While working in Internet Marketing, you not only meet a wide range of… ummm… interesting people…. but you also become extremely hyper alert to any changes or trends that you see. These changes can happen before you predict them, so you have to be nimble and be able to go with the flow. Being able to adapt your technique on the fly is essential.

I’ve been noticing lately one thing: Blog posts that share other user’s content is becoming harder and harder to come by.

The availability of applications on our phones that allow us to not only keep up with a website’s content in short form and whenever we want, but also let the world know what we’re doing in 140 character or a status message, is contributing to a condition called, “I have a short attention span WHATAREYOUTRYINGTOSAY!”.

It’s like carpel tunnel. If you restrict your tendons long enough by using the wrong hand positions, you’re going to shorten them until you need surgery to lengthen them out.

So to translate this to normal people language… when working with people, I’ve noticed that they are more likely to put up a social mention rather than take the time to write a short blog post because in their immediate routine, they’re using to sharing on THEIR terms, not on others. They share how they want to, when they want to. You have to get this.

I’m also noticing that content is shared faster and reaches farther when someone uses Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites to share content. So regardless, I think mentions are more useful in a way. I won’t dare say they can completely replace mentions within blog posts, but it sure spreads like wildfire when shared the right way, from the right influencers.

I’m noticing that while many bloggers are willing to help share great content, they’re extremely likely to throw it up on their Facebook or share it on Twitter.

I, myself, know that I’m much more likely to retweet something I see. One simple click of a button.

Even Tumblr, which is rising in popularity and increasing its users exponentially each month, has apps where you can quickly hop on and upload a picture, share a link or reblog someone else. Everything is being made to allow users to instantly share.

How is this going to affect us?

Well when reaching out to blogs or even working with others, keep it short and sweet. Send the essential details and even close with something that can be shared as it is.

You have to put yourself in their shoes. Think like them.

1. Am I directly benefiting from sharing this?
2. Is this something my general audience will care about seeing?
3. Am I going to have to sift through a bunch of crap in this email to find what I need to share?
4. Can I go directly to the site and hit the “retweet” or “like” button?
5. …do I REALLY feel like sharing this?

That’s most likely what’s going to be going through their minds, and it’s your job to make it as simple as possible for them to help you.

If you’re working with a client in the long run that entails a decent amount of outreach, I would make sure that any of their content is instantly shareable- enable them with social sharing buttons on their sites. If you don’t see any, suggest it and help them identify the main social networks that share their content.

After all, you don’t need 80 billion share buttons, you need to identify exactly what channels are best to integrate. Forget all the others. Users are way more likely to share your content when you utilize a few buttons instead of tons of unnecessary ones.

I’m also noticing that social media is fusing more with outreach. Tracking social mentions and metrics is becoming more and more important as the landscape is changing- don’t count directly on having blog owners work with you. With the abundance of internet marketers out there, blogs are often becoming more and more reluctant to share what you’re contacting them about unless it’s HIGHLY correlated with their readers. Or, unless you feel like paying a pretty penny.

This technique is going to become more and more useful with the Bing Social integration… but I don’t want to share my thoughts on that. Top secret. Project  Social-Search.

On that note, I’m going to the apple store. My aluminum Macbook has decided to be an a-hole and expand its battery. I’m really hoping that Apple decides to replace it, seeing as this is probably my 8 billionth product from them. Hear that apple?! My Macbook is being bad. Help.