We all have them, or if we don’t then we should have them… Social Media Sharing Buttons, Widgets, Plugins or Bars! You can see mine at the bottom of this blog post, I use SexyBookmarks because I think they look nice, but I also use AddToAny (which apparently is now called Lockerz Share), there are plenty to choose from.
If you haven’t installed any of these on your blog then I highly recommend that you do, this is how readers of your blog can share your content with the world. Sharing on social media is really important and without these your blog will most likely disappear off the face of the earth and not only that, your readers will be left feeling frustrated that they can’t easily share your great post with all their friends and followers.
But my blog today isn’t to tell you to go and install these buttons, widgets, plugins or bars… (although it kind of does say that above!) The point of this post is to remind you to CUSTOMISE!
The widgets I use on my blog can be customised, so when someone clicks on ‘share on Twitter’ for example it will automatically add at the end of the tweet ‘via @JoHarris0n‘ – this means that when it’s shared on Twitter people can easily click on my Twitter username and choose to follow me.
Leaving these customisable widgets as their default is only going to send people to the widgets Twitter username. Below are the options in SexyBookmarks to give you an idea where you need to look to customise yours.
A good tip when it comes to plugins and widgets on your blog is to look through the settings to see if there are any options to customise it in anyway, this will mean as soon as it’s installed you’ll be in full view of the world of social media, or have a much better chance to be seen!
The Ultimate Blog Challenge comes to an end tomorrow (31 January), that means I will be reverting to a different blogging schedule. I will be posting to my blog 3 times per week, I hope you will continue to follow me. You can do this via an RSS feed (top right hand corner) or by following the #blogboost hashtag on Twitter which I’ll continue to use. Or even better you could sign up to my email list (again top right hand corner). I have lots more tips up my sleeves for you!
I played around with a few sharing plugins and eventually settled on Sexybookmarks – I think it looks a lot better than the others and it’s very easy to customise to how you want it
Yes I like it because it looks great, plus you can have so many buttons on it!
I couldn’t agree more! I like to share on twitter and let the blogger know by adding their twitter name but don’t always know it. If I have to go look for it and don’t have time, I might not bother. Then they don’t get added marketing for their blog and twitter account! Very important.
Also add any special hashtags you may want included. The twitterer has the option to delete this info if they want but allows you to get a boost if they don’t.
Good points Nicole, like you if the blogger hasn’t put their customisation in I don’t tend to change it unless I know them quite well then I would. Didn’t think about hashtags, I have these in my Tweet Old Post plugin, not the sharing ones though.
Hi Jo,
Just tried to add Sexy Bookmarks to my blog but it says it’s not available for some reason. Will have to investigate why because I really like the look. I do have sharing options on my site but I definitely want to be able to customise as per your example.
Does anyone know of an alternative that is customisable?
Thanks and cheers, Caylie
That’s strange Caylie, are you using WordPress? I use the SexyBookmarks plugin. Have you tried AddToAny?
I have so meant to do this and then write a post about it, haha! Maybe I’ll do so after I customize my settings, I am using AddThis, there should be the option to customize there as well. Thanks so much for the reminder!
I didn’t even think about this until I came across a few sharing widgets on other blogs which weren’t customised.
Thank you for this, Jo – I’ll check all my social sharing settings and see if I can improve on them!
It’s definitely worth doing Joanna 🙂