Not all of your articles and blog posts are going to be shared by thousands of people across multiple social channels. In fact, most probably won’t. This is especially true if you’re just starting out. You really need to build an audience and gain a following on Facebook and Twitter before your content starts to really get passed around.

On the flip side there are many people out there who’ve been putting in the work for several years and do have a following but find their posts still aren’t getting shared that much. A high share count is not about feeding egos it’s about generating traffic. Traffic that doesn’t cost anything. These are visitors who come to your site because they actually want to read your content.

For the sake of this article let’s assume your content is high quality and of interest to your audience, but for whatever reason you just can’t get people to pass it around. There are a few simple things you can do that may improve things.

If you follow these 4 tips you will increase the likelihood that your content will be shared.

1. Make your site awesome on mobile – About 65% of the people who read this post will do so on a mobile device. The user experience on a smartphone or tablet should be as good if not better than on a desktop. That doesn’t mean just looks it also means functionality! Do you know if your sharing buttons work on mobile devices? Have you tried it yourself? How easy is it? Do the buttons format correctly when you flip the orientation? You should know the answer to these questions. The easier you make it for people to share via mobile device the more likely they will.

2. Don’t overdo it with the sharing icons – You don’t need to offer people 40 different social networks to share to. The vast majority don’t matter because no one uses them. Secondly, all those extra buttons slow down page load speed which can hurt you with SEO and increase bounce rate. Don’t overwhelm people. Give people the option of sharing to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. We recently added Buffer too because it’s become a popular method of sharing.

3. Use beautiful images and video – Never post an article without at least one image and make sure the size is optimized for social sharing. Your posts will get a lot more attention on Facebook and Google+ if your images are sized properly. Posts with correctly sized images look awesome in the Facebook newsfeed and people will be more likely to reshare your content.

4. Don’t be selfish – Be active in the communities within your niche. Share the articles that spark your interest the same you want people to share your stuff. In the world of social media you have to give to receive. The Convergent1 Twitter feed has gained hundreds of new followers just in the last 2 months because when I see an interesting Tweet I favorite it. I do this because I genuinely like the Tweet but more than half the time the person will thank me and usually start following us. I highly recommend getting involved in Google+ Communities. If you contribute your content to the discussions taking place and become an active participant you will see your sharing skyrocket.