What we learnt from analyzing 1m posts. Implications for content marketing from understanding why people share and link to content. Slides from joint webinar with Moz.

1. Shares & Links
Content’s Footprint

2. Steve Rayson
Director, BuzzSumo
steve@buzzsumo.com
@steverayson

3. #mozinar

4. BuzzSumo
• Helping content marketers improve their
performance through data.
• Understand what content is resonating with
audiences in any topic and on any network.

5. Shares & Links Amplify Content

6. • Is there a correlation of shares and links?
• Does content that get shares also get links and
vice versa?
• Why do people share and link?

7. Our Samples
First stage
100k random posts
Second stage
670k well shared posts that included specific
content formats eg lists, videos, quizzes, how to
posts, infographics etc
Third stage
350k from specific sites that had a high correlation

8. Correlation of Links & Shares
Correlation -1 to +1

9. 770k Posts Scatter Diagram

10. Low Performing
Content
Average Performing
Content
High Performing
Content

11. Distribution of Shares & Links

13. AverageMedian

14. Most content gets few shares and fewer links

15. People share & link for different reasons
Shares are easier to acquire than links

16. • There were sites with a positive correlation of
shares and links
• Many of these sites also had both high shares
and links

17. High Correlation Sites

18. Broadly…
• Research sites
• Quality journalism
• Opinionated journalism
…… appeared to have a high correlation of
shares and links
……. through achieving a higher number
of links

20. All content
Opinion content

21. Opinion Forming Journalism

22. List Posts Perform Well

23. New York Times Content (1,332 Posts)

24. Content Length Matters

26. 230 content items had over
200,000 shares but zero
links
It appears entertaining
quizzes and videos can
amass lots of shares but
receive very few links

27. Conclusions

28. Why Do People Share & Link?

29. Why Do People Share?

30. Why Do People Share?

31. Why Do People Link?
1.Highly relevant & useful
2.Comprehensive &
evergreen
3.Authoritative content
4.Exceptional content
5.Reciprocity

32. Sweet Spot Content
• Research backed, evidenced content
• Quality opinion content
• Long form content

33. Test Case?
My post on Moz
was research
backed & long form.
Hopefully not too
opinionated.

34. Most Shared On Moz This Month

35. 43 Referring Domain Links So Far

36. Thank You
Questions?
@steverayson