__________
Use an Image sharer.
Using image sharing option on your blog posts can improve your shares and traffic too. Most especially traffic from pinterest.
I'm sure you must have seen how bloggers drive tons of traffic from pinterest by simply creating and posting optimized images on pinterest.
Make it easy for your readers to share your pinterest images from your blog.
Social share tools like SUMO SHARE and SHAREAHOLIC have this feature built-in. Install any of them on your blog and you're good to go.
Use a call to action in your share buttons.
I've not personally tried using a call-to-action on my blog share buttons but it's a strategy I see bloggers use.
I think if you tell readers to share, they might be more likely to hit the share button.
Feel free to let me know if there's any data backing up this psychology. I'll include it here with a credit link to you.
Repurpose your content.
Content repurposing involves reformatting or recycling your existing content for other platforms or mediums. As I quote content repurposing expert, Anna Hoffman:
“CONTENT REPURPOSING is a multi-channel marketing strategy that puts your business message in every format and on every platform your potential customers are looking for it”
If your content is in article format, repurpose it for YouTube, Slideshare or infographics with a link back to the original content.
This way, your message could reach 1000s more without having to create a completely fresh post.
Credit: TrafficGenerationCafe.
Remind Your Readers to Share.
This is a simple strategy to improve your blog shares and I came about it from blogging expert, Raelyn Tan.
At the end of all her blog posts, Raelyn reminds her readers to hit the share button to share on Facebook, Twitter and also tells them there's a pinnable image for pinterest.
I also use this strategy on this very blog. What I do is I tell my readers to join my email newsletter if they love my blog content.
Don't worry, you won't have to manually type that message every single time. There's a plugin for WordPress users to attached any message you wish to after every content on your blog.
Download and install the “Add Widget After Content” in your WordPress. This will enable you add any message after all your blog posts.
Publish infographics.
The human brain processes visual data 60,000 times faster than text.
Infographics are popularly known to boost content visibility fast. In fact, blogging experts like Neil Patel, Spend so much every year on Infographics.
An Infographic is a visual representation of information or data. Research shows that people remember things they see more than they read.
In fact, research also shows that Infographics can increase web traffic by up to 12% [source].
There are several tools to create an Infographics but I recommend Canva because because I love how simple it is. You could also pay freelancers online to create infographics for you.
Mention tools.
This is one of the most overlooked yet effective strategy to get more shares on your content.
How does this work?
You basically mention tools, link to them and hit them up letting them know you mentioned and linked to them in your guide.
This was the strategy I used to get tweets from huge social media tools companies like buffer [which has 1 million twitter followers] and Quuu, [with over 10k twitter followers].
Find 2 or 3 tools related to your niche that would provide value to your readers. Don't just slam tools because you want to get tweets from them. Focus on providing value to your readers first.
For instance, if you blog about social media, you could mention tools like Canva, Hootsuite, Click to Tweet etc.
Likewise if you blog about personal finance, you'd mention tools like Credible, Motif Investing etc.
After the mention and linking to their website, what I do is I reach out to them letting them know I love and recommend their tools so I mentioned it in one of my posts.
Here's a reach out template:
Hi, guys! Simon Zaku here [a cool fan].
Btw, I just wanted to let you guys know that I mentioned, [name the tool], in my recent guide on my blog, [mention the blog].
The guide is [insert words length] and I would love a tweet if it's worth it.
Just CTRL + [insert word in the article where you linked] to find where I mentioned [name of tool].
Cheers,
[Your name]
Tip: Don't forget to follow up your emails.
Most times, I tag the company's twitter handle when I tweet the post with something like
How I Get Top #Blogging Influencers to Tweet My Blog Posts Every Single Time - Step by Step Guide https://t.co/uAGySc6rIB via @s_zakuu
[@Buffer mentioned]
This way, the social media or twitter manager would see it too.
Display social proof and avoid negative social proof.
Displaying social proof is a vital marketing tactic you must leverage as a blogger.
In this case, displaying your social media share counts acts as social proof.
This is so because readers would be more likely to hit the share button if they see that 100s have shared already.
