Social sharing icons: A waste of space?

[jauburn]

I had a hunch that the "social sharing" icons are rarely, if ever, used, so I went looking for some research on this issue and found this.

I'm tempted to disable the social sharing icons, since they seem just to take up space and are almost never used. How about you? Do you find that they're used? Do you have any way of tracking their use?

 

[RDR]

 

[jauburn]

Yup.

 

[Cthulhux]

IMNSHO: Users are mostly smart enough to use Firefox's built-in "social sharing" functions and/or able to copy&paste URLs.

 

[ŽivaAkcija]

i dont use it on my forum

 

[Jaxel]

Useless... but mostly harmless.

MOSTLY harmless...
Social Network Buttons Behind "Two-Clicks"

 

[digitalpoint]

Do you have any way of tracking their use?

You can do it with Google Analytics.

 

[dethfire]

Every major site has social media links. Do you really want to argue with billions of $$$ of marketing research? If it's not working for you, then your implementation is poor.

 

[jauburn]

Do you really want to argue with billions of $$$ of marketing research?

Hey, before tech stocks crashed in 2000, billions of $$$ were betting that they wouldn't. Before the U.S. decided to bomb the hell out of Iraq, billions of idiots believed the U.S. government when it said there were weapons of mass destruction there, waiting to kill us all.

So sure, I'm willing to argue against the herd any day of the week. That's why I asked.

 

[dethfire]

So sure, I'm willing to argue against the herd any day of the week. That's why I asked.

If you are just using the default XF social icons at the bottom of the page, then yes, they are near useless. That doesn't mean social icons in general are useless. It's all about proper implementation. XF gets this majorly wrong.

 

[jauburn]

If you are just using the default XF social icons at the bottom of the page, then yes, they are near useless

Those are the ones I was talking about.

 

[Chromaniac]

Official icons add too much JavaScript on your webpage. Gets blocked by most privacy related browser add-ons. Most people active on Facebook and Twitter are probably already using browser plugins for sharing. I recently got rid of them and I am perfectly ok with that.

 

[dethfire]

Most people active on Facebook and Twitter are probably already using browser plugins for sharing

Maybe for pinterest, but I can't imagine that is true for FB or Twitter

 

[Chromaniac]

maybe. i am active on twitter and google+. i use a plugin that lets me share from context menu on page and links. works great. i do not like to use social buttons on websites because they add their own content to the shared excerpt and i do not like that. plus they try to get interactive by providing the follow button. Twitter in some cases automatically follows the account if I use a share button on some websites.

I assume a lot of heavy users of social media have some system in place for quick sharing on their choice of networks!

Of course as one user mentioned... Firefox has internal feature. Google was experimenting with same but killed that component a while ago.

 

[thumped]

i like this implementation - Responsive Social Sharing Buttons

they look good, they're responsive, and no additional friendface / tweetbook JS is loaded

 

[dethfire]

My community has a very low tolerance for clutter and social media buttons so I just have text links loaded above the editor

 

[kontrabass]

Interesting. Looked up the stats on GA, found we had <15 social share actions in the past 30 days. I hate how slow they are to load, so just disabled the stock XF social sharing buttons. Will look into add-ons.