Understanding who shares what and why?
In 2011, we've heard a lot about the power of social media for "amplification" of messages, i.e. social sharing. Amplification will happen naturally if you can create the right type of content that is valueable and shareable for your audience - whether that's infographics, video or a whitepaper. I think many companies use their blog, Facebook or Twitter to test which types of content and formats are most shareable and then refine their approach based on what's shared and what's not.
Here's a different approach based on understanding the psychology of sharing within your audience. It's about understanding the motivations for sharing amongst different groups and then developing the right content and seeding that works for this group. Next Fifteen has a useful whitepaper that expands on this, but I found this chart most useful as a summary of the motivations; prompting ideas on how you could reach and influence these different types of sharers.
Here's the infographic summarising all of the research.
Source: NextFifteen research