Social Media Integration: Should You Connect Your Site with Social Networks?

What Does it Mean to Integrate the Site with Social Networks?

Simply put, this means installing and configuring the following items:

• Social networks buttons, allowing the user to easily "share" a link to interesting or useful content with their friends.
• Icons of social networks leading to the "representation" of your site on social networks (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, etc.).
• Special widgets from social networks that show the user’s presence on a page on a particular social network, the number of subscribers / fans, etc., and motivate them to subscribe / become a member or fan.

For example: The Facebook comments widget is a very useful tool, thanks to which you can attract a large audience absolutely free. As you know, when publishing a comment, the user can check the box "publish on my wall". If you’re lucky and the commenter is "rich" in terms of friends, then a lot of people will know about your post (and, accordingly, about the site).

Read also about how to integrate another useful tool - Facebook Pixel.

Depending on the audience to which your resource is targeted, you can stick to a single social network or use the widgets of several networks on your site at the same time.

What Benefits Do These Tools Offer?

• Attraction of additional traffic
• Increase in regular subscribers
• Growth in the number of backlinks from social networks (which search engines are very fond of)

If you’re unsure whether these tools will be useful for your website, check your competitors' social network traffic stats to see the real picture (you can do this with the free version of similarweb.com)

If you need help taking your website to the next level and implementing all the convenient functionality you need to work - contact James on +44 7397132798 to discuss how we can help you with media integration.

Methods For Integrating a Website With Social Networks, or How To Find Out More About Your Visitors

Social networks have accumulated a significant amount of information about users, so why not take advantage of all this information and the related opportunities in website development? You can even develop your own social network and integrate it with your site.

Moreover, social networks allow you to:

• Establish direct contact with your target audience
• Increase customer loyalty
• Increase the visibility of your brand or product
• Convey its main competitive advantages
• Get a marketing tool for analysing your target audience’s socio-demographic parameters

Integration