29 Mar 6 Guidelines for Social Media & Website Integration
Both social media and your website should be working together to promote your online brand. Unfortunately, most brands aren’t fully leveraging the power of social media on their websites and, as a result, they’re losing out on potential interactions, impressions and sales.
Avoid making these mistakes. This post will outline how your brand’s website and social media platforms can work together to maximize online exposure and increase brand awareness.
1. Placement of Social Media Buttons
I know, I know. This one’s obvious. But you might be surprised how often social media buttons are lost among crowded content. The best buttons aren’t necessarily the biggest and the boldest, but should definitely stand out and catch your eye.
Buttons should be placed in visibly obvious locations or integrated among Contact information. Keep in mind, your audience is now just as inclined to reach out to you on Twitter and Facebook, as they were to phone and email you. Furthermore, Facebook’s new Timeline for Brand Pages permits a user to contact the brand/business directly.
2. Be Consistent
Your social media buttons shouldn’t only be found in one place, either. Make sure they are consistent throughout your website and can be found in the same places when moving from page to page. Social media buttons that are locked in the navigation bar or menu are best.
3. Use Common Sense
Only integrate social media where it logically makes the most sense. Just because you’ve signed up for every social platform out there, doesn’t mean you have to link to all of them. If you haven’t touched your Twitter account since you created it, there’s no need to draw any attention to it. If the platforms aren’t updated frequently or actively managed, there’s no reason to link to them.
4. Include Social Feeds
If you’re an avid Facebook or Twitter user, why not add the feeds directly on your website? Including your social feeds gives visitors a taste of the kind of content you publish. It also shows website visitors that you are engaged and offering value through interesting, shareable content.
5. Incorporate Share Buttons
If you use your website to publish useful and valuable resources, articles, blog posts or other helpful content, don’t you want as many people as possible to see it? Share buttons allow website visitors to share or tweet your content to their social networks with a simple click of the mouse.
This isn’t just a great idea for content publishers; share buttons give brands selling products or services via their websites a great opportunity to increase social impressions, too. With share buttons, online shoppers can share great deals or hot finds on their social platforms.
6. Track your Success
Make sure to use analytics so you can discover how often website visitors are using your social media buttons. Google Analytics is a great tool. It allows you to see how many people are actually clicking on your outbound social media links. If you don’t see the results you were looking for, perhaps you need to consider a change in your button design or location.
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