As you can imagine, I am reading and visiting blogs daily. I do quite a bit of blog scouting, especially among lifestyle blogs (food, travel, style, health).
Great pics should be shared!
The content is fanta-bulous, seriously. Awesome photos, great prose. Only one thing: it's not shareable. I can easily say that on MOST of the new blogs that I visit, there are no sharing buttons to speak of. Or, they are poorly configured.
Is this is a colossal, earth-shattering big deal? No. But it's a big enough deal for me to talk about it here. There are people (like me) who love sharing content we find online. We share it on Twitter. We share it on Facebook. We share it on LinkedIn. But what we don't do is spend an extra 5 minutes doing it manually - shortening URLs ourselves and hunting down your Twitter username so we can include it in the tweet.
Many times, we will simply not share it. And sharing is the whole point of social media.
Not incorporating sharing buttons into your blog design is like putting a gigantic brick wall in the flow of your traffic.
My Thoughts on Why Share Buttons are Neglected
- The share button value is not wholly understood
- The How-To is overwhelming or seems too technical
I think bloggers don't do this primarily because they don't notice it on other blogs. Sounds logical right? If you're a blogger and you travel in a particular blog ring, and no one in your ring uses share buttons, or the ones that they do use are so poorly configured that they aren't helping anyone, you would neglect share buttons because you don't see the value.
The value in the share button is its potential to dramatically improve your reach. Blogs have very little social power if there is no way for readers to easily share the content with their circle of influence. Some blogs, like Orangette, get away without using them. But Orangette is an exceptional exception and not the rule.
Must-Have Share Buttons
The share buttons that you must have are going to depend greatly on where your primary readers are most active online. This is probably easier to figure out than you think. Think about where you hang out online. Think about where you tend to see your readers. Are they hanging out on Facebook? Include a simple Facebook like button. Do you spend a decent amount of time on Twitter? Include a simple tweet button.
Helpful links
- Facebook like button plugin for WordPress
- Facebook like button how-to for Blogger
- Tweet button for Blogger
- Tweet button for WordPress (This is one of a million. You might have to try a few.)
Do you like Digg and follow some of your readers there? Include a Digg button. The same goes for LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Kirtsy, Reddit, Google Buzz, etc. First determine if it's likely to be used - given what you know about your readers. If you think it's likely to be used, go ahead and include the button.
If you feel like you know nothing about your readers right now and just want to set it up right from the get-go, use the official Tweet button and the official Facebook like button. Make sure you configure the Tweet button properly to give you a mention when the post is shared, and TEST your Facebook like button to ensure that your thumbnail shows up correctly and a description is there (this blog is temperamental. Sometimes descriptions show up and sometimes they don't!)
(Also see this post by Mark Thompson on making content shareable with a social media toolbar, for a different approach to sharing)
Why I Hate Generic Share Button Systems Like AddThis, ShareThis, and The One on Blogger.com
I hate these systems. I understand using them - they're super easy to install. But they're a major pain in the neck for non-techies to configure.
For example, if you install AddThis, the default configuration is going to tweet your entire URL (not shortened) and it's going to add via @Addthis. It may or may not even add your blog post title. How are you going to know when someone shares your content on Twitter? Likely, you are not going to know, and therefore you are not going to be able to develop a relationship with that person.
I have spent time customizing AddThis; it's not crazy hard but if you are not comfortable with javascript, fuggedaboudit.
Additionally, these buttons are always teeny - I can barely even see them, usually. The default one on Blogger is even grayed out.
Share Button Systems I Would Recommend
That said, for WordPress blogs, I'll recommend LinksAlpha 1-Click or Digg Digg. I prefer LinksAlpha because it doesn't have the weird formatting issues that Digg Digg sometimes has, depending on your theme.
Social Media Sharing Should Not Be an Afterthought
Social media sharing is NOT an afterthought. The use of these buttons should be woven into the design for your blog - and the design for the way you want people to interact with your blog.
Rather than assuming that your readers will go out of their way to share content, try encouraging and equipping them to do so by incorporating well-configured share buttons.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
The All-Too-Common Mistake Many Lifestyle Bloggers Make is a post from: bizchickblogs
Technorati: blogging, lifestyle blogs, social media, social sharing buttons