Building an online presence is much more than just showing up. Your audience wants content; content that’s relevant, exciting, and shareable. The key to unlocking these content benefits lies in shareable assets. But what does the term actually mean? That’s what we’re here to discuss.
As of July 2020, there are 3.6 billion social network users worldwide. Now think, one piece of awesome content has the potential to reach that many people. By creating shareable assets, your audience spread your content far and wide, giving your business better reach, which will boost your bottom line.
What Are Shareable Assets?
The term ‘content’ doesn’t just refer to blogs and articles. While words are important, they’re not everything. Great content also contains non-text media and when you create that media anew, it’s what we call a shareable asset.
Shareable assets can be infographics, surveys, videos, graphs, charts, data, apps, or guides. But not someone else’s. The point of a shareable asset is that its something other content creators need to use when publishing content on a similar topic. Rather than spending time and money commissioning it for themselves, they’ll use yours and link back to your original in the process.
Do I Need Content Assets?
Content assets are a fantastic way to generate SEO-boosting backlinks, build authority in your niche, generate leads, and offer genuinely relevant and helpful information to your target audience.
Think of it this way:
- You create a shareable asset like an infographic that touches upon relevant and current affairs within your industry
- You share that content on Twitter
- Someone sees your content and shares it with their colleagues on LinkedIn
- Another person from within your industry uses your infographic in their content, linking back to the original source (your website)
Okay, so that sounds great. But perhaps you don’t have that many followers on Twitter or other social media platforms. So you might think it’s not worth the bother to create shareable assets. But you’d be wrong my friend.
How often do people use Google Image search to find media for their content? Well, there are 5.6+ billion searches performed on Google every day and almost a quarter (22.6%) are for Google Images.
Now imagine a content producer in your niche is looking for an image to post to their latest piece. Something that answers a burning question or provides relevant information. They find the right image via Google Images (because you’ve optimized your image SEO for this purpose) and copy the link address.
Guess what, it’s your awesome infographic and your site address! It really is that easy to gain a backlink to your website or blog by investing in high-quality shareable assets. Which is easy for us to say, but how do you actually do it?
To help you get started, we’ve put together a list of 5 of the tools we find most useful when creating shareable assets.
1. Canva
If I asked you to create an infographic to run alongside a relevant blog post would you be confident about your ability to design one? Possibly not! Most content writers find this a challenge and that’s ok.
With a tool like Canva, anyone can create amazing, unique, and shareable graphics for free. Canva has thousands of templates you can use to get started with the design of graphics, header images, images for social posts, infographics, logos, and much more.
Simply select a design that takes your fancy and start editing using Canva’s beginner-friendly editor. You can upload and alter your own images, shapes, and icons, add photos, include text, and even add videos to anything you’re working on.
You can also use Canva to highlight shareable information from your text like:
- Expert quotes (from an interview you conducted or just famous quotes)
- Formulas for say, calculating certain marketing metrics
- Data or statistics that you’ve produced
… plus, you can add your logo and URL to any other shareable assets like graphs, charts, and more. That way, when people share your asset on their site, they’re not only giving you a backlink, but also valuable exposure.
Once you’ve finished your Canva creation, download it or share a link to it on your blog and social media pages, and watch your content marketing strategy thrive.
2. Cheatography
Cheat sheets provide concise and valuable information to readers to help them achieve their goals. This could be anything from a list of helpful HTML code to use when creating your own website, to basic console commands for a video game. The world is your oyster on this one.
Cheatography is a free cheat sheet tool, allowing you to download existing cheat sheets in PDF form, or you can create your own. If you want to create your own cheat sheet, you may want to consider the following before diving in:
- Decide what topic you want to cover
- Identify key points you want to mention in your cheat sheet
- Think of a clear and punchy title that your readers can share with others
- Divide your cheat sheet into simple sections
- Use colors that are easy on the eye and easy to read
Whilst Cheatography is a useful tool, the cheat sheet designs are somewhat outdated. I, therefore, recommend combining the use of Cheatography with more creative tools like Photoshop or Canva to make stunning shareable graphics.
3. SnapApp
93% of marketers say interactive content is effective. Capturing your audience’s imagination is the first step in making them want to interact with your content. Once they’ve interacted with your content and had a great time, they’re going to want to share their experience and your content with others.
SnapApp is an interactive content marketing tool enabling you to create innovative and interactive content with ease. They have a drag and drop builder for you to start creating infographics, contests, and quizzes, as well as in-depth analytics for you to analyze how well your content is doing.
Quizzes are fantastic shareable assets and offer a way for your audience to engage with your brand. SnapApp lets you built content that converts, using templates to create prospects at every level, resulting in actionable insights.
4. Statista
People like statistics. Statistics hold meaning, they offer factual information and can back up claims that you make. If you want to make a strong impression, statistics can really pack a punch; they not only compliment the content you write but look great alongside shareable assets like infographics.
Statista is a well-known platform where you can search for statistics on almost any topic. You can sign up for free, allowing you to access basic statistics that you can download and share. What many people don’t know though is that Statista can help you make use of their statistics as well as offering a customized infographic service.
Though this service does come at a cost, Statista’s team of editors and designers can aid you in creating attractive shareable assets that your content will thrive on.
5. Venngage
Venngage is the perfect data visualization tool. Let your imagination run wild and I’m pretty sure Venngage will hit the spot. This tool allows you to create shareable assets in many forms, including:
- Charts and graphs
- Maps
- Icons
- Infographics
Linkworthy content offers information that answers a reader’s questions, it offers a unique way to address issues and dishes up content that can be used as a reference and is therefore shareable.
Shareable assets can be as simple as creating a graph or small graphic, posting it on Twitter, then watching the retweets and shares come rolling in. If you can create an awesome piece of shareable content, people will remember it and mention it as a resource in the content they publish, potentially reaching those billions of users I touched upon earlier.
Conclusion: What Are Shareable Assets and Why Does Your Content Need Them
Creating shareable content assets isn’t going to be quick and easy. But it is going to be an endlessly valuable exercise for your business – and one that will keep paying dividends long after those eyes are no longer landing on your written content piece.
And while creating content that people love to share and link back to requires time and effort, you’ll find it much easier with the killer tools we’ve just discussed.
For further reading, take a look at our article How to Make Your Website More Engaging With Visual Content.
Valuable information. Keep posting new and great blog like this. Thanks for sharing with us.