Content sharing is what drives the social web right now, so we make it a point to help all of our clients make the most of social media through systems like SYNND that provide streamlined content syndication because… well to put it bluntly your competition hates it when you syndicate content because you’re almost instantly gaining more market share.

So with making your content sharable through syndication, you’re setting yourself up for success.  But.. is your content accessible?

It would stand to reason that if your content is easily shared then it’s easily accessed but that’s rarely the case.  You can actually lose a portion of your target audience just from accessibility issues.

Every day your audience (and other members on the web) interact with content on a variety of devices, screens and with various browsers or programs.  It’s critical that your content – to give you the greatest potential reach – is accessible on virtually every platform (hardware and software).

This wasn’t an issue a few years ago – most people had a desktop with an MS based operating system and Internet Explorer.  Apple has now continued to gain popularity, a variety of browsers have sprung up offering different user experiences and now websites are being viewed more often on web-enabled phones.

One of the easiest ways to ensure your content is accessible for viewing and sharing is to try it on your own across various platforms.  If you don’t have access to all then query regular customers as well as friends to verify the state of your content.

A great reason for testing content and building/distributing with accessibility in mind is the fact that Apple announced it will not be supporting Adobe flash.  That means that any content containing flash won’t be viewable on apple products including the new iPad, iPhones and other “i” devices.

iToldyouso.

Lastly, accessibility means also making the decision as to whether or not you’re going to lock your content behind a registration page.  You may want to tackle registrations for the purpose of creating a marketing list but also consider the benefit of how easy content is shared when an opt-in is not required.  Likewise, content that is not locked up in a dragon-guarded tower is easily indexed by search engines which can help drop interested prospects right into your sales funnel.

Ultimately, the decision on registration is a matter of a preference so it’s up to you how much of your content you want to share and how easy you want the sharing process to be.  Even with a strong system like SYNND for content syndication you can still be stifled by accessibility issues.

Plan ahead to make your content accessible as well as sharable.