Publishers trying to find new ways to get readers to share their content

Publishers, meanwhile, are devising ways to persuade readers to share more, in much the same way they use “search engine optimization” strategies so search engines will rank them higher in search results. A personal recommendation, they say, can be just as powerful as a referral from Google. “If a link is coming from a friend, you are probably going to trust it more than if it comes from Google, saying, ‘This is what you should visit,’ ” said Jay Meattle, founder of Shareaholic, a year-old start-up offering free sharing software that plugs into the Firefox browser.

That publishers are scampering to put their material in front of so-called influencers is nothing new. It’s just that the definition of “influencer” has changed radically in the last year or so.

In the last century, traditional media organizations hustled to get their product in front of the chatty elites; news magazines, for example, hand-delivered copies over the weekend to politicians and to other media. In the age of Twitter and Facebook, anyone can become a chatty elite, the social director of his or her own private admiration society. The hand-delivered copy has morphed into a Web article’s “share to Facebook” button.   NY Times

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