3 Ways to Use Social Media on a Website

Authors! How are you using social media? Did you know there are three ways to use social media on a website.

  1. Link social media icons to your social media pages.
  2. Display your social media timeline on your website.
  3. Get your fans sharing and engaging with your content.

The first way is the easiest to implement. The third way is the most rewarding. Want to guess how social media is used on most author websites?

Link social media icons to your social media pages

This is the most common way most authors implement social media on their website! It’s so easy to do. Slap a social media icon on the site and link it to your social media page. Done! When somebody clicks on the icon, it takes them to your social media page. If they like what they see on your social media page, they decide to become fans. If not, they go away.

If this is how you are using social media on your website, you urgently need to do two things:

  1. Get your social media links opening in a new tab or a window. So, even when someone closes the social media window, your website is still visible to them.
  2. Keep your social media sites current and relevant. If it’s not interesting to your fans, they will never come back. You get 5 seconds to make an impression! Do you best.

Display your social media timeline on your website

This is one level above slapping social media icons on your website. It keeps people on your website AND allows people to see your social media activity. This is also easy to implement. Most social media sites will give you few lines of code that you will need to copy and paste on your website. And viola! Your social media timeline can be viewed directly from your website.

Below are Facebook and Twitter links that can help you display timelines on your website.

Get your fans sharing and engaging with your content

This is my personal favorite! The options are pretty much limitless. And the best part is that your content is shared by your fans to their followers! In other words, your content can be shared exponentially. Here are some ways to get your fans sharing and engaging with your content:

  • If you have a blog, configure it so your blog posts are sharable by your fans.
  • If you have an event coming up, create a “Click To Tweet” button specifically for the event. When a fan clicks on the button, he/she will send information about your event to his/her followers. (You can do this for each event).
  • Build “Share this page” button and add it to each of your book pages.
  • Just like events, you can create “Click to Tweet” for some awesome quotes within your blog post or on your book pages.

The above listed things can all be done for free. You also have a choice to pay for additional promotion and it’s very worthwhile provided you do it correctly.

Using social media on a website correctly should not be a mystery. Anyone can do it. It takes a little effort to set things up. But, once you are up and running, most of it is automatic with little maintenance. Regardless of how you are using social media, you are much better off than authors who are not using it at all … and trust me, there are many. Hope the post above helps you better understand the power of social media!

Until next time,
Mayur

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