Working in interactive marketing, one of the first things I look for when visiting a website for the first time is an active presence on any social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Believe it or not, there have been numerous times when I’ve come across a website with no social media icons or follow and share buttons in sight.
Even more frequent are the number of times I visit a website with poorly placed social media icons, usually hidden down at the very bottom of the page and so small they are hard to recognize.
Anyone who has experimented with social media for brands realizes the hard work it takes to develop a successful social media presence, so why hide these links and buttons where no one can see them?
Here’s one concrete example of why keeping these links and buttons visible is important: According to a 2018 case study from popular social media bookmarking/sharing service AddThis, social sharing buttons can foster substantial growth in shares and new users. In the example the company spotlighted in its case study, a national nonprofit increased its total shares by 400% after incorporating social media share buttons, in addition to seeing a 2.5% boost in new users.
Ready to ensure that your social buttons don’t get lost in the shuffle? Below are a few tips for displaying social media buttons on websites.
How to Display Social Media Icons
Social media icons will lead visitors to your business’s social media pages. On a website, they should be easily accessible and relatively large.
An ideal place to have them is somewhere toward the top half of the page, or “above the fold,” meaning the part of the page a visitor can see without having to scroll down. The farther down the page a visitor has to scroll, the less likely they will see the buttons linking to their social media profiles.
Displaying Social Sharing Buttons
Unlike social media icons, which lead visitors to your social profiles, social media sharing buttons will lead them to promote content from your website onto their personal profiles.
If your website offers quality information and content, it’s important to provide social sharing buttons with every piece of content you create, so site visitors have an easy way to share the content they find most interesting.
In an article offering recommendations on share button placement, AddThis recommends that users do the following:
· Place the buttons prominently on the page, and near the top
· Place share buttons in the vicinity of the content to be shared
… while the bookmarking/sharing service advises against:
· Placing share buttons with the page-navigation tools, or within the page footer or sidebar
· Placing share buttons in multiple places on a page
As opposed to having people visit and leave your site with no other interactions, effectively displaying these buttons is key to generating action and engagement surrounding your brand.
Keep in mind that it may also be a good idea to test out different locations for your social media buttons to see which placement promotes the most activity. What works for one website may not be as successful for another.
How do you use social media icons and sharing buttons on your website?
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