A Facebook "Share" or Facebook "Icon" - What's More Important?

You've seen both, right? Those social media icons that take you to the website's page, Twitter feed or any other type of social media platform the author may have out there but what about the "share" buttons? Those are different in that they don't lead you to the website's Facebook page, but encourage you to "like" the page you're on right from the page without going to a specific site or leaving the page. Often they encourage you to write something about why you like it or a description.

Social media connections typically don't have to be at the top of your site or side bar any longer because people are just not going there as often. While it's a good idea to connect to all your outlets and pages, having them at the top may not be the key any longer. These buttons will appear as many do on our blog signatures, something like this:

And then there are the share buttons. These little babies can really make your blog or page explode with traffic when you make it easier for people to share and like. People reportedly spend an average of 30% more money at McDonalds when they used their debit card rather than cash - Why? Because it was easier!

So making it easier for people to "like" or share some other way is a no-brainer! The deal to sharing, you must do it from your personal account such as Facebook. You can't like something from a business page directly from the page you're on, you have to 'like it' as you, personally. This is the only drawback if you're trying to share business information from your business Facebook page instead of your personal account. To do this, you would manually have to copy and paste the link into your business Facebook page and hit "post". Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, and Pinterest should all post from whatever account you are currently logged into or whichever you sign into on the pop-up box once you hit one of those share buttons.

Why is this important?

Because Google is all about social media.

What's been shared, copied, liked, plused, pinned, tweeted and posted. The more something has been shared, the more value it has. Much more than just having someone like your Facebook page itself, is someone liking that most recent post or blog you just wrote. Their friends see it, sharing it to everyone they know should they choose. Get a plug-in for your WordPress site or a widget and code from the individual social media to add to your website.

It's much easier to "like" from the page you're on and move on, then head over to another page and click like - why? I don't know... we're humans and we like convenience.

So have both, but make sure those share buttons are front and center.