Social media has transformed the way businesses engage with consumers. Businesses of all sizes are using social media today to connect with their audience.

An effective social media marketing strategy requires your company’s website and social media to go hand in hand.

Your website should integrate seamlessly with social media. Offering the right social media features on your website can facilitate the formation of a community around your website. One of the simplest ways to achieve this is by integrating social sharing plugins on your website.

Types of Social Media Plugins for Your Website

Including relevant plugins is one of the easiest ways to start using social media for your business. There are many different types of social sharing plugins you can use on your website.Not all plugins are direct call-to-action to follow or like your company on social media.

Some social sharing options available for your website are:

Social Media Buttons

There are a range of buttons e.g. to share a link, follow your brand, subscribe to updates, and more.

See image below.

Social Media Widgets

There are many types of widgets for each social network e.g to display your activity stream, like box, show your latest posts, and more.

See example of Facebook Like Box widget below.

How Social Sharing Plugins Boost User Engagement on Website

Plugins are a great way to market your business on social media. They are very effective for expanding your network  e.g. Twitter Followers or likes on Facebook.

Social media plugins on your website can boost user engagement by making it easy for readers to:

• Follow your brand on social media
• Share your content and links on their favourite social network
• View your activity stream on social media without leaving your website
• Join discussions or comment on your social profile from your website
• Vote, favour or like your brand or content on social media with the click of a button

Recent studies also show social media plugins can improve e-commerce sales.

How to Include Social Sharing plugins on your Website?

The two main methods to integrate social media on your website are given below. Both methods are free to use.

1. Use Third-party Social Sharing Plugins

There are many free third-party social sharing plugins that you can download and install on your website depending on your website platform. There are hundreds of free plugins for popular CMS and blog platform such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal.

There are also generic third-party social media plugins such as ‘Add this’ that work on any website platform including static HTML websites.

Advantages of Third-party Social Sharing Plugins:

• Many third-party social sharing plugins support multiple social networks. One plugin can support all social media sites you use.

• Third-party plugins are particularly helpful if your website uses a CMS or blog platform. You can install the plugin from the admin panel without the need to update or access website files.

• Many third-party plugins use API integration with social media sites to offer more advanced features.

2. Get Official Plugins from Respective Social Networks

Another easy way to integrate social media on your website is to download and use official plugins from respective social networking websites.

Both Facebook and Twitter offer tools for creating customised plugin code which you can copy and paste into your website.

Although you do not require web design knowledge or experience to do this, you will need access to your website files on server so you can paste the plugin code provided into your website. If you use a CMS, you can also add the plugin code directly in your page editor.

Advantages of Official Social Media Plugins:

• There is no confusion as to what plugin will work on your website platform as the same plugin works across all platforms.

• You can download the plugin directly from respective social networks.

• You can be sure that they will be free from any bugs and work accurately.

Conclusion:

Social media plugins on your website is a great way to engage with your audience on social media and encourage participation from visitors. Any involvement with social media marketing can help your business to succeed on the Internet.

Next week, we will take a look at the different social plugins for Facebook and Twitter.