Here's the thing…
Displaying social proof can make or break your social shares and here's why…
If you display relatively high social media share counts [think 100s or 1000s], it'll act as social proof but what's the case when you display too low social share counts?
It'll do the opposite right? Yes!
So what you want to do is to stay away from low share counts and only display share counts when they pass a particular threshold.
Another vital way to avoid negative social proof is by hiding [or not displaying] share counts for individual share buttons.
Here's how to hide individual share counts in Social Warfare, the social share button I use on this blog.
You can try it!
After installing the Social Warfare plugin, a “social warfare” tab will appear on your WordPress dashboard.
Click on the tab and scroll to “Share Counts” under the “Display” tab.
Toggle off the “Button Counts” and allow “Total Counts”.
Reach out to people that have tweeted similar content.
After publishing my first blog post which was a huge expert roundup article, I starting reaching out to people who've shown similar interest.
These were people who've shared similar content, commented on similar content or engaged with any similar tweets.
The goal here is to find and reach out to at least 100 people interested in your type of blog post.
You find them, pull out their email addresses and reach out to them.
The first thing to do is to find similar articles to yours and I recommend using Google searches here because it's the fastest.
Head over to Google and search for the keyword(s) your blog article is targeting.
If you're targeting “beauty for teenagers”, run the phrase on Google to find content that already ranks for it.
So let's say the title of your post is “10 Ways to Make Money Online”, I'll Google “Make Money Online”.
Pick the top 5 results and keep in an excel file.The next step is to find people that have tweeted out those 5 articles.
When starting out, I used buzzsumo to pull out these users FOR FREE!
I think buzzsumo offers a free trial period which I jumped on during the time. (I just confirmed they offer a free 7 day trial).
Head over to buzzsumo.com and sign up for their free trial.
After setting up your account, you'll be able to login to your dashboard using the email and password you used.
On your dashboard, navigate to the “Content Analyzer” tab and insert any of the 5 article links above then search.
Click on the “twitter sharers” tab and export the list to excel (or CSV).
Repeat these for all the 5 articles above and you should have a long list of 100-250 people that have tweeted similar content.Reaching out to 250 or even 100 people is a hell of work because you need to find their email addresses, websites …
So what I do is I pay freelancers to get this done for me and it's absolutely worth every penny.
I mean, I'll do it again and again.
You can find good [and super cheap] freelancers on fiverr.com or freelancer.com. Both websites are great and I use them a lot.
Spend time on your titles.
A great title is what attracts traffic to your blog. As they say, writing good content is one part; writing enticing titles [or headlines] is another.
Titles appear everywhere…
From tweets, facebook, google plus and linkedIn shares and pinterest images. Your blog post title has the power to make or break your blog posts.
I try to write my headlines with the reader [or target] in mind. Try to write while having your reader in mind.
Ask questions like: “would I myself want to click this?” OR “will my problem be solved if I read this post?”.
What I do is I write about 5 different headlines for every blog post I write then pick out the best possible one.
Sometimes, I ask my blogger friends to help me with picking the right headline for certain blog posts.
Keep the reader engaged
Keeping your readers engaged is also as important as writing great headlines for your posts. It'll make no sense if you get visitors to click your titles but turn them off seconds after landing in your post.
This is so important, Google now uses this metric to determine search ranks. This tells how important reader engagement is.
Try to tell exciting stories in your blog posts; don't be boring. Don't be all BUSINESS, BUSINESS, BUSINESS!
Incorporate your personality and tell stories in your content.
To make this easier, here are 3 actionable ways to write content that keeps your reader going…
Tell engaging stories at the right time.
Use bucket brigades.
Space out your paragraphs [2-3 sentences per paragraph is OKAY].
Use content lock.
Content lock is a content marketing strategy to get readers to share your stuff, follow your social media accounts or like your facebook page for an incentive.
Most times, content creators [bloggers] hide a part or some of their content which is only visible when you share the post.
For example, if you write “10 tips to do X”, you'd only allow readers access to 7 out of the 10 tips while the remaining 3 would locked and readers only get them after sharing.
