Unique Ways to Optimise for Social Media

Glen Allsopp / 9 Comments / July 28th, 2007 / Subscribe via RSS

When was the last time you optimised your site for Social Media? I know its been a while on this site and theres still quite a lot of work I can do to improve that, with that in mind theres going to be quite a few posts on Social Media coming from me in the next few days!

Todays example is going to use a lot of imagery as I think it works well and Im also going to give a run down of the changes made and why it has been done. Some of it may seem a little comical so bare with me while I explain.

Original Design

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So as you can see this image is very plain, theres not much there and its a very basic website. This is a site that really isnt optimised for Social Media at all and doesnt have any factors of SMO even without trying to optimise for specific social content websites.

Digg Design

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Theres 3 things that have changed in this design, but I just want to note that its best to do this if you can record when someone is coming to your site from Digg and this appears, or you have written some content you really think can make it onto the digg homepage and trying to get the best benefit you can. Now this may look comical as I stated and maybe a little insulting to the Digg Crowd but It does actually work.

• Digg Button - This encourages site visitors to digg the article so they dont forget where they came from and to actually give you credit for the article if they like it. Its very simple to implement and it was made for a reason, it helps getting those digg’s up.
• Firefox Logo - The Digg crowd is very technology orientated and tend to hate all things Microsoft so having a picture of Firefox eating up Internet Explorer (Microsoft) then they are going to instantly have a good vibe towards your website and theres more chance of that digg.
• Linux Logo - You might be thinking this is a little far-fetched but with the technology orientation of Digg and assuming your article / content is very techonlogy orientated this can go down a treat. Linux is always a topic that seems to be on the Digg Homepage so theres definitely enough Linux fan-boys to take a story to the front page.

StumbleUpon Design

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Theres not actually much that we changed from the Original Site to stumbleupon. But non-the less there are some changes to get more love from Stumbleupon visitors. Once again this either assumes all your site is in the SU radar OR you can track when people come to your site from SU (StumbleUpon) which is by far the better option.

• RSS Feed - Although this could have been easily added to the Digg example I just wanted to make it clear that Stumbleupon users tend to stick around more and be more loyal website visitors (they have a much lower bounce rate) so getting that RSS feed in there and making it clear is a must
• Stumble Us - At the bottom of the content you will see a nice reminder for the user to actually give you a thumbs up, and if they like the article they will. Many people just stumble all day long without actually voting for a site even if they like it, sometimes forgetting so if you remind them then its more likely to get that stumble. More stumbles = more traffic

SMO Design

Theres not that much to do to incorporate Social Media Optimisation into a website design. It mostly involves including Call-to-Action’s for the users so that they are reminded to share the site if they like it or add it to their social bookmarking sites. In a recent poll 38% of people said they do use the bookmarking icons so as long as they dont clutter up the screen get them in place!

• RSS Feed - If your site has an RSS feed show it off, not everyone will check to make sure if they are looking at a blog or a static piece of content if its not clear either way. Also dont just rely on the Orange Icon in the address bar of the website to catch peoples attention.
• Bookmark - Straight underneath the RSS feed you see the bookmark button, its simple and allows people to bookmark all of their sites leaving the page clutter-free but with a use for those 38% of people who do actually bookmark something they like (assuming your readers are tech-savvy).
• Technorati Add-This - Encourage people who are users of technorati to add your blog to their favourites with a simple eye-catching button. All these simple but noticable call-to-action features mean there are more chances of people communicating with the site and coming back apart from just this visit
• Email This - Ive seen many SMO campaigns fail because they dont incorporate hints to get people to share the content or have good enough content to share. If you stand by what you are written and confident it is viral then encourage people to share it with their friends, if its viral they will.

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