Social media is an integral part of our lives personally and professionally. Whether you are a huge corporate giant or a small local brick and mortar business chances are that you have at least one social media business page.
Social media has revolutionized how small businesses advertise and attract customers. Allowing us to connect with our audience, clients, and peers on a more personal level. Giving us a platform to share our stories, behind the scenes as well as promoting our products and services directly to those interested in our offerings.
This is a world away from the marketing methods used years ago, which were primarily print adverts in newspapers, magazines, yellow pages, radio ads, and poster campaigns. And while those methods are still used today, the main form of marketing is now online. In particular social media marketing.
As a result, small businesses are realising that need to invest more into growing their audience and creating a community around their business. It’s not about just having a social media presence. You need to be engaged and active to really take advantage of the huge potential of social media.
Your website also needs to be strongly linked to social media to create cohesion and ultimately a connection with your audience and clients.
This is what I mean by ‘social media friendly’. Having a social media friendly website is basically making sure your content is easily shareable on websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
So, how can your small business or blog harness the power of social media and ensure your website is friendly? I’m going to help you with some simple ways to do just that.
1 // ADD SOCIAL SHARE BUTTONS TO YOUR BLOG POSTS
This sounds like a no-brainer right? But you’d be surprised at how many websites don’t include social share buttons on posts. Crazy, huh?
By not including buttons within your posts or making them difficult to find you’re doing your website a real disservice.
Particularly when you put time and effort into creating content for your website. If people find it useful, interesting or entertaining they want to share it with their friends. Giving them an easy and straightforward way to do that will boost your exposure and audience.
The good news is that there are hundreds of options for adding social share buttons to your website. And you don’t need to be technically minded to do it.
Have a look at the services below to add buttons to your website.
If you are using WordPress, you can install a plugin and be up and socially shareable in minutes. My go to social sharing plugin is Social Pug, it’s what I use on this website.
Bonus tip – Add your twitter handle to social share button. This will include your username in the tweet and allows you to keep track of shares and also personally thank the sharer.
2 // MAKE SHARE WORTHY CONTENT
To really make your website social media friendly, you need to create content that’s worth sharing.
A static website with little to no content isn’t going to generate much social exposure. Your website needs to have high-quality content that gets a response or reaction. This is what gets people engaged and increases the chances of them sharing your content.
Adding a blog to your website is the best way for you to write and post content regularly.
And if you are using WordPress then you can be blogging with just a few clicks thanks to their inbuilt blog capabilities.
Another benefit of producing content is the impact on your website SEO, which I talked about more on my post about my ‘easy ways to improve your search ranking‘.
3 // INCLUDE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILE LINKS
If you have social media profiles for your business integrate them into your website design. Encouraging people to follow you on social media is a fantastic way of not only connecting with them but they can keep up with the latest news, offers and products and services you have available.
Often people won’t buy on the first visit to your website. And will instead choose to follow you on social media to learn more about you and your products and services. Make it easy for them to do that.
You don’t need to be on every social media platform. Instead, choose the platforms your target market is on, then add the links in multiple locations on your website. Don’t be afraid to draw attention to your social media profiles.
Common places are along the top, on the sidebar and within the footer area.
4 // ADD CLICK TO TWEET LINKS
To help get your content shared on Twitter add a ‘click-to-tweet’ links with your posts.
These simple links have two benefits. One is breaking up your content and secondly, readers can quickly share your quotes and posts as a tweet.
There is a handy free WordPress plugin for adding click to tweet links that make it super simple. It even adds your twitter handle and post link to the tweet.
A social media friendly website is making sure your content is easily shareable on websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Here are 4 ways to do it.
