The success of any online presence is strictly related to the traffic received, no website can be profitable or successful if no one visits it. The Internet technology advances on a daily basis, with more and more websites being created; however, even though the audience is increasing, the rate of growth is different. Social media [...]

The success of any online presence is strictly related to the traffic received, no website can be profitable or successful if no one visits it. The Internet technology advances on a daily basis, with more and more websites being created; however, even though the audience is increasing, the rate of growth is different.

Social media represents a relatively new but useful way of getting traffic. It has become an instant worldwide trend, being often presented as a viral phenomenon; in such situations it becomes obvious that this tool, when used in an efficient manner, can bring amazing results. Of all the different websites existent online, blogs are the most exposed to the traffic problems, as the level of profit depends on the number of unique visitors. Bloggers are aware that any possibility of gaining more visitors is very important, therefore they are concentrating to the max on finding the best opportunities.

Social media cannot be neglected and any blogger has the opportunity to create an account on various social networks; however, there are other types of social media that can also be used. It’s very important to make a clear distinction between social media and social networks, the latter being a special category of the first. The distribution on social networks provided to be the most efficient method for obtaining traffic, being derived from social media as well. Another mistake of many bloggers is that, in the most cases, social networks are reduced to Facebook and Twitter; there are still only a few people who have a full profile on LinkedIn. In spite of the stunning success and fame these networks have acquired, a good amount of traffic could be obtained by targeting various other networks. Many bloggers obtained a lot of traffic by promoting their posts on different social networks; for example, did you know that Stumble Upon is a real help in bringing different websites closer to readers?

The experience revealed that, no matter how grateful the readers want to be, their commodity is capital. Consequently, even though the readers might consider a post very useful and interesting, very few of them will promote it via social networks; however, by having a button that allows such a thing, the chances of being promoted are considerably increased. There may be users who disagree with the advantages offered but having a button ready to distribute a post on various networks is beneficial. Much more, across time, statistics revealed that a button for distributing posts via social networks is mandatory. Nowadays, the problem isn’t about inserting or not inserting this “magical button”, it’s about where to insert it. A wise choice will make the difference between high traffic and just another graphical construction.

The social media buttons, no matter where they are situated in the layout, must have some specific features as:

1. They shouldn’t confuse the readers

   A button must be obvious and not confused with anything else; if it distributes posts on Twitter, then the reader shouldn’t have any problem, he knows that by clicking on it, the post will be tweeted.

2. It must not be embarrassing

   For the most readers, the promotion of the posts is a favor made to the authors, while bloggers consider this action as something natural, similar to the applauses for actors. It’s not important who is right, but in any scenario, the button shouldn’t embarrass the visitors or else, instead of attracting readers, it will annoy them.

3. It must be at hand

We don’t all have time and no one will wait for few minutes to search for a button, hence it must be at hand. In order to obtain the best results, the solution is to test and carefully study the reactions of the visitors.
The standard solutions are simple: the insertion of buttons at the beginning of the posts or at the bottom; there are advantages and disadvantages. In both cases, Word Press community creates enough plugins that allow a huge level of freedom.

1. In the beginning of the article

The huge advantage of this solution is the higher visibility and the readers are more tempted to distribute, while scrolling until the end of the article is time consuming (yes, people are very lazy and parsimonious). The majority of the plugins creates a column of maximum three or four buttons, usually situated in the left of the post (quite probably because the post is read from left to right), but there are many blogs that use the right position. The distribution on Twitter, Facebook and Stumble Upon are the most common, but Google+ has a stunning expansion and it’s only a matter of months until it will become universally presented. As previously mentioned, the traffic may come from other less famous networks, but more focused; implementing a huge column with ten or more buttons is definitely a bad solution, therefore how can you use them? The next choice is far more efficient than the previous one regarding the possibility of promoting on other networks.

2. At the end of the post

Even if the reader didn’t see the button from the start, after reading it, he has a lot of possibilities to promote it, in the fortunate situation that the plugin creates an area with social networks logos or buttons. Each blogger adds here the best solutions and he must experiment to obtain more and more visitors. It has the advantage that the area of implementing the buttons may be easily customized and it may represent an eye-catching item of the overall layout.

The conclusion is simple: any blogger must experiment and constantly try to improve the solutions to distribute the post on various social networks. There is no perfect solution, the testing may offer the best answers, but these aren’t valid for eternity.