The Use of Social Media Buttons for Bloggers

All bloggers want the world to see their blog. Regardless of how many visitors and subscribers you have, you will always want more. One of the most popular (and productive) ways for bloggers to market their blog is with social media.

Bloggers can devote their time in different ways in order to get better results with social media (writing new blog posts, networking with other social media users, etc.), but one thing that tends to get some easy results is to use recognized social media icons and voting buttons on the blog.

By placing a voting button on your site you are encouraging visitors to vote for you (think of it as a friendly reminder) and you're making it quick and easy for them to vote. Simply reminding visitors that they can vote for you will help to increase the number of votes that you get.

Common Mistakes When Using Social Media Icons/Buttons

Because voting buttons and icons have potential to send more traffic, and because it is an easy change, many bloggers wind up going overboard. You've probably seen a number of blogs that have tons and tons of voting buttons.

In almost every case, this strategy will backfire. Adding too many buttons will create a cluttered blog that distracts the reader and just plain looks bad. Just as important, having too many buttons can spread out the votes that you get to the point that they have no impact.

Say you are using 30 different buttons or icons on your site, and each one of them gets one vote from a reader. If this is the case, you will see very little traffic from those social media sites, because it takes more votes to make a difference. But if you were to have 5 buttons/icons and you got 30 total votes, that would be an average of 6 votes per button, which might be enough to get some traffic.

By using fewer icons/buttons you can indicate to visitors which social media sites are the most important ones for you. If you're using too many buttons it can be confusing and they have no idea where you would most like to receive the votes.

How to Use Social Media Voting Buttons

Use only a few buttons/icons that are carefully chosen (ideal number would be 1 " 3). You want to choose social media sites that fit well with your target audience and have potential to send traffic.

For the best results, don't focus only on larger social media sites like Digg and Reddit. These sites are often dominated by major websites and blogs that already have a huge audience. Don't ignore smaller but more targeted niche-specific sites. They may not send as much traffic, but it will be far easier.

If necessary, explain to your visitors what the social media sites are, how they can use them, and why they would want to use them. Depending on the topics that you right about, it's possible that only a small percentage of your readers will be familiar with social media. In this case you can help to educate them and they'll be more likely to wind up voting for your content.