Social Media Fails with Blogs and Articles
Many businesses are working hard to create great and educational content. They work extremely hard and invest significant time and money to create content that brings in traffic and converts. These same businesses have learned to create content that will spread their message via social and they depend on that audience to engage and react. Despite all their hard work many businesses have partially doomed themselves from the start. How? I am going to explain.
They Forgot Mobile
It is important to note that mobile devices typically include tablets as well (such as an iPad). One study states that 46% of searchers now use mobile exclusively to research. This is really important for the following reasons:
- If your articles or pages on your website are not readable on mobile devices you have potentially lost up to 46% of your readers. (Ouch)
- If your website is not set up properly to allow social shares on mobile devices you are tying the hands of the people you need to share your articles.
- If your content or web pages offer something significant to mobile users/people on the go and the website users can’t see what you have created you have wasted your time and money.
4 Common Problems with Social Sharing
I am going to explain four things that stop mobile readers or researchers from sharing your information.
1. Social Buttons That Slide Along a Page
I am sure many of you have seen social buttons that slide along the side of a website on top of the background. They are nice and easy for people to use when they are reading, but there is a huge problem: these types of buttons are not visible on the majority of mobile devices.
You Can Still Use Them, But…
…if your site only has this type of sharing buttons you have prevented many people from sharing your articles from mobile devices. If you want to use this type of button on your site you need to add additional buttons within the body of the text so mobile users have the ability to share.
As someone that shares via mobile often I will tell you that I am not going to go back and forth on my phone to copy the title of the article and paste it and the go copy the URL and then paste it and then copy them both and share them via a social app. Just writing that sentence was long; I don’t have time via mobile to do all that work and you target audiences won’t either.
2. Social Share Buttons that Only Share the URL, Not the Title!
Oh, this one is so irritating! When setting up social sharing on your blog or website make sure that when people “share,” via Twitter especially, there is more than just a URL. As I mentioned above, you don’t want want people to have to go back and copy a title and then go back to the social share tab or app and have to paste the title in before sharing. This is too much work for many people. They don’t have a ton of time to share anyway, so make sure your developer sets social sharing up right.
Tip: Make sure your website’s Twitter handle is tweeted with the article title and URL.
3. Pages Designed for Mobile
Sometimes people design a mobile version of their website or they use an app that essentially recreates pages that are easy for mobile users to see. Often the mobile pages and apps cannot pickup on the code added for social buttons and the site loses the option of mobile shares. Before you approve a mobile design or a mobile app make sure social sharing is still possible.
4. Social Buttons Lead to Their Own Social Accounts
Way too often I have gone to a site and tried to share an article, on a computer and on mobile, and when I click on the social share buttons they lead me to the social accounts of the website. I don’t know if people are trying to encourage people to follow them or what, but this is unwise and honestly quite irritating for the website user. Social buttons within the body of the website, the buttons that are within article or blogs, should only offer the option that allows people to share your article.
If social shares are not easy they are not going to happen.
If your business is taking the time to create great content that will reach your audiences and offer them the information they need YOU MUST make it easy for the reader to quickly share the information you have created. Please review your website and make sure your website’s social shares are set up properly. Try to avoid the four common mistakes I explained above.
Melissa Fach has been in the SEO industry since 2007. She created her own agency, was the Managing Editor at SEJ, worked as an editor for Moz with their community team, she worked at Pubcon as the Community Manager for 5 years, and is an editor for SEMrush US Blog.
More from the author:
