It is important to make your website friendly for social sharing. This means being flawlessly connected to social networking websites, and encouraging social interaction on your website in general. We’ll address both aspects of social optimization and also provide some general tips.

Make it easy for users to interact and share through social media:

Include buttons on your page that directly link to your social media accounts. These are little icons that are typically found on a website’s homepage. They link back to the company’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, among others. This is an easy way to promote more traffic to your social media accounts.

Let users login to your website using their usernames and passwords from their social media accounts. Companies can directly connect with social media websites through something called a API, or Application Programming Interface. This allows your website to access information from social media websites, and also allows your users to comment or otherwise interact using a familiar format.

Create opportunities for online social interaction on your website:

Engage visitors to your website by using polls, rating, or other methods. You can provide incentives for this participation by promising a prize or something else. Include a poll question after a blog entry to gauge reader interest or opinions about your topic.

Include a call to action. Use words or phrases that spur the user to follow up on what they have read or learned. Avoid commonplace phrases like “click this” and others. Use language that is friendly, but direct. Ask for real-life examples or hints that other users would find valuable.

People like to have their opinions heard, so ask for feedback. Feedback is invaluable, but be prepared to hear all kinds. Always thank people of for their feedback, regardless of how you feel about it.

Other tips:

Ensure high-quality content. Frequent, low-quality content is not a sustainable approach to building up the number of online users.

Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t. Don’t be afraid to modify your techniques, depending on your target audience. Know who you are trying to reach, and employ multiple methods in order to find the best fit for you and your goals.

In conclusion, you can only gain from socially optimizing your website. You will increase visitor traffic, and will be able to engage your users in a way that encourages them to return later.

John Bradley Jackson
Entrepreneur, Professor, Author
Deja New Marketing
© Copyright 2012

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