social sharing

Social sharing is something that goes beyond Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Pinterest (which is now the #3 social networking site in the United States). Sharing your content beyond the top four may help you reach an audience that you hadn’t before. This may increase visits to your blog or website and may even turn some into loyal readers or customers.

BizSugar

BizSugar is a content sharing site that is similar to Digg. You can submit links to your content and then vote up content (each vote is called a sugar). This is a great, supportive site because it focuses mainly on small businesses. Even though content is easy to submit, the site isn’t spammy and a majority of the content is well-written. The main categories are marketing, finance, management, technology, and startups, with sub-categories for each one. The advertisements aren’t too distracting and in some cases, the comments on articles are just as informative as the content itself.

Google+

Google+ continues to gain traction for marketers looking to share content, especially because of Google’s growing emphasis on Authorship with Google+ profiles. Because of Authorship, marketers should set up a profile for themselves as individuals to take advantage, as well as a business page for their company. Businesses can’t be listed as authors, but having an active Google+ page (one that regularly posts content and contributes to online discussions) doesn’t take much time and may eventually make a stronger difference when it comes to SEO.

Tumblr

Many marketers may swear off Tumblr as something that is for teenagers sharing photos of Robert Pattinson, but it can be a real resource and opportunity to build community for brands and companies. For instance, the NBA has an amazing Tumblr that showcases unique photos of players and fans during games. They are all photos that don’t always make it in news stories and are worth a look. Tumblr can be a great place to not only share your own content, but follow and share content of customers and readers. Tumblr can be a great marketing and engagement tool if is it maintained and used properly. Take the time to have a great layout and make it easy to access the company’s profile from your website.

These are just three of the often under-valued social sharing networks that can help increase your audience and website traffic. When used with respect and a high level of engagement, they can really make a difference in your company’s overall online presence.

WordPress is a great CMS that makes it easy to have a blog, business website, or other online presence. There are thousands of free and paid plugins available that can help webmasters, marketers, and bloggers customize their website to serve whatever purpose is needed.

One type of plugin that is very popular with many WordPress users who write blog posts and other content are social media sharing plugins. These allow website visitors that ability to share blog posts and pages on their social media accounts, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, and LinkedIn. These plugins can be customized to only include certain social networks and may also allow site owners to only display sharing options for certain social media sites.

Sociable: Sociable has over 1.8 million downloads and is rated 4.1/5 stars. It offers a variety of options, including different icon colors and sharing layouts. The Sociable Skyscraper places the sharing buttons to the side of the content, where as Sociable Classic places the icons at the end of the blog post or page.

ShareBar: ShareBar is similar to the Sociable Skyscraper layout and allows users to customize the order of the icons in the ShareBar. Users can also add custom buttons that can input custom code. For instance, if Pinterest is needed, adding the Pinterest button code can generate a Pin It button into the custom button field.

Shareholic: Shareaholic offers a variety of options and perks for users, including social analytics, content recommendations for readers, and the majority of main social networks. Installation and set-up is fast and easy. Shareaholic offers 3 different layouts– Top Bar, Classic Bookmarks, and the “Sharing is Sexy” option, which features hovering animation.

Lockerz/AddtoAny: This plugin has almost 2.4 million downloads and is very popular, as the AddtoAny widget was one of the first social sharing widgets available for website installation for free. This plugin is available for localization for 19 languages and includes the majority of social media networks and websites.

These are just some of the options available for WordPress website owners that want to add the capability for their users and readers to share their content. By making it as easy as possible, your content is more likely to be shared, thus increasing traffic and readership. Become the example for your readers and users by utilizing these sharing plugins yourself on your own accounts after content is published.

Skip links

Footer