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Social Media Sharing Buttons: How & Where To Add Them

Do you want to receive more traffic from social networks?

According to research by Alexa, social networking is leading 0.8% – 12.2% Website traffic, with news and informational sites receiving the most traffic on social media.

One way to increase social media traffic to your website is to encourage your website visitors to share your content with their social media connections.

In this article, we will show you how to add social sharing buttons to your website to increase social media traffic to your website.

Where you have to use the social share buttons

What is the most share-worthy content on your website?

Most likely, if you have a blog, it will be the content of your blog.

Think about the content on your website that people will want to share the most and make sure that the content has social sharing buttons.

The exception, based on some studies, are pages that contain a specific call to action.

According to VWO, clicks to the main CTA (Add to Cart) button have been increased by 11.9% When the social sharing buttons were removed from the landing page.

The best approach when making changes to your website is A/B testing.

Ensure that the primary goals of the page benefit from the addition of social sharing buttons.

How top posts use social sharing buttons

Since news and informational sites receive most of the social media traffic, let’s see how the best news sites use social share buttons.

Starting with Billboard.com, you’ll see social sharing buttons positioned at the top of articles, below the title.

Screenshot from Billboard.com, December 2021

Some social media experts argue that this is not the best location for social share buttons.

Ideally, visitors won’t decide to share an article until they’ve read it.

The entrepreneur solves this problem with social sharing buttons.

When you start scrolling through an article, social sharing buttons appear at the top right of the screen.

Social sharing buttons entrepreneurScreenshot from Entrepreneur.com, December 2021

This option allows readers to share the article as soon as they are ready, even if they haven’t finished it.

Yahoo Sports offers a similar feature on their website.

Their social sharing buttons float to the side of the screen as you scroll through an article.

Yahoo social sharing buttonsScreenshot from Yahoo.com, December 2021

This also allows readers to share the article when they are ready, rather than having to scroll all the way to the top of the article or to the end.

Harvard Business Review offers social sharing buttons near the top of the article as well as the bottom of the article, below the author credits.

HBR Social Share ButtonsScreenshot from HBR.org, December 2021

Unfortunately, these social sharing buttons will not be available to people who have not completed the article.

Publishers like CNET hide their social share buttons with a simple share icon at the top of their posts.

CNET Social Share ButtonsScreenshot from CNET.com, December 2021

Visitors will not see the individual social share buttons until they click the share icon.

This means that many visitors may not notice these buttons.

Average platform users get social share buttons at the top and bottom of their posts.

Additionally, when someone selects a small amount of text, it can be tweeted out.

The social share buttons are mediocreScreenshot from TowardsDataScience.com, December 2021

With this approach, you can get posts from the beginning of the post, the end of the post, and personalized tweets all the time.

As you can see, there are several ways to implement social share buttons in your content.

If your readers are used to visiting any of these or other popular blogs, then they should be aware of the available sharing options.

Official social sharing buttons

Most of the major social networks offer their own official social sharing buttons.

Twitter, for example, provides customizable buttons that allow your website visitors to share your content, follow you on Twitter, tag you on Twitter, tweet with a hashtag, or send a private message.

Twitter social sharing buttonScreenshot from Twitter.com, December 2021

Meta for Developers provides a Facebook share button configuration tool.

It lets you choose from different Facebook share button styles, including box counter, button counter, or no counter.

Facebook social sharing buttonsScreenshot from Facebook.com, December 2021

Pinterest offers a widget builder similar to Twitter and Facebook so that website owners can create Pin and Save buttons for their website content.

Pinterest social sharing buttonsScreenshot from Pinterest.com, December 2021

Social sharing extensions and apps

To enable additional sharing options, such as email and sharing to other social networks besides Twitter and Facebook only, you will need the help of a social sharing plugin or app.

These plugins and apps work with specific website platforms to help your visitors share your content with their email and social media communications.

Here are some of the most popular social sharing tools that you can use to enable social sharing on your website.

Most of them work on multiple platforms other than just WordPress.

1. ShareThis

Share this It is a free-to-use service that allows you to add social sharing buttons to your WordPress or Shopify website.

They offer both built-in social share buttons and social share buttons that float along the side of your content.

2. AddThis

add this It is another social sharing service that allows you to add buttons to websites on several popular platforms including WordPress, Shopify, Tumblr, and Blogger.

AddThis provides several placement options, including built-in social share buttons and social share buttons that float along the side of your content.

3. AddToAny

AddToAny The social share buttons also work on a variety of website platforms including WordPress, Tumblr, Drupal, and Joomla. AddToAny offers as many placement options as the other plugins above.

4. Shareaholic

shareaholic It allows you to add inline and floating social sharing buttons to your website. It works with WordPress, Drupal, Tumblr, and just about any website you can embed code in.

5. ElfSight

ElfSight It is a premium social sharing buttons plugin that provides responsive social sharing buttons with customizable designs and layouts.

It works on most website platforms including WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Weebly, and many more.

conclusion

The key to using social share buttons in a meaningful way is choosing the right button for your content.

You must know which social networks your readers want to share content on, and which social networks users are most likely to click on to access your content.

Once you have these social networks in mind, add social sharing buttons to your content.

Be sure to A/B test the sites various placements and track your social media traffic for any changes.

More resources:

  • 3 tips to increase the time people spend reading your content
  • How to enhance the reach and engagement of your content
  • Content Marketing KPIs: Your Guide to Choosing the Right Content KPIs

Featured image: vladwel/Shutterstock

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