This past Monday Jenn Yorke created a short Concept of the Week Video on how to change you blog’s social sharing icons. The 3 minute video walks you through how to set up and adjust the social sharing icons on your HubSpot-hosted blog.
I want to briefly talk to you about why it’s so important to set up the buttons and the power of social proof.
HubSpot displays the icons and their associated numbers at the very top of your blog. This is something I really like. The reason I like having the icons at the top of the blog is because it demonstrates how many times someone else thought an article was interesting or valuable.
In the past people would link-to or bookmark an article they really liked, but no one saw those actions. Now people can express their feelings for the article through a simple click of a button and let others know what they thought in the comments section.
When I see an article title that sort-of captures my interest, but not enough to read the article yet, I look at how many times other people tweeted, liked or shared the article (social proof). This helps me gauge how good the article really is. I also skim through the article's comments to understand people's reactions.
Social proof also helps the search engines understand how authoritative, well-written and unique the article is. This helps them decide where to rank the article in the short-tern (the next 24 hours), and where to rank the article in the long-run.
I recommend both B2B and B2C businesses display the following social sharing icons on their blog, even if they're not participating in all of the social media websites:
- Facebook Like
- Google+
Just as a heads up, facebook is no longer supporting the Facebook Share button, so we no longer include it as an option.
What do you think about the concept of social proof?
Do you ever pay attention to the amount of social proof a blog article gets?
