A lot of us having social sharing buttons on our blogs, but how often do people actually use them? I have no idea, so I thought it would be interesting to chat about it.
I don’t often use social sharing buttons. Certainly, a substantial part of that is because my social media use is minimal, but even when I’m somewhat more active, I don’t often share people’s posts. The social platform I share on most often is Pinterest, but because I do most of my reading in the WordPress Reader, I’m not usually seeing social share buttons, and I would typically just copy the post’s URL and paste it directly into Pinterest.
On my own site, I have share buttons for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Facebook and Twitter seem like the two big ones that a lot of people use. The LinkedIn button is there as much for my own occasional use as it is for other people’s sake. There’s a plugin that will show a “Pin it” button when people hover over images on your blog, but I’m not really convinced that the convenience factor is enough to offset the fact that the plugin does slow the site down somewhat, so right now I’ve got the plugin turned off. WP doesn’t have an Instagram social share button; as far as I know, that’s because Instagram doesn’t allow that, although there may be some sort of work-around you can use.
Perhaps some people are using my Facebook share buttons, since I get traffic to my blog from Facebook even though I don’t have a Facebook account. I suppose if I cared enough I might be able to use Google Analytics to figure out how often the share buttons are getting used, but I just don’t care that much. The Pinterest share button shows how many shares there have been (although I recently disabled that on my site via my child theme’s code), but Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn don’t seem to do that.
While it may seem like a good idea to include social share buttons for every platform under the sun, apparently that’s actually a bad idea. This is because of the paradox of choice (which was described in psychologist Barry Schwartz’s book by the same name), whereby choosing among many options takes more cognitive effort than choosing from a few options, and we’re less likely to feel sure of our choices. So when you give people a bunch of sharing options, they’re less likely to share at all.
Now it’s over to you. What, if any, social sharing buttons do you have on your site? Do you ever use other people’s social share buttons to share their posts?
The blogging toolbox series has tips to support you in your blogging journey. It includes these posts:
I have limited my use of other platforms in favor of WP; therefore, although I used to share other bloggers’ posts on other platforms (Pinterest) in the past, I no longer do so.
WP is a much nicer place to spend time than other social platforms.
Oh hallelujah!! I agree!!!!
💕
I wouldn’t, because I’m connected with too many offline life people on FB and LinkedIn and those are people whom I do not want finding my WP blog. But I’ve gotten a limited amount of traffic back to my blog from FB and Twitter, so someone is doing this to my posts – so curious as to who is doing this and why!
I can see who shares my stuff on Twitter, because I’ve got my Twitter account connected to my WP account, but I have no idea who’s sharing my stuff on FB.
Hmm. I may be removing some buttons.
Haha
I do all the time.
Thanks for your input!
I’m a regular user of FB. I think I’ve shared one or two of yours before, and another site’s.
Do you find that FB is a pretty positive thing for you? It’s been years since I was last on there.
Yeah, it keeps me in touch with others. I use messenger most. 🙂
That’s good.
I hadn’t even noticed those buttons until you mentioned them! I am sooo behind on all things WordPress!
Lol
🙂 Having a plethora of sharing buttons is not going to stop me from sharing a post on social media that I like.
Why?
Because I am not on every social media underneath the Sun.
I have deleted many of the social networks that I was once a part of.
Today, I only use Pinterest and VKontakte.
And, yes, I have shared your stuff on Pinterest!
Thank you! I don’t know how people manage being on every social media platform under the sun. WordPress and one or two others is plenty for me!
I don’t have share buttons; I’m not a social media user, I try to stay under the radar as much as possible. I have accounts in all those places but don’t use them except IG on occasion. I suppose we all like to be seen but I’m picky about who sees me.
I like to pretend that because I don’t have contact with people in real life now, no one from real life sees me online. That’s probably not accurate, but I continue to pretend that it is.
I have tried to disable the sharing buttons and I think it worked. I did this when that guy was copying all our posts. I don’t want to make it easy for them! I much prefer a link back, if someone feels like pointing out a particular post. Quote one line, not the whole thing! And that’s what I do as well. I don’t share my posts on other social media, with rare exception, because I want all the comments in the same place. I’m just control freaky that way…
I think when people end up stealing all our stuff, they’re probably doing it via the RSS feed.
I like my comments in the same place too. Compartmentalizing is my friend.
I have shared your blog posts sometimes on Twitter related to mental health and odd times otjer peoples posts.
I don’t have Twitter links etc at the end of my blog post. But if someone wants to share a blog post of mine which I don’t mind via social media, there is nothing stopping the person just copying the link from their browser to do it. 🙂
Yes, if people want to share, they’ll find a way to do so, regardless of whether there are sharing or reblogging buttons.
I’m never quite sure about sharing other people’s posts, because I don’t want to land them in bother. If I share a post via Twitter, and then that person comes under fire from trolls and deviants, because said trolls found the post via my share, I’d feel bad.
Yes, that’s definitely a risk with anything that trolls might be likely to glom onto.
I really try to avoid social media, so no sharing now. Probably in my FB days I would have shared a bit.
PS Thanks for writing about Paradox of Choice! So interesting.
I think avoiding social media is a good choice.
I have shared some posts that were written by others. I’ll re-blog them here and a link gets shared to my Twitter. I think it also still shares to FB, but I haven’t used that in ages! Need to make a post I’ll be leaving that platform some day. 😇
I use Twitter and IG most beside WP. And I share pictures on Flickr, buy I also link those to my posts to save space on my blog. 😊
That’s a good idea to use Flickr to save space on your blog.
Thanks 😊 it’s an easy option in Flickr and I backup my pictures there so it’s a win-win. 😊
For sure!
Try to yes, put them up as guest posts 😀
I can easily and confidently tell you that “WP” is just the best.
I agree!
How’s your experience so far about “WP”?
It’s a great platform with a lot of friendly people.
Sure and I agree to that.
It’s a platform of like, passioned and creative thinkers who are ready to change the community.