How many times have you been scrolling on a website wanting to go onto their website and you cannot find their social media Icons? Then all of a sudden you’re your almost at the point of giving up, to your surprise you find the icons nestled at the bottom of the webpage. It is clear that most websites are doing it all wrong.
Social media now represents a widespread source of information; it has fundamentally changed the tools and strategies that companied use to communicate with its customer, elucidating that the roles between the company and the consumer are now reversed as control now lies with the customers (Mangold & Faulds 2009). Depicted through various studies, 93% of social media users now believe that companies should have precedence on social media websites, whilst 85% of users also believe that companies should interact with customers via Social Networking Systems (Michealidou & Siamagka & Christodoulides 2011).
With this in mind it is vital first to establish the importance of these icons…
- Convenience and Ease of use
Social media fundamentally connects people to other people who value their opinion. Simply clicking a button to share content is exceedingly convenient. In this day and age where individuals are bombarded with information, the precious time that is saved is greatly appreciated and valued by the visitors of the site. In return retaining their attention and keeping them on the webpage (Kundu: 3987).
- Social Stimulus
Social media icons have been around for a while now (Ewer 2014). Though in the beginning they were not much of use and no one really knew their importance, today with the uproar in social media marketing they are just as important as any other button. People who are connected with each may share similar interests and hobbies and social share buttons on websites in return facilitate easy share options. The benefit for businesses is that the easy share facility encourages a wide spread awareness of the business amongst its customers. The specific number of people that have shared the content usually complements the social share buttons, that as a result influences visitors to believe that the content that they are reading or watching is of high quality and worthy of re-sharing (Kundu: 3987).
Kaushal Beauty:
Kaushal Beauty has placed their social media icons at the top right hand side of the site. Small and grey in colour as opposed to the white background, these social media icons are effective and easy to notice. They directly allow the site to take the customer to the companies, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages with great ease. However, though convenient in its use, there are 6 different icons on the page and arguably this may be one too many. Noted by Moon (2014), too many buttons may result in confusion for the visitors and can negatively impact the speed of your website, slowing and reducing down the traffic.
Eastern Arts Beauty:
Unlike Kaushal Beauty, Eastern Arts has utilised the bottom footer of the webpage to locate the social media icons. Although it is noted that placing the social media icons at the bottom of the website can reduce the effectiveness of them, for this specific webpage no scroll is required. In return of not having to scroll down and the visitor being exposed to only one webpage, arguably it is no less effective than to having the icons in the top right hand corner. Furthermore, noted by Coffin (2013), having too many buttons also makes the region look cluttered and confusing.
So where is the best position for these vital networking buttons?
According to Mohan, for web pages, it is best that the social media icons are placed at the top of the page in the header region that is most clicked, viewed and used by the visitor. Essentially, it would be useless for the icons to be placed at the bottom of the webpage, when most customers would probably have given up finding the icons by then. Elucidated by the middle image in the eyetracking study (below), the dominant reading pattern on a website is in the shape of an F. The user as demonstrated by the image below, reads the whole of the beginning section, skims to the middle where it is read fully, and leaves the webpage briefly skimming the last section. The heat map sensor on the image portrays that the dark red areas indicate the most looked areas.
Evidence by the second image, the most valuable position of the buttons would be in the top right hand corner of the webpage as the heat map sensor is dark red in those areas. As the visitor’s eyes move there the most, the position of the buttons would as a result increase and utilise the social presence the most effectively.
Here is a short clip that comments about the importance of social media Icons!
Final Top tips:
- Social Media Icons do work! So do use them!
- Position your Social Media Buttons at the top right corner of your website: Evidenced by the heat map sensors, the most viewed area by visitors is the top of the webpage. Place your buttons where they are exposed the greatest whilst at the same time providing visitors with ease of use.
- Pick a noticeable button: Ultimately, the more noticeable the button the higher the chance of the visitor sharing the content that will consequently lead to more traffic back to your website.
- Position your button near the content that is being shared: It is important that the visitors know what they are sharing. They do not want to share content that is not useful to them or to anyone on their network. Unwanted content may result in a reduction to traffic on your website.
- Don’t have too many social media buttons: It is important that you only have the necessary links and no more, as this may decrease the loading time of your website also make your site look cluttered. Consider only using the most important social media icons.
- Include the buttons on every landing page: By having the buttons on every page, visitors can easily share the specific content on the various landing pages.
- Distinguish between the social media buttons: Various social media sites have various buttons with various functions. For example, whilst Facebook may have a button that posts a post notifying that you have ‘liked’ the content on the webpage, another button may ‘share’ the content on the webpage. Noted by Coffin, it is essential that the buttons are accompanied by text such as ‘like’ and ‘share’ to prevent any confusion and for ease of use.
References:
Coffin. D, (2013), 4 tips for using social media buttons, Retrieved April 15, 2015, from, http://webmarketingtoday.com/articles/4-Tips-for-Using-Social-Media-Buttons-2/
Ewer. T, (2014), Determining the Best Placement for your social media icons, Retrieved April 15, 2015, from, http://www.codeinwp.com/blog/determining-best-placement-social-media-icons/
Kundu. S, Why social Sharing Buttons are so Important, Retrieved April 15, 2015, from, http://codeboxr.com/blogs/why-social-sharing-buttons-are-so-important
Michaelidou. N, Siamagka. N.T, Christodoulides. G, (2011), Usage, barriers and measurement of social media marketing: an ex- ploratory investigation of small and medium B2B brands, Industrial Marketing Management, 40(7), pp.1153-1159, Retrieved April 15, 2015, from, https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/bitstream/2134/15705/4/IMM10_806R%20Michaelidou%20Siamagka%20Christodoulides.pdf
Mohan. A, (2013), Importance of Social Media icons and their position on websites, Retrieved April 15, 2015, from, http://www.contentcrossroads.com/2013/07/social-media-icons-and-their-position-on-websites/
Moon. G, (2014), The best place to put social media buttons on your blog, Retrieved April 15, 2015, from, http://coschedule.com/blog/social-media-buttons/
Nielsen. J, (2006), F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content, Retrieved April 15, 2015, from, http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/
Zarook A, (2011), Where to put social media icons on website?, Retrieved April 15, 2015, from, http://www.zeeronsolutions.com/put-social-media-icons-website/