Continuing my look at the blogging things that everyone seems to take for granted, I decided to look at one thing which most blogs have, but I personally never use, the “share” buttons, which allow readers to forward a link to your post to facebook, twitter, email, reddit etcetera. I initially put them on because of requests for them by a friend of mine, but I don’t have the feeling anyone uses them anymore. They have become a standard to almost every website there is, but I highly doubt they are useful. As I’ve moved I decided not to include them anymore (unless your responses prove they are a necessity of course.
So this week’s question:
Do you ever use the “Share” buttons on websites and do you think they are useful?
I’ve never used it either. If I’m gonna share something, I’ll probably write something a little more personal on Facebook or Twitter and then include the link. It lets me put a bit more of my personality into it. However, I do often just retweet stuff on Twitter to save a bit of time.
Yeah, I mostly do retweets, but besides that I’m not someone who uses social networks a lot (except for my blog of course)
I have them on my blog, and have used them on occasion on others blog.
Generally, if some one has posted something either very interesting or well written I will share. It doesn’t happen daily, but I like having the option.
Also, for some reason WordPress has not been alerting my Facebook page when my posts go live, so I end up sharing my own post.
Actually I had that happen before, a few months ago. You just have to go the share settings and reset it, link it again to your blog again (something like that). IIt worked for me afterwards.
Ok, some there are people who use them. But which ones do you use Victor? Twitter and Facebook or also others?
Facebook.
Though I have a twitter account I don’t really use it.
I do have share buttons on my blog. Not sure if anyone does use them but I like to keep it there just in case.
However, I do share posts on Facebook once in a while when I find something that I really enjoy and want to share with my friends.
Thanks for the help Kim! I’ll keep the buttons of the site for now, because if someone really wants to share they can copy the address anyway.
Great question. I actually don’t use it often. If I like a post I usually retweet it though but I usually just find the Twitter handle of that person instead of clicking the share button from the post.
Yeah, everyone does have their tweets or their handle on their blog, so that makes it easier.
It’s funny, I read a web design/dev article a while ago stating the pointlessness of these share buttons. Mostly because all they do is advertise those sharing sites. They do nothing to really promote your own site. These days, if someone wants to share something they’ll do it via facebook or an app or whichever way they prefer.
And yet… I still have mine on my blog! I am tempted to take them down.
Yeah, very well put Jaina. I think that is the case, so go ahead and remove them!