I have added the popular bookmarking tool from AddThis to the bottom of each of my posts. This way, if a user was so inclined, could bookmark a post with any major social site, email the post to a friend or even subscribe to my blog. All of this from the same little button. Great idea right?
Well, I went to the website today, because I just realised they will track emails, feeds and bookmarks for you. Looking back at the last year of using the plugin on various sites, including this blog, I actually have ZERO users using the button. What the hell?
But wait a minute, have I ever used it? I must admit, I have not. I have seen this button on many sites and I have not used it one time. Does that mean all others are doing the same, by not using it? I would hope not. The button seemed like a good idea, packing all the “addthis” stuff in one place.
There are many ways to get people to interact with your blog. Floating newsletter subscriber boxes, links to subscribe or comment at the bottom of a feed and even special badges so you can addthis or stumble or digg whatever it is you are ready. But when users are not using them, they are not a helpful part of any user experience you are trying to provide and sometimes are even getting in the way.
So, the question is whether to keep the button or not. I am not sure, I will have to analyze this one a bit more before I make a hasty decision. I would think that readers to my blog are in the affiliate blogging or marketing business, and my content is nothing more than what they have already seen. Which would be bad for me, but a reason users would not use the button. What is the point of bookmarking something you have seen already, right?
Or maybe new users don’t know what it is or what it is for. Most people that read blogs and websites need to have their brain tickled to stick around for more than 10 seconds. If they aren’t getting or finding any value here, they won’t be looking for a button like addthis either.
I don’t know, I will have to take a week or two and see what others think. I have a nice network of blogging friends that I can count on, so we’ll see where this is going to go and I will report back in about a month.
What do you think?
What you say has some merit. I do go through a huge number of sites,
and the “share” button is a common sight, but i have almost never
clicked the button,, mainly due to lack of time or focus on the
work in hand.
Maybe getting a comment, like this one, is more effective.
I do, however, often add a useful article to my own bookmarks
on google
Hey there! I’ve just started my own blog and have used addthis because we use it at work and I’m familiar with it. We get plenty of shares on there and I LOVE their reporting. I’m a web analyst btw.
It looks like you made your decision and stopped using AddThis, as I can’t see any sign of it on here!?
I have found it’s really important to work out what CTAs are going to work for you. If ‘share’ didn’t work out, did you try tweet or fb like, or more a la mode – Google+? A blogger friend of mine swears by the tweet button…
If someone’s logged in already it’s not a big ask to quickly tweet or share on FB!
Another thing to consider is whether you’ve made sure your FB image is going to be cool (you can specify one in your header). Will your post title, like and via credit fit in one tweet without editing it?
These are important considerations, the user is endorsing you but they don’t want to spend too much time doing it, or look like a twit to their friends by sharing something on Facebook that looks naff.
I would definately give it another go and make sure you optimise it carefully… AddThis will even let you tag your address bar and track how many clickbacks you get from people sharing by copying the address!
really it’s amazing and worth putting the effort in imho!
Phil recently posted..Social reporting in Google Analytics and webmaster tools – is it too Google-centric?
I’m a fairly sophisticated web user (I do web programming) and spend around 6 hours a day on the web.
I have never once clicked on one of these icons on any web site either in an AddThis box or by itself. The reason is that I don’t know exactly what they do. In fact, I have no idea what they do.
I think AddThis and the other services would benefit tremendously from some kind of help button so users could get information on what exact actions take place when a social media button is clicked.