The Psychology Behind Why People Share on Social Media

When you create a piece of content for your audience, it’s important to understand the psychology behind why they will be motivated to share your message. 

A study conducted by the New York Times Customer Insights Group found there are five motivational reasons behind why people share content online. 

In this article, you’re going to learn about five motivational reasons that inspire people to share content on social media.

This research can help inform your content and marketing strategies. 

Here are the five motivations for why people share content:

1. To support a cause or brand

People enjoy sharing causes or issues they care about.

Think of a friend or someone you know who consistently shares information about a specific brand or cause such as beauty products, a legislative bill or social issue. 

You might know of someone who raves about a specific brand on social media such as their trips to Target, Disneyland or Starbucks.

Some of these brands have a cult-like following with fans who aren’t shy to express their love and support for them.

When people support brands and causes, it motivates them to spread their love or appreciation for this brand or cause online.

Strategy Tip: How can you transition your product into a brand? Or how can you create positive experiences for your audience?

• Try more effective storytelling. Incorporate success stories or experiences from your customers.
• If there’s a cause you’d like people to support, help inspire them to share your content with easy and actionable call-to-actions, merchandise or assets.

The Psychology Behind Why People Share: The five motivations behind why people share content on social media. Share on X

2. To stay connected

People enjoy sharing information online if it helps nourish their existing relationships with others. Sharing information online helps people stay connected and build connections. That’s why people share content online.

When people share information online, it helps them stay connected to people they may not otherwise stay in touch with. 

Sharing content helps them grow with others who share similar interests as them; it helps them establish a sense of companionship when they engage in conversations online about content they shared.

The takeaway here is that people want to feel a connection to relationships and society.

Strategy Tip: How can you help make your audience feel like they’re part of something?

Building and nurturing communities online takes time, but it’s very rewarding.

• You might consider creating a branded hashtag to curate user generated content.
• You could consider creating a Facebook Group or Slack Community.
• Sometimes feeling connected to others can happen through networking events or a niche newsletter.

3. To feel involved with the world

Sharing helpful content helps people feel valuable.

They feel motivated to share content because they enjoy receiving positive feedback and comments about the useful information they shared.

These motivations are mostly for self-fulfillment reasons and it helps them feel involved with others.

Strategy Tip: Help your audience look good while providing value to others. Who doesn’t love sharing or reading valuable information?

• Whether you create a podcast, video, blog post or graphic, make sure you’re always coming from a place of offering value.
• Valuable content can be educational, entertaining (or infotainment), solve a problem, be inspirational or actionable.
• Incorporate shareable content into your content strategy.

4. To define themselves

People like to share content online to help give people a better sense of who they are in the world.

Doing so helps people project the type of image they’d like to present to others such as being kind, thoughtful, or interesting.

Strategy Tip: Help others define themselves online. Does your content project a certain persona? For example, most people would probably associate Apple products with being tech savvy and modern.

• Does your brand or product have a certain vibe that it portrays?
• Or would the information you’re sharing be portrayed as interesting or kind?
• Help others define themselves online with the information you create.

Why People Share: The psychology behind why people share on social media: Share on X

5. To bring value and entertaining content to others

When people share content online, they are motivated to bring value by enriching the lives of others and informing them of information that could be entertaining and helpful.

Strategy Tip: Help create shareable content that is of value to others. Always be of value. Give, give, give.

• As a reminder, valuable content can be educational, entertaining (or infotainment), solve a problem, be inspirational or actionable.

Takeaway

People are motivated to share content because it helps them build and foster relationships. It’s important to remember that people like to have a sense of belonging to society and be part of something.

Sharing content they care about with others and participating in a dialogue online helps them find meaning and purpose. They are motivated by positive and selfless reasons such as making a connection or to entertain others.

They’re also motivated by selfish reasons such as receiving comments and praise from others or to be seen as an expert and feel important.

What’s the biggest reason someone will share your content? Do you see opportunities to modify your content strategy to align with one or more of the motivations for people to share your content?