Over-Sharing? Avoid Social Media Overload
One of the first rules of building a successful website is to include an easy way for people to share your site and its content with others.
In a lot of cases, that means building in social media buttons where, with just a single click, visitors can Tweet, post to Facebook, or share the things they find interesting with their circles on Google+.
But, with so many different social media outlets available online, how do you decide which sharing options you should build into your site? Should you go with just one or two? Is it better to go with all of them? That dilemma brings a lot of people to a very important question: is it possible to have too many social media buttons on your site? As with most things, there is no hard and fast rule.
But, in most cases, yes.
It is absolutely possible to have too many sharing options on your page.
Everything in Moderation Probably the biggest potential danger of including too many social media buttons is overwhelming your visitors.
When people are presented with a lot of different options for sharing web content, picking the one (or ones) they want can be a hassle.
You want people to be able to get the word out about your site, but if there are too many choices, visitors may get fed up with trying to settle on which to go with.
Or, if they can't find a specific one in a big cluster of icons, they'll end up not sharing anything at all.
The Slowdown One other major downside that you should take into consideration is the impact too many buttons can have on page load times.
Each social media button works because of JavaScript, which allows your website to communicate with each social network's servers.
When webpages with a lot of JavaScript elements are opened, they require more time to load.
Finding the right balance between features and speediness is a big part of making a successful website that leaves visitors happy rather than frustrated.
So, having a bunch of extra social media buttons isn't going to be worth it if your page takes forever to load.
If slow load times weren't bad enough on their own, search engines sometimes notice, too.
For example, ever since 2010, Google's search results have taken crowdsourced load speeds for web pages into account when displaying search results.
Granted, page load times are a relatively smaller factor compared to things like SEO, but it is still something that you should consider.
Which Ones Should Be Included? When it comes down to picking which ones you should integrate into your page, definitely make room for the Big Three.
Right now, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are the juggernauts of social media, and by making sure those are in place, you have a lot of bases covered.
But, if your website's layout has room for a couple more, consider putting in sites like Tumblr or Pinterest.
For dental websites, LinkedIn is a good one to have, too.
That way, you may be able to make some professional connections as well.
Ultimately, each website is going to be different.
Everyone's visitors will have their own preferences when it comes to where and how they want to share.
When you are on an interesting website, what kinds of social media outlets do you typically use to share?
In a lot of cases, that means building in social media buttons where, with just a single click, visitors can Tweet, post to Facebook, or share the things they find interesting with their circles on Google+.
But, with so many different social media outlets available online, how do you decide which sharing options you should build into your site? Should you go with just one or two? Is it better to go with all of them? That dilemma brings a lot of people to a very important question: is it possible to have too many social media buttons on your site? As with most things, there is no hard and fast rule.
But, in most cases, yes.
It is absolutely possible to have too many sharing options on your page.
Everything in Moderation Probably the biggest potential danger of including too many social media buttons is overwhelming your visitors.
When people are presented with a lot of different options for sharing web content, picking the one (or ones) they want can be a hassle.
You want people to be able to get the word out about your site, but if there are too many choices, visitors may get fed up with trying to settle on which to go with.
Or, if they can't find a specific one in a big cluster of icons, they'll end up not sharing anything at all.
The Slowdown One other major downside that you should take into consideration is the impact too many buttons can have on page load times.
Each social media button works because of JavaScript, which allows your website to communicate with each social network's servers.
When webpages with a lot of JavaScript elements are opened, they require more time to load.
Finding the right balance between features and speediness is a big part of making a successful website that leaves visitors happy rather than frustrated.
So, having a bunch of extra social media buttons isn't going to be worth it if your page takes forever to load.
If slow load times weren't bad enough on their own, search engines sometimes notice, too.
For example, ever since 2010, Google's search results have taken crowdsourced load speeds for web pages into account when displaying search results.
Granted, page load times are a relatively smaller factor compared to things like SEO, but it is still something that you should consider.
Which Ones Should Be Included? When it comes down to picking which ones you should integrate into your page, definitely make room for the Big Three.
Right now, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are the juggernauts of social media, and by making sure those are in place, you have a lot of bases covered.
But, if your website's layout has room for a couple more, consider putting in sites like Tumblr or Pinterest.
For dental websites, LinkedIn is a good one to have, too.
That way, you may be able to make some professional connections as well.
Ultimately, each website is going to be different.
Everyone's visitors will have their own preferences when it comes to where and how they want to share.
When you are on an interesting website, what kinds of social media outlets do you typically use to share?
Source...