Should I share it?

What makes content so shareable? I often find myself scrolling through Facebook and thinking, “Oh my goodness, why in the world would you share something so inappropriate?” or, “Why would you post something so heavily opinionated?” and more often than not, “Wow I wish I would have shared that so I could find it again.” My thoughts aligned with chapter in many different ways. I am the person described in the chapter who doesn’t want to share something solely because I don’t want to potentially upset a group of people or make them feel uncomfortable. I also am some what private so I am not one to share the results of my quiz about “What kind of sleeper are you?”

I agree with Schaefer when he says that there are millions of videos of cats out there, how do the popular ones become popular? They’re shared. What baffles me is that the simplest idea can be spread through a couple people and suddenly BLOW up the internet. For example, the blue/black vs. white/gold dress (which is definitely blue/black), I will never forget that day it blew up the internet, that is all anyone talked about. And to think that there are tons of things out there like that, that don’t reach the same amount of people.

On the list of powerful reasons people overcome apathy and share content, the first bullet is my favorite and the reason I share content (if I ever do). That is, to be useful. The content that I share has to be useful (a cooking recipe or life hack) and it has to be entertaining (blue/black dress). Otherwise, I have no purpose of sharing it, I will just continue to scroll through the endless amount of information on Facebook.

While reading this chapter I thought of a few businesses that thrive off of share ability. One of those being GoFundMe. GoFundMe allows anyone to donate to cause, project, or just someone simply in need. A lot of times, if GoFundMe stories don’t get shared, they don’t get donations. So what makes people want to share a GoFundMe story? Sometimes it is your friend or family member, something that is important to you, or sometimes it is an emotional story so people want to help.

Sharing content is so important if you’re trying to spread the word. You either get ignited or diffused.