The average organic reach on most social platforms is 1 percent or less. That means if you share a post, only one in 100 followers, on average, is likely to see it without further intervention.

Intervention can include sponsoring the post, which means paying to convert it into an advertisement. Another “intervention” occurs when people share your post or interact with it in other ways. When people share or interact with your post, they potentially put it in front of their followers. That increases how many people see your content and pushes it outside of your own following.

Home improvement businesses can benefit from shareable social media content. But how do you create it? Start with these three tips.

 1. Make social status updates short.

Shorter posts are more likely to be shared. Try to keep your posts below or around the following character counts for each platform:

• Facebook: 80 characters
• Instagram: 138 to 150 characters
• Twitter: 100 characters

There’s a time and place for long social media posts, and you do need to test what works best for your audience. But if you’re hitting hundreds of words or more, consider whether your content wouldn’t be better as a blog post. You can always share the link to that post on social media.

 2. Include images.

Images, videos, and links all increase the chances your content will be shared by others. In fact, Facebook posts with images get 2.3 times more shares than text-only posts on average. Choose a product image, introduce an employee with a headshot, or share a funny image meme relevant to your business or audience to test this theory on your own social profile.

3. Ask people to share.

Asking people to share your content substantially boosts the chances they will. You can invite them to share as a way to get a discount or enter a giveaway, but simply adding something like “comments and shares help our business and are appreciated” or “please share!” on a post can be effective too.