Jeff Haden learned much of what he knows about business and technology as he worked his way up in the manufacturing industry from forklift driver to manager of a 250-employee book plant. Everything else he picks up from ghostwriting books for some of the smartest innovators and leaders he knows in business.

He has written more than 30 non-fiction books, including four Business and Investing titles that reached #1 on Amazon's bestseller list. He'd tell you which ones, but then he'd have to kill you.

We all want to be the go-to person with the latest news, the most intriguing viral content, or the hidden

gems followers wouldn't have otherwise found.

It’s actually easier than you think--as long as you take the right approach.

Here's a guide to quality social-media sharing, including

The average American consumes 34 gigabytes of information in a single day, so the biggest challenge of great sharing is to make sure your stuff is better than all that other stuff. Want to know if it is? Ask yourself these four simple questions:

According to Ann Handley, head of content at MarketingProfs and author of Content Rules, this is a good place to start.

Is the content so useful that your audience would thank you?

Beyond that, would your audience's audience thank you?

Thinking beyond your audience to the next level of connectivity is a great method for attracting a broad, engaged audience.

Your audience will definitely appreciate getting content it can then share with its audiences.

"Useful" is only one of the signs of great content.

Content can also be so funny, so ridiculous, or so rage-inducing that you simply pass it on.

What we're looking for here is the "holy smokes" reaction

You want your audience to think, 'Holy smokes,' this message is:

1. Incredible

2. Sad

3. Awesome

4. Beautiful

5. Intelligent

6. Informative

7. Some other declarative response.

Think about the way people in your audience share and the patterns you've observed to determine whether the content you're considering will get traction.

Buzzfeed’s Chief Revenue Officer, Andy Wiedlin says he urges Buzzfeed clients that produce sponsored content to Think About How The Content Will Play In The Confines Of Facebook

"People share things that make them look clever and cool. They are

building their own personal brands," Wieldin Said.

N.B. Spend less time thinking how to target and a lot more thinking about what people are sharing.

This important question comes from Buffer's Leo Widrich, who uses it as a guiding principle for our own blog.

Leo explains:

"It's an extremely simple proposition, yet it has changed my writing completely. If I Put Myself Into A Reader's Head and can picture him or her saying, "Oh, this is interesting... John will really like this," then I feel good about publishing it. If not, I will iterate, find more research, get more examples...until I can truly imagine that happening."

Remember: These are basic guidelines; use them as a start to determining

when your particular audience is most engaged.

Anyone can determine the best times for his or her social networks with a little experimenting:

• Determine when the Largest Percentage Of Your Audience Is Online.

(Facebook shows this information for brand pages in Facebook Insights under the Posts section.)

• Try posting the Same Content At Different Times Of The Day, and then pay close attention to how many clicks each version gets.

• You can also follow conventional wisdom, as long as you keep in mind your experience may vary given your particular industry and content.

• Engagement is 18 percent higher on Thursdays and Fridays*

• B2C marketers get 32% Higher engagement on weekends

• Afternoons are the best times to post on Facebook.

( Experiment with posting from 13:00-16:00 hrs)

• Click-through Rates tend to be highest on Weekends.

• Consider the rhythm of the day for your audience—Lunch time or before and after a meeting are when folks are likely to be taking a quick peek at Twitter.

• So try timing posts for the lunchtime period and for just before or after the hour to take advantage of the postmeeting crowds.

• The Google+ crowd hits the site hardest on weekdays before noon.

• You can also try the free tool Timing+, whichanalyzes your Google+ posts to see which times garner the best engagement.

• The crafters, cooks, and shoppers of Pinterest are busiest on the site Late at night and on the weekends—particularly Saturday mornings*

* Accordingly to bit.ly.

• LinkedIn is all about work, so it makes sense that the best times to post are weekdays, just before or after work.

Now that we've found our "holy-smokes-the audience-will-thank-us" content, and we understand how to time our posts, all that's left is to share our great finds the right way.

That means developing a consistent style to show off your content in the best light.

Maybe it's a great photo. Maybe it's a staggering statistic. Or maybe it's the perfect quote. Help your content's chances for success by creating a consistent style. (For example, if you pull a quote to share, always add quotation marks. That way, regular readers instantly know what they're seeing.) Research by Dan Zarella indicates consistency is also important on Twitter where link placement and tweet length are concerned: (Placing a link about 1/4 of the way into the tweet is optimal for click-throughs. One hundred and twenty to 130 characters is the sweet spot for optimal tweet length.)

People are creatures of habit. We like to know what to expect.

Whatever gives you that "aha" moment when you read a share-worthy piece of content is the element to emphasize when you share.

• "I read every story looking for the nugget, the gem that will make most people interested in the piece," says Callie Schweitzer, director of digital innovation at TIME.

"It's the best quote or the best turn of phrase that will draw people in. And I've seen great responses like: 'Wow, I'd never read this, but that really brought me in.‘

• On Twitter, in-line images are a great opportunity to add another "hook"

to your share. On Facebook, don't forget you can edit multiple fields to take advantage of your quote, stat, or other "gem."

Understand your posts general types, which may include things like: Links, Images, Quotes, Retweets, Questions or comments Whatever works for you, make it your staple share "type" and then identify a few supporting types to back it up. Once you've built your staple, you'll be able to focus in on and become known specifically for that type of content.

When you can, give credit to both the content creator and the site where it originated; for example, "by @LeoWid via @Buffer."

(Though you might have to trace back a few steps to find the content originator, it's worth it to give credit where credit is due.) It's also nice to give a hat tip, or "HT," to the person or pathway by which you found the content. Giving credit is the right thing to do and it's also a small gesture that can help build a bigger relationship in the future with the creators of the content you love.

To read Jeff's full article, click here.

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