5 Ways to Improve Social Sharing on Your Blog

By Melissa Culbertson
Published May 14, 2014

Is your blog content easy to share?

Is your audience interacting with you or just moving along to the next thing?

Making social sharing easy is an important part of creating a successful blog.

In this article you’ll discover five tips to make it dead simple for your readers to interact with your blog content.

If you have a business blog, you may not think pinnable images are important to your audience, but they are.

People use Pinterest not only for inspiration on what to buy, but as a way to keep track of articles they want to reference again. So definitely start adding pinnable images to your posts, like this one from My Kids’ Adventures!

The My Kids’ Adventures website uses visuals like this to make it easy for readers to pin their articles on Pinterest.

It’s not hard for your readers to pin an image from your blog, so how can you make a simple process even simpler? Do the work for them.

When someone pins a post, they usually have to choose the image they want to pin, and then type in a comment about the pin. Help them along. Set a featured image for the post and add titles to any other images as well.

When you include a title with your image, that title populates the comment field on the pin. Without an image title, Pinterest fills in the pin description with your image name, which may very well be something generic like product-shot-3. That’s not useful to you, your readers or their Pinterest followers.

Boogie Wipes gives all their images titles to increase pinnability.

No matter which image a pinner chooses, a relevant description is included.

It’s a good idea to use image titles for every image on your site too—headers, sidebars, everything—because while you hope a reader pins a particular image, you can’t guarantee it.

Boogie Wipes uses many images in their blog posts and ensures each image has a title to make pinning easier.

I’ll bet you already have social sharing buttons installed so people can pass along your great content to their followers or friends. Sharing buttons are probably the most obvious way to get more shares of your blog content, especially when they’re set up with your audience in mind.

Visibility, size and choice all play a role in whether people click the button.

Floating sidebars with social buttons, like this one on the Infusionsoft blog, are easy for your visitors to see because they move down the page as the reader scrolls. It’s a constant reminder to pass the content on to friends. Just make sure the scroll is smooth, not jumpy (and distracting).

Infusionsoft uses a floating share bar on their blog to make sharing easy.

Size definitely matters when it comes to sharing buttons. It’s important to make sure they’re big enough to be easily found. If they’re too small, they’re harder to spot. If people can’t see them immediately, they’ll probably just move on.

As you’re choosing which social sharing buttons to put on your site, limit your readers’ choices. You don’t want them paralyzed with too many choices, so stick to the social media channels they use most often.

When you have your buttons in place, follow my previous Pinterest advice and create a customized sharing message wherever you can. Twitter is the easiest button to customize (though you can customize other sharing buttons as well).

With Twitter you only have 140 characters, right? Your readers aren’t going to spend too much time trying to fit everything in. If it doesn’t fit, they’ll probably just stop and click to the next site.

Infusionsoft ensures that their blog post title and Twitter name are included when someone shares a post.

Fix that by auto-populating tweets with your blog post title, link and your Twitter name. Now readers just have to click the Twitter share button and they’re done.

It’s these little things that really make a difference in whether people interact with and share your blog content.

While you want readers to interact on your blog, wouldn’t it be great if they could interact with one of your social media platforms at the same time? Embedding social media content into a blog post can do just that.

Embedding your social media content into a blog post is easier than you think. In fact, you’ve probably already done it. Have you ever embedded one of your YouTube videos into a post? Then yep, you’ve already done it.

Integrating your social channels with your blog really simplifies the social experience by letting your readers start the interaction with a particular social media platform right from your blog.

For example, when you embed a Facebook update in a blog post, your readers can like the update right on your blog without leaving or you can direct them to the post on Facebook if they want to comment or share.

It’s easier than you might think to embed a social post in your blog.

Google+ embedded posts let your audience +1 and comment on the update without ever leaving your blog.

People love visual content and video often adds value to blog posts. Go ahead and embed a YouTube video into your next blog post. Every time your audience watches it from your blog, it still counts as a view on your YouTube stats.

