Stop it with the social network icons

Social media buttons are driving me bonkers!

We are nearly always asked to include social network icons on the websites we design and build. Why?

The message to anyone who will listen is why link to social networks from your website? This doesn’t mean that our clients won’t insist but if we can downgrade or avoid those pesky social icons in the footer, or god help us in the header of a website we will.

downgrade or avoid those pesky social icons

Many will get the gist of this post already but for those that don’t, your user is on your site already and the focus should be on conversion. A conversion is not having someone leaving your website to visit your Facebook page.

There is a lot of attention given to users clicking on you social icons to follow you on your network. Some businesses would of course consider this to be a conversion, although I consider it a distraction.

We are giving users too many choices. How are we to get the user to convert when faced with multiple calls-to-action (CTAs). This is usually in the form of primary and secondary CTAs, related or in many cases unrelated content, body copy text links, newsletter sign up and yes, those pesky social network icons. Then let’s not forget the rest of the noise the user faces: multiple browser tabs, notifications, application icons, shall I go on?

When I think about the conversion ratio of a website I want to reduce the number of options for the user, not increase them.

But there are different types of social interactions

There are network or profile links and there are social share buttons. I am fully signed up to share buttons although I think there are more elegant ways of encouraging the user to share your content.

When a user does share content like on our website we measure to ensure content is being shared, which in turns attracts visits to the website where we convert the user. Makes sense right!