For an SMB, creating good, valuable content takes a lot of sweat, right? I know. So making this content SHARABLE is a must!
I am surprised to find how many of my clients (and many companies) OVERLOOK this or just simply don’t think about this small basic concept when creating content! Its social media marketing 101. So important. This “sharing” mantra must be integrated into ALL you do and all your output.
Make sure people can easily SHARE your:
- Blogs and Website pages
- Email newsletters
- Webinars
- Photos
- White Papers
- Videos
- Products
- Landing Pages for special offers or promotions
Making content easily sharable, means more eyeballs. It’s searchable, discoverable, and prolongs the life of your content online as more people share it. It’s the snowball effect. You will see tangible benefits and results wherever you use it, like: increased traffic to your blog or website, more followers on Twitter and Fans on Facebook, uplift in email newsletter stats, boost in webinar registrations, more video views, bigger white paper downloads…
Here is my short list of my best plugins and widgets that I use and recommend to my clients:
- Sexy Bookmarks by Shareaholic : This is my favorite plugin for all blog platforms: WordPress, Blogger, Joomla, bbPress, Drupal.
– It adds a row of social bookmarks at the bottom of your blog posts. It’s very easy to use and lets you choose from over 85 different social networking sites.
– You can customize the “tag line”. I chose “sharing is sexy”.
– There is a counter next to each icon, so you can see how many times your blog has been shared and by whom! (there is a a Social Engagement Analytics section coming soon, I believe…).
– And… Sexy has integrated the Facebook Like button! Too cool. So easy! See my customized SexyBookmark at the bottom of my blog.
- ShareThis widget lets people share your page on all their social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and by email, without leaving your webpage.
– You can customize the widget the way you want it to look, with or without a counter.
– You can choose the layout of the widget (portrait or landscape) to suit your page.
So sweet! Check out the left hand side of this blog to see what my customized ShareThis widget.
- Don’t forget! Share Buttons for email newsletters: If you are using an Email Service Provider (like a Constant Contact or MailChimp), they should all have social media sharing buttons and Tweet This button that can be EASILY integrated into your email template. You should also be able to FORWARD TO A FRIEND.
– If your ESP does not have a social feature, drop themyou can go to AddToAny website that offers a button/widget lets you share your email with the world by getting the “share/bookmark widget”:
– Mouse over the Get The Share Button and a window will pop up with choices. Click EMAIL
– Select the page you wish to share. For an email – this will be a hosted web version of your email – or your landing page.
– Select your button and hit ‘get code’. The button code is served up to use as email friendly HTML code.
– You can also chose to sign up for an account for a neat stat section, showing you how many people loved your email enough to share it!
- Another Don’t forget! If you have product pages, add the Facebook Like Button to increase engagement. See how Levi’s have done it. If I “Like” a pair of Levis Jeans on the website, this would automatically show up on my Facebook profile to show my friends and family that I thought this pair of jeans was cool.
These are ALL the plugins and widgets you need to make your content “sharable”. Its really easy and doable.
As always, please add your COMMENT below, so others can benefit – it’s so helpful and – shoot me a question – I’m always available to answer.
Best
Yasmin
Thanks for sharing this information. This blog is very useful & make aware about my new topics which are necessary as well.
I am sure this post has touched all the internet viewers, its really really pleasant article on building up new web site.
Wow Nice Article + Nice Widgets and yes Ms Yasmeen Sharing Is Sexy as well as Sharing Is Caring =-)
i love the article and no doubt without sharing your articles or useful articles like the one you shared on your website for readers is truly caring and without sharing such articles on social sites like facebook and twitter and the sites u have added for bookmarking here are surely traffic gaining websites that people should add i will now also add this widget in my website so people can share what ever they found useful in my website =)
Thanks and Regards
Qureshi =)
Awesome post! Sharing is something that requires little upfront cost (especially with all the great tools out there) but continues to pay benefits down the road!
My 3 main places I share my content are Twitter, LinkedIn and facebook. So, I always am thinking of the “triple share”. Do I have an easy “tweet this” button? Can people like my content on the page and can they easy post to their facebook wall? Do I post on LinkedIn where it can be commented and liked. And do all 3 easy share with each other. Yes, they must all play nice in my sandbox! Thanx for the great post with some good sharing tools Yasmin.
Great feedback and input, thank you!!