Have you ever tried to share a post or video from a website and when you click the share button, it populates the link but the copy doesn’t match the article or there just isn’t any text there?
It’s likely that you’ve had an experience just like that. Sometimes there’s no picture to accompany the post. So, you think for a second and then you click out of it without sharing.
Total bummer!
This is what your consumers do when they don’t have easy access to social sharing buttons on your website.
Even if the social sharing buttons are there but there’s no “copy” or image to help explain the post, then the chances of that post getting shared significantly decline.
Why?
Author, Jonah Berger, explains this phenomenon and much more in his book “Contagious” (order it here or get a Free copy when you start an Audible trial account here). People like to look smart and sharing content that’s helpful is one way to do that. That’s why tools and tips are so popular.
If your post doesn’t have the appropriate text to help explain the value of clicking on the post, your website visitors will choose not to share it. They think their Facebook friends aren’t going to get it and therefore won’t click the link. So, instead of taking the time to craft their own message to go along with the post, chances are they’ll just click away.
It simply takes too much time.
The solution is to make sure that your website has easy-to-use sharing buttons that populate the correct text to accompany each post.
Make sure you also identify “tweetable” content. Don’t leave it up to the reader to figure out a good 140-character tweet. Set the reader up to look smart by sharing your pre-made tweets.
Each post should have a good shareable image. Don’t forget about Pinterest. Vertical images look best in Pinterest. Your blog might have an image at the top that will look better on Facebook and a vertical image or infographic inside the post. When Pinterest sharing is clicked, the reader can pin the vertical image to a board.
All sounds good…so how come so many websites don’t do this or have sharing buttons that don’t work right?
Sharing buttons can be tricky. The WordPress plugins can be funky and pull the wrong text and images, especially if you’re running several plugins and using special themes to operate your blog.
A good website developer can help resolve this and keep things working smoothly. Listen to this episode for more tips on website performance.
The good news is that there are a few tools that you can employ to do it yourself and they’re pretty simple to use.
Here are a few that I recommend:
SumoMe: this powerful platform offers a nice social-sharing suite of buttons that moves down the side of the page as the reader scrolls down. This helps keep the “share-now” concept top of mind instead of having the options only at the top or bottom of your posts.
SumoMe also has many other capabilities at the pro level that will enhance your site. It’s worth checking it out.
Click To Tweet: Is a fabulous way to highlight text in your blog and then make it very easy to share.
Simple Podcast Press: If you’re housing your podcast on your website, then I highly recommend using Simple Podcast Press, get it here. This plugin allows you to easily embed your podcast and it also has a social sharing component that makes it easy for you to create pre-made, clickable tweets for one-click sharing.
Finally, what happens if the wrong copy is being shared? There could be many issues affecting the social sharing app so it’s best to check your plugins and contact the developers.
But, if you know the social sharing buttons are pointing to the right text and images but still you’re seeing the wrong copy on Facebook, then there is a simple solution.
You can use this link to scrub the page and have it debugged. Facebook will then grab the newest information and populate it for your social sharing button. This is gold! Notice the before and after debugging that was performed on my website.
This debugging tool will easily clean up all your blog posts and populate it with the correct information. The caveat is, of course, you have to have added the correct text and images on the backend of your website.
Here’s to successfully sharing!
