Marketing your company’s website with social media can be a great way to build your online brand and expand your customer base. It is also one of the simplest ways to promote your company’s website on the Internet.

There are many social media techniques that you can take advantage of to succeed on social media. One of the most effective and simplest ways to achieve this is to integrate social media effectively on your company’s website. Social media integration is not just for blogs. Effective social media integration is equally important on corporate or business websites.

There are many ways to use social media for your business. However, many businesses don’t know where to start. In this article we take a look at the most common and simple ways to integrate social media on your website.

Here are five easy ways to integrate social media on your company’s website that will help to increase awareness and exposure for your business website.

1. Facebook Like Box

Facebook widget is common on most business websites today. It is typically displayed in the sidebar or footer of your company’s website. Facebook Like Box is one of the most widely used social plugins for websites.

Like box is a detailed widget that can be customised to suite your needs. It displays your latest activity stream from Facebook and allows visitors to instantly connect with your brand on Facebook without having to leave your website and can help grow your network instantly.

2. Twitter Widget

Facebook may have a larger user-base but Twitter is equally beneficial for a business. In fact some studies show that Twitter users are more likely to follow brands than Facebook. This makes it essential to integrate Twitter on your website in addition to Facebook. Twitter widget or activity stream is one of the simplest and most effective ways to do this.

You can also use plugins such as ‘Twitter Box’ that lets users post a tweet about your web page directly from your website without having to leave your website. See image of ‘Twitter Box’ below. You can also see this plugin in action below every post on this blog. It is a very effective way to get more ReTweets.

3. “Follow Us” Buttons

Follow buttons are different to share or bookmark buttons. “Follow Us” buttons are simple clickable icons that are connected to your profile or page on respective social networks. It is an easy way to allow users to follow your brand on social media. Unlike share buttons which are for specific content or pages on your website, Follow buttons link to your main social profile. For best results, use well designed  buttons and place them in a prominent place on your website. It is also important to include follow buttons for all major networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus.

Follow buttons are effective, fast-loading and can expand your network on respective social media sites instantly.

4. Social Bookmarking/Share Button

Social share buttons are different to follow buttons. It is a very effective technique for promoting your business on social media. Follow buttons link directly to your social accounts so users can follow or join your network. Share or bookmark buttons on the other hand let users share specific pages on your website with their friends on social media.

Share buttons are a form of voting for specific content on your website. are used by website visitors to share specific pages or content on your website. When a user shares a web page, it is added to their newsfeed of their social media profile and displayed to all their friends.

Pay special attention to networks that convert best. Consider using individual buttons for the main networks in addition to common tools such as ‘Add this’ that supports multiple networks.

There are other tips that you can take advantage of to get the best results. These include:

• Use well designed share buttons
• Place your share buttons prominently on your website
• Include share buttons in all your content i.e. on all web pages, not just your homepage.
• Keep up to date with the latest social networks. Don’t forget Google Plus and Pinterest.

5. RSS Subscriptions/Email Sign-up

Email marketing can prove to be one of the biggest assets for your business. It is thus important to offer email sign-up or RSS subscription on your website. RSS subscription enables users to receive automatic updates whenever new content is published on your website. If you are unable to manage email newsletters, you can consider integrating your RSS feed with a free service such as Google’s Feedburner which lets customers subscribe to website updates via email. It is a great way to build your email list. It requires minimal effort as the process is managed automatically.

Conclusion

Many businesses fail to understand the reasons for poor performance and growth on social media. One of the best ways to achieve growth is to integrate social media effectively on your business website.

If you are concerned about why your Facebook fans or Twitter followers are not growing fast enough, the simple integration techniques discussed in this article can help you to expand your following on social media.

Have you integrated social media on your website?

How have you integrated social media on your website? We would like to hear from you. Please share your responses by leaving a comment below. All genuine comments will be published on this article.

If you are just starting out, you may want to read the post on how to use Twitter & Facebook plugins on your website.