I am a co-host on several blog hops: Creative Style, Turn it Up Tuesday, and CLIMB. One of my purposes of starting the blog hop is to help my readers and followers grow.

But I can’t.

Let me rephrase.

It’s hard to. Why? Well, you came to the right place, because I’m going to tell you. Here are 8 Ways to Make it Easy to Share Your Posts

1. You don’t have share buttons on your blog posts.

I want to share your POST, not your site. I start at the top and scroll and scroll to the bottom and the only social media buttons are the ones on the side of your page. It’s great that you have social media buttons, but how do I send it to my friend or post it on Twitter? I have to cut and paste bits and pieces, then go to the different sites. If I’m reading the one-off occasional post, sure, but I’m trying to read anywhere between 50 and 100. Those seconds cost me valuable time away from my family. There are hundreds of social media buttons that you can use in the WordPress Repository. Please use one.

NOTE: Yes, I can use Hootsuite or Buffer, but non-bloggers don’t typically have these tools.

2. Your Share Buttons Don’t Work

When you click on the share button, the sharing site may open, but the box is blank. This is normally because you haven’t set up the sharing buttons in the settings. Each one has it’s own settings, so I can’t walk you through, but take some time to familiarize yourself with them.

3. Your Share Buttons Only Have a Link

My favorite sharing site is Twitter and I often only see the pre-filled link in the tweet. Depending on my time constraints, I will sometimes choose not to share because I don’t have time to fill it in. Yes, the link to your post is probably the most important part of all sharing, but you need it to have context, especially when many permalinks shorten the title. So, when you title your post “How to Stop Eating Everything in Sight”, it may be truncated to “eating-everything-sight”, which may or may not be the crowd you’re looking for.  On Twitter, a good share button would be Title of Post, link and YOUR twitter handle. I use Shareaholic and it is all automatic. I can just add in a thought or two and press share!

[Tweet “Are your posts shared? 8 Ways to Maximize Sharing of Your Posts – 100lb Countdown – http://go.shr.lc/1osVuo5 via @100LBC”]

4. You’re Missing Your Twitter Handle

When you are sharing on Twitter, you want to make sure that you have your twitter handle attached for three reasons:

(1) You want to see who’s sharing your posts! You want to be able to interact with those who sharing your posts, especially the newbies and your frequent sharers!

(2) I love Shareaholic, which I mention frequently in this post, but why are you allowing your readers to give them a shout out every time they post something? Make sure you change the settings to include your Twitter handle instead of theirs.

(3) Having no Twitter handle means that your readers’ followers can’t quickly find you either! The point of sharing is so that your content reaches your readers, their followers and hopefully their followers. You want to cut down on the work for everyone! Putting your twitter handle in the tweet makes it easy for everyone to contact each other quickly!

5. Your Site Doesn’t Work Well in All Browsers

6. Your Pin Description is Blank

Pinterest is my second favorite sharing site! I love to share all posts, and work to find an appropriate board even if it’s not my “typical” post. Yet, time and time again, I pin a picture, only to have it blank or with the picture name, sometimes something vague like wpid-1030-d034.jpg. This means I have to back to the site and get the proper name of the picture and type it in. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. A proper description should be the picture title and your website name. Make it for readers to know what they’re getting.

7. Your Pictures are Missing a Watermark and/or Title

Yes, this may be a pain sometimes, especially for those who don’t use graphics frequently, but you MUST have at least one “pinable” graphic on your page. A pinable graphic is one that has your site name (either as words or a watermark) and the title or purpose of the post. (Example: Title of post may be “My kids drive me crazy”, but the purpose of the post may be “5 Ways to Keep Your Kids Busy”). Titling your post is a different subject matter all together, but I have seen many pinable pics that don’t match the post name. Why is this important? Because when you’re looking at the vast amount of photos on Pinterest, you want to know what’s going on with the post before you click on it. If you don’t have an accurate description and your picture isn’t watermarked with a title, people have no idea what your post is about.

8. You Only Have Facebook and Twitter as Share Options

You’re on every social media platform, but your share buttons only include Facebook and Twitter. You are taking the time to cultivate followers and build content on each of the platforms. Make it easy for people to share your content on the platforms that you use! Where do you want your posts shared? Have more options than less.

BONUS: My Least Favorite Sharing Buttons

I think this is a default for Blogger or maybe WordPress, but I have found it often to be guilty of all of these above, and I rarely share when I see these buttons because the information is not pre-filled for me.

 

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We hope you’ll take a moment to stop by and say howdy to your MM&M Monday Link Up Co-Hosts!