Continuing with the importance of visual content, try embedding an Instagram picture or video or a Pinterest board, pin or profile. When someone clicks like or comments on your Instagram content, they’re directed to the post on Instagram’s website.

When someone tries to pin an image, they get a pop-up to complete the task. For profiles and boards, a user can click an individual image to display the pin pop-up or click the See on Pinterest button to see your entire profile or board on Pinterest.

If you or someone else has a tweet that’s relevant to your blog article, embed it. When someone clicks the Reply, Retweet or Favorite button, a pop-up window appears so a user can easily interact, and then close the window and keep reading.

4 Ways to Maximize Your Network With Social Media http://t.co/Lnz0E0XaSJ by @eventualmillion

— SocialMediaExaminer (@smexaminer) April 17, 2014

An added bonus of this trick is that the reader can also follow you from an embedded tweet.

People do business with people, so your blog shouldn’t be a regurgitation of corporate press releases. No one wants to comment on a blog post full of corporate blah-speak, so feel free to get a little (or a lot) more casual on your company blog.

Your audience is more likely to comment on and share content that sounds like a real person wrote it, so it’s okay if your blog’s overall tone is slightly different than your product pages or your annual report. MailChimp‘s cheeky voice lends itself well to this type of content.

MailChimp keeps things witty by using relatable tidbits that their audience likely remembers about that year.

Give your content a double-whammy by making sure your images reflect your tone. For example, if your product descriptions are funny and vibrant, make your images colorful and use an interesting font. An added bonus is your images will be more pinnable too.

Let’s be honest: most company blogs are not abuzz with comments from readers. Don’t take it personally. People are busy and aren’t likely to take more than one action on your blog. Maybe they shared your post on Facebook instead of leaving a comment.

Even so, a blog with comments provides a sense of community. When one person comments, others are more likely to follow suit. And when you respond to comments, it shows you’re listening and encourages the commenter (and others) to return.

If you feel like you’ve hit a roadblock with comments, there a few things you can consider. The more hoops your audience has to jump through to comment, the less likely they are to do it.

One hoop people really dislike is hard-to-read word verification. Turn word verification off. Few things are more frustrating than not being able to read a word verification in order to leave a comment. West Elm’s blog lets readers comment easily.

Make your comment box obvious and easy to use.

If you’re using word verification because you have trouble with spam, consider moderating comments instead (or just moderating the comments of first-time users). Just be timely in publishing actual comments so the moderation process doesn’t slow down the discussion.

The commenting system you use has a big impact on interaction too. The simpler the process, the more likely you are to get comments.

A lot of blogs use a service like Disqus that requires readers to create an account and log in before they can comment. If your audience is fairly tech-savvy they may not mind, but if they aren’t this could be the thing that deters them.

To cut down on spam and make it easy for readers to comment, consider using a system like the Facebook comments box.

The Takeaway

With a smooth social user experience, you give readers clear paths to interact with your content and increase the chances that they’ll develop an affinity for your brand (or “heart you,” if that’s more your tone).

What do you think? Have you used any of these tricks to make it easy for your audience to share your content? Which ones have been the most successful for you? Share your thoughts, successes or questions below.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Melissa Culbertson

Melissa Culbertson is the author Blog Design for Dummies and runs Blog Clarity. With 14 years in marketing communications, she currently works as Community Manager for a natural beauty brand. Other posts by Melissa Culbertson »

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6 Tips to Improve Your Facebook Page

By Scott Ayres
Published May 20, 2014

Do you want a highly effective Facebook page?

Do you know which elements make up a good Facebook page?

While there are an unlimited number of strategic factors that can contribute to the success of a Facebook page, many share common elements.

In this article you’ll discover the six elements of successful Facebook pages and how you can improve your Facebook page.

When Facebook users land on your page, you want them to figure out who you are and what you do in about 3 seconds. That’s why a good cover photo is important.

Here’s a good example from Coca-Cola.

There’s no misunderstanding what brand this cover image represents.

