Here are some suggestions to generally be more appealing to most marketers:

Aim for the heart with emotions

Are you inspiring a deep emotional reaction? It is the key to evoking emotions with your content. When people respond to something emotionally, they are often compelled to share it. Jonah Berger and Katie Milkman co-authored a paper called “What Makes Online Content Go Viral?”

They shared a lot of interesting insights, but the biggest takeaway for me was that content that evokes “high-arousal emotions” is more likely to go viral. The study specifically cited emotions like awe, anger, and anxiety.

Practice your storytelling

Put your ideas and messages into a story and use the story to produce the stickiness. When things are on the complex side, stories have a way of helping people understand and remember. When talking about the story, it acts as a trigger.

Employ social currency

The key to social currency? Peer popularity of your thoughts and ideas. People love to talk about the things that make them look good. Give your audience a way to feel special.

When done well, they will spread the word about you along the way. Special care is the heart and soul of word of mouth marketing, the most valuable type of marketing.

Watch trends

Use current trends and recent news events as inspiration when you are creating content. This makes it easier to think of new ideas, and using trending topics and current events mean that you have a built-in audience who is already interested in your content.

Triggers

Triggers are the daily reminders of ideas and thoughts that shape:

· Choices consumers make

· Things that people talk about

· Products or services customers choose

Want your initiatives to be more successful? It can be as simple as linking your ideas and messages to relevant triggers.

Be visual

People process visual content faster than text. Visual content is also more engaging and more memorable. Smart businesses are incorporating more visual content into their work.

Gifs and infographics are increasingly popular. Twitter added Vine for looping videos. Facebook recently made images bigger.

Provide something useful

Content that recognizes and solves problems is also more likely to be shared. Although an article about fixing your bathroom sink may not seem very interesting, it is a common problem many people have to deal with.

If someone finds your content helpful, they will share it with others who face the same problem.

If you run a business that sells clothes, write a blog post with ideas about how to accessorize an outfit.

Some more useful material: Battle of Content Marketing ... The Zen of Winning It

Make information easy to scan

There is a LOT of information online. When people are reading online, they skim the page to see if the content they need is there. If a reader doesn’t find what they are looking for at your site, they will move on quickly. Here are a few tips for making information easier to scan:

Use headings and subheadings to clearly identify your topics

Write short paragraphs

Use straightforward language

Use images to illustrate your points

Use white space. Giant blocks of text are intimidating.

Turn needs into content

Answer questions; create tutorial videos, walkthroughs and other types of easily consumable content that provide direct answers and explanations. Notice how the videos above don’t sell – but entertain.

In the same vein, if you can use your content to inform, help, inspire and motivate – the result will be two-fold. You’ll create brand recognition and credibility along with having a desirable product that matches the customer’s expectations.

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics that relate to improving the performance of business.