There are lots of content locking tools on the internet but here are a few great ones;
Write on trending topics.
People share what's trending on social media all the time. As a blogger trying to boost your shares and traffic, you'd want to leverage this.
If you blog about social media, you need to stay up to date about all things Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat.
It's funny how these types of blog posts can spike your traffic and shares because you literally have to do anything.
What you do is you keep in touch with your market trends and literally repost them on your blog.
For instance, a few days ago when Pinterest introduced Pinterest Communities, Carla Gadyt immediately published a blog post and also created a YouTube video about it on her blog and YouTube channel resp.
This illustrates how every blogger should stay up to date with news trends. But here's the thing:
To write on trending topics, you need to find them first. There are 2 main ways to staying up to date in your blog niche.
Google Alerts
Have enticing thumbnail images.
Having enticing, clickable thumbnails for your blog posts is an essential strategy you shouldn't ignore. From my 1 year blogging experience on this very blog, thumbnails can increase your social media engagements.
That's why all my blog posts carry enticing featured images that look something like this:
These images appear on social media when my posts are shared encouraging people to click and check it out.
I use Canva to create my social media images and I absolutely love it. It's simple and free!
How to Start Using Canva for Your Blog in 3 Steps
Like I said, Canva is pretty easy to use and it's also free. In fact, it's the best image design tool I've used for my blog.
Here's how to set it up:
Sign up on Canva for free.
Get 1 or 2 Templates for Your Blog.
Start Creating your Images.
Publish during weekdays.
Weekdays tend to perform better than weekends when it comes to blog performance. I don't know for you but my blog's traffic tends to be higher on weekdays than on weekends.
I guess this is so because people don't check their emails, read blog posts or basically do business on weekends.
Encourage your cycle to share
This is a very important marketing strategy every blogger should use. I name this the “family & friends technique”.
Heres it basically works:
You write and publish a post on your blog.
You email your family and close friends to check it out and help you with the sharing.
I use this strategy every single time for all my blog articles.
Reach out to people you know that would almost always share everything you post.
For instance, I email my close cycle blogging friends whenever there's a new blog post on my blog.
These can be influential blogging friends or people I've had built relationships with online. I basically get a list of people I know and hit them up.
This is very vital to my blog strategy because I get a lot of ROI from it.
Here's a reachout template you can use:
“Hi, [INSERT NAME]. How are you doing today, bud? Hope all's good!
Btw, I just published a new guide on the blog titled: [INSERT TITLE OF THE BLOG].
Check it out and let me know if its 💥 or NAH. If it's 💥, be sure to share it all over, man :)
Here's the link: [INSERT LINK]
Thanks, [INSERT RECIPIENT'S NAME].
Please note that I use this template only when I'm reaching out to a close friend of mine. When it's cold reach out, NEVER USE THIS TEMPLATE.
Install Tweet Old Post WordPress Plugin.
Tweet Old Post is a wordpress plugin that allows users to set up automatic twitter shares.
This is especially important if you have so many posts on blog hence can't continually go through each of them to share.
Read: How to Set-up Tweet Old Post on Your WordPress.
Use Evergreen Social Media Automation Tool, SmarterQueue.
SmarterQueue is a social media management and automation tool.
Most bloggers use SmarterQueue to load “share queues” with their blog content (and other people’s content), pre-schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
What I love about SmarterQueue is its evergreen automation feature.
You get to schedule your blog posts once and SmarterQueue will continually repost it on your social media channels without you having to continually visit and revisit it.
Click here to try SmarterQueue* now and start scheduling evergreen shares on your social media like never before.
Wrapping Up
Getting 1,000 shares on your next blog posts might look impossible but with these 30+ strategies, you'll be on your way to racking up even more than you'd expected.
Click here to get this ultimate list of 30+ strategies in PDF format. It's free!
Also, I'll appreciate your shares if you love this post. Long guides like these take forever to put together :)
Best,
Simon Taki Zaku
Founder, CEO, IbiFoundry.com.ng
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