Some of the most common ways to include social media in your website are through share buttons, embedded social feeds, and social login/chat widgets.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Share buttons: -Easy to implement. -Quick and easy to use. -Low maintenance. -Encourages sharing through social media. | -Often don’t get clicked on. -Add visual clutter if overused. -Can be slow to load. |
| Embedded social feeds: -Keeps website content fresh. -Community engagement. -Reduces need for manual updates. | -Can impact page performance. -Relies on social media for updates/performance. -Limited control of displayed content. |
| Social chat widgets: -Real time customer support. -Familiar messaging interface. -Improves customer satisfaction. -Conversation history often persists across devices. | -Can distract visitors from primary tasks. -Adds code that may slow down page loads. -Required chatbot or staffing maintenance. |
I don’t use social media very often, but these seem very helpful to my site, knowing that many people use social media very often. I would implement the share buttons on my site because it would allow my site to get more visitors the more people shared it, and it is a very simple and quick way to share it on social media.
The data gathered from setting up social media metrics tracking can be useful to me as the website’s owner to see how many people have shared my site, along with which social media platforms are interacting most with my post. Therefore, I can promote that one more and gain more viewers who use it. I can also change past posts to fit with that social media platform better as well, by adding more icons and implementing ways to reach that platform more easily.