Thankfully, Facebook has seriously relaxed the rules regarding cover photos. The current guidelines are the only rules to date (these are subject to change):

All cover images are public. This means that anyone who visits your page will be able to see your cover image.Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading or infringe on anyone else’s copyright.You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines.

The 20% text rule doesn’t apply to cover images, so there’s no restriction on including prices or calls to action. Even so, I advise against filling your cover full of unneeded text. The simpler, the better.

Tips for Cover Images

Make sure your cover images are high quality. Use an image that is at least 851 x 315 pixels. Facebook will expand any image that’s smaller than these dimensions and that makes your cover blurry.

Smaller images stretched to fit cover dimensions will appear blurry, like this.

Only use images and text that relate to your brand, services or products. For example, if you sell boats, don’t use images of trucks.

To avoid a stale page appearance, change your cover in conjunction with the seasons, holidays or events that make sense for your brand.

If you don’t have professional image editing software, here are some free and paid tools to help you create a great cover image:

While your cover photo gives users who land on your Facebook page their first impression, it’s your profile photo they’ll see the most.

Unless they visit your timeline again, all they’ll see from you branding-wise is your profile photo on the news feed.

Your profile pic is more important than the cover photo because it appears in:

The news feed of your followersPosts on your page’s timelineReplies in commentsComments and posts you make on other pages while using your pageOver the cover photo on your timeline

Tips for Profile Pics

Rectangular images must be cropped as square to upload as a profile pic so it’s best to use a square image.

ShortStack’s profile pic was designed to fit a square space.

Your profile pic is uploaded at 180 x 180 pixels, but displayed at 160 x 160 pixels. Check to make sure the smaller image still looks good, like this one from ShortStack.

ShortStack’s profile pic is easily recognizable at any size in the news feed.

As the news feed of your followers is the highest visibility for your profile pic, you should design your profile pic for that location; profile pics are resized to 100 x 100 pixels in a fan’s news feed, to 86 x 86 pixels next to posts on your timeline, and 43 x 43 pixels next to comments. Again, check to make sure your image is recognizable at news feed or timeline location.

An incomplete or misconfigured About section could result in missed traffic and likes on your page.

Be aware that this section will look slightly different, depending on the category you choose when you create your page.

Poco Auto & Tire is a “Local Business” with a physical location, so its About section includes address, contact information and business hours.

Example of what shows in the About section of a page in the Local Business category.

If you don’t have a physical location or it’s not common for people to come to your place of business, select a category such as “Company” or “Brand” when you create your page.

Example of what shows in the About section of a page in the Company or Brand categories.

Choosing either of these options lets Facebook show your short description under the profile pic on your timeline. And that description can include a hyperlink to your website!

Tips for Your Short Description

Regardless of the category you choose during page setup, you should complete every field you can because portions of the About section show up under the profile pic on your timeline for desktop viewers.

To edit the short description for company or brand pages, click on Edit Page in the admin panel, and then Update Page Info. From here, click on the pencil icon next to Short Description.

Add your URL to your Short Description.

Type in your URL at the beginning, so it’s the first thing people see.

You get 155 characters to tell people who you are, but I recommend using no more than 100; be clear and concise, and don’t stuff in keywords.

Sometimes the About section shows differently on the Facebook mobile app than it does on the desktop.

This is ShortStack’s page on a desktop:

Shortstack’s description in the Facebook desktop view.

And this is how the page appears on my Facebook mobile app:

ShortStack’s page viewed on a mobile phone.

Notice the difference in the descriptive text?

Here’s another example. This is the Social Media Examiner Facebook page viewed on my phone. The desktop view can be found above in the first portion of this subhead.

Social Media Examiner’s page viewed on a mobile phone.

On my Android device, the About section of ShortStack’s page is displaying the information in the Mission section.

ShortStack’s mission shows in the About section on mobile views.

The Social Media Examiner page shows me their Company Overview information.

Social Media Examiner’s Company Overview text shows on mobile views.

My best guess is that because ShortStack hasn’t filled out their Company Overview section, the mobile app is defaulting to their Mission section.

I suggest making sure your Short Description, Mission and Company Overview all begin with your URL so it shows first when someone visits your page on a mobile device.

Be sure to see how your page shows on all mobile devices.

Some people argue that third-party apps on Facebook pages are useless since Facebook doesn’t allow a default landing page and because app tabs aren’t shown when viewing a page on the mobile app.

But apps can be used to support a wide variety of goals.

Tips for Third-Party App Use

Let people sign up for your newsletter without leaving Facebook.

Collect more email addresses by using a contest app to give users an incentive to enter their email address in exchange for the chance to win a prize.

Cross-promote your other social channels by using an app to include content from Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc., like Amy Porterfield does.

Amy Porterfield uses third-party apps to feature video and her Pinterest feed on Facebook.

There are a wide variety of app providers to choose from and almost all offer free plans with pre-made templates, so even non-tech–oriented people can install them with ease.

Here are a few for you to check out:

The most important element of a successful Facebook page is a well-planned posting strategy.

You can have the prettiest cover photo and profile image, the most well-crafted About section and tons of amazing apps, but if your posting strategy lacks direction, you’re dead in the water!

Recent changes to the news feed algorithm mean you need to post more often to stay top of mind with your followers and get the most engagement. I recommend that pages publish three types of posts every day on their pages:

Tips for Photo Posts

For the most part, stay relevant to your followers. If you’re running a page about real estate, an image of Miley Cyrus makes no sense, but images of amazing homes, vacation spots and pictures of your town do make sense.

That said, feel free to bend the so-called “rules” a bit and post funny images or memes once in a while. Post Planner‘s fans appreciated the humor in the photo below.

This off-topic photo post generated a lot of engagement for Post Planner.

Tips for Text Update Posts

Due to the changes described in Facebook’s latest announcement, text-only updates are reaching fewer people than before:

“Through testing, we have found that when people see more text status updates on Facebook they write more status updates themselves. Over time, we noticed that this effect wasn’t true for text status updates from Pages…The latest update to News Feed ranking treats text status updates from Pages as a different category to text status updates from friends…posts from Pages behave differently to posts from friends and we are working to improve our ranking algorithms so that we do a better job of differentiating between the two types. This will help us show people more content they want to see. Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates…”

Skittles knows this doesn’t make text updates any less important.

Skittles’ text updates generate a lot of likes, comments and shares.

To increase text post engagement, use questions or fill-in-the blank updates that are easy for people to respond to.

Mix in text updates that require a short response from users in the comments.

Tips for Post Links

A business on Facebook should never put all of its stock in getting lots of likes, comments and shares with text and photo posts.

The real value is found in posts that drive traffic to your website that turns to sales or conversions. Once there, users can read your article, sign up for your newsletter or purchase a product.

Make link posts the focus of your posting strategy and you’ll be highly successful.

Include a well-crafted call to action that supports that goal to get people to click and go to your blog or website landing page, like TOMS does.

This link post on the TOMS page includes a strong call to action and an incentivizing coupon code to drive click-throughs to the landing page.

Make sure your landing page has a great image, because link posts now show a full-width photo preview on the news feed, which makes them look like photo posts.

Use a trackable URL from a service like bit.ly or Pretty Link so you can easily measure the click-through rate from Facebook.

In Conclusion

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being awesome) how would you rate your page? Is there room for improvement?

Use the tips above to make sure your page has the five elements of a successful Facebook page.

Create a clear cover photo, design a profile pic that scales well visually, and display your URL in your page’s About section. Next, add tactical functionality to your page with third-party apps and guide your page posting with a defined strategy.

What do you think? Did you find these tips helpful? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Scott Ayres

Scott is the co-author of Facebook All-In-One for Dummies and "Ambassador of Awesome" at Post Planner, where his goal is to make everyone a Facebook Expert! Scott became addicted to social media before even MySpace (the first time around!). Other posts by Scott Ayres »

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