4.10 – Making Use of Social Media Buttons

Using Social Media Buttons

Social media buttons have two functions: Follow Us buttons cross-link visitors to multiple elements of your web presence; share buttons enable visitors to easily share your content or website with others. Place buttons consistently near the top of a page or an article, where you place key information.

When you repeat smaller versions of the buttons at the end of each post on your blog, users can share a specific item rather than the entire blog. Social media buttons can also be placed on e-newsletters and on multiple social media networks. Anecdotal evidence from some companies that tried organised campaigns shows dramatic increases in traffic on their social media sites.

Follow Us buttons

Follow Us buttons – sometimes called chiclets – link visitors to other elements of your social media presence, such as to your Facebook profile, Twitter page, or blog. In Figure 4-5, the chiclets on the bottom left on every page of the site for Field & Main (www.fieldandmainrestaurant.com) encourage users to link to the restaurant’s Facebook page, Instagram page, Yelp page, Tripadvisor, and email.

Almost all services offer free standard icons along with code to insert them. Alternatively, you can search for creative icons online at sites such as www.iconfinder.com/social-media-icons and www.flaticon.com/categories/social-media or use a social bookmark links generator, such as Search Engine Genie (www.searchenginegenie.com/social-bookmarks-link-generator-tool.php).

— Social media links on website example —

Share buttons

Social share buttons from services such as AddtoAny give the user sharing options, as shown in Figure 4-6. This approach lets visitors easily share content by linking them to the sign-in page for their own accounts on other social-sharing services.

— Social sharing links example —

In an interesting variation, Shareaholic (www.shareaholic.com/publishers) offers buttons that appear as you mouse over an image. Several sources for other social share buttons are listed in the section below:

— Affiliate section: Social Share buttons —

These free, easy-to-install buttons allow users to transfer content quickly to their own profiles, blogs, preferred social-bookmarking service, instant messages, email, or text messages. You can even use a special widget, albeit for a fee, from Elegant Themes (www.elegantthemes.com/preview/Monarch/automatic-pop-up) that facilitates sharing products or pages from your site. This is viral marketing at an epidemic level!

— Elegant themes social sharing example —

Register for free analytics on sharing services that offer it to see how and where users elected to share your material or site. You can often find a toolbar add-on for each service on the site. You may want to install the ones you need in your browser and offer that option to your users in a call to action.

Always include Print, Email, and Favourites (for personal bookmarks) in your set of social share buttons. Some people like the convenience of the old stuff. If you aren’t comfortable inserting code on your site, ask your web developer or programmer to do it for you. Sometimes even your hosting company can help. Specify which Follow Us or share buttons you want to have visible, and ask to have the buttons appear on every page of your site.

If all these tasks seem overwhelming, plenty of providers are willing to help you for a fee. Most SEO firms, press and public relations firms, online-marketing companies, specialised social-marketing ad agencies, and copywriters who specialise in online content now offer assistance with social bookmarking, social news, and other forms of social media marketing. Try searching for social media services, social media agencies, digital media marketing, or social media marketing.