Yesterday Twitter rolled out its one-click follow button, and today Google is is announcing that publishers can now embed its new +1 button. Earlier this month, Tumblr debuted a sharing button, and a few days before that, Facebook rolled out its “send” button.
With so many social buttons, where should publishers put them all? Which ones should they emphasize over others? Here’s a breakdown of the major social sharing buttons (not in any particular order) along with their “return on investment” for publishers:
| Button | ROI |
| Facebook “like” | Average publisher seeing “300 percent increase in referrals” |
| Facebook “send” | An easier way to share stories with friends than email |
| Tweet button | Encourages users to tweet your content, increasing referrals, buzz |
| Twitter follow | Drive up followers on accounts with one-click follows |
| Google +1 | Increases Google SEO of pages |
| LinkedIn share | Gets stories on LinkedIn (and LinkedIn/today), increasing referrals |
| Tumblr share | Encourages users to share on Tumblr, increasing referrals, buzz |
| Stumble button | Boosts prominence in StumbleUpon’s index, increasing referrals |
| Digg button | Increases prominence in Digg, increasing potential for referrals |
| Reddit share | Pumps up stories on Reddit, increasing potential for referrals |
And there are many more, of course, but these represent the larger social communities. For publishers, prioritizing buttons is a function of your goals and your audience profile. For most, the primary driver is referrals, but ensuring your branded content plays a role in social conversations can also be an important factor. Measuring referrals is certainly easier than measuring branded mentions, but there are a host of social services (like Radian6) that focus on “squishier” metrics around mentions and sentiment.
Over on Mashable, they’ve already integrated the new Google +1 buttons, making it among the top three buttons along with Twitter and Facebook on the home page. At the story page level, Mashable also displays StumbleUpon, Tumblr, email and a catch-all “share” button with several other services.
So where to put all these buttons? Services like ShareThis (above) and AddThis allow publishers to combine dozens of sharing buttons into a few or even a single button — and then map metrics behind the scenes. The danger is not to “hide” your highest priority buttons — which inevitably means people will use them less — but both services allow you to split out Facebook and Twitter, for example.
Of course, the Facebook “like and Twitter “follow” buttons can also be used for brands and people (see our home page with both buttons next to the brand in the header), and LinkedIn also has buttons for people and companies.
The best advice for publishers in a new world of social distribution: don’t be shy about experimenting with buttons that align with your goals, and measure the impact. And hope the social button craze is nearing its peak. What social sharing buttons are on top of your priority list?