The following post is by Roger Wu, cofounder of the business-to-business content distribution network, Cooperatize.

Ever notice the same business articles show up in your feed over and over again? What is your competitor doing that you are not that gets their article shared all over the place? And why does everyone tell you that virality is based on luck? If so, should the editors of Buzzfeed go buy a lottery ticket?

We’ve done some analysis on content that appears in various social media feeds and have realized that there is some rhyme and reason to virality that can be quantified. The first thing to understand is that Twitter is not Facebook, and vice versa. (We’ll get into LinkedIn another time.) The asynchronous and broadcast nature of Twitter, dovetails perfectly with “professional development” and thought leadership. Facebook, on the other hand, is a closed system with intense privacy settings that is usually reserved for sharing funny, lighthearted things, and broad market personal stories. In essence, if you’d wear your pajamas around your house and have a house party (Facebook), would you wear them to the office (Twitter)? Facebook is more for friends than business acquaintances, and thus, there’s a higher open rate because of some of the reasons below. You wouldn’t put a press release on Facebook would you? But on Twitter it’s OK since technically other businesses are following you. That being said, as a business-to-business marketer, how do you get more shares, retweets, favorites and even the coveted Facebook share?

1) Numbered lists (like this one!): Being straightforward and concise is important in the attention economy we live in today. We also all love closure; reaching the end of something and able to check it off your list is a great feeling. Let your readers know how much of an investment you are asking for with a numbered list. With video, anything longer than 5 minutes will probably not be watched. (The average ^[1]YouTube video is 4m 12s.) The headline needs to let people know EXACTLY what they are getting into. If the article is about search engine marketing, don’t also try to squeeze in a section about social media marketing too. This specificity will help you not only attract the right audience, but will also help you in search engine optimization. With link shortening on Twitter, your search engine friendly URL gets changed into a strange t.co link^[2]. We won’t be able to read this link and decide what to click on, so the headline you share or the comment you add makes all the difference. And if this is a share or retweet, make sure it’s long enough to convey exactly what’s in the piece (#1), with enough room that I can add my shine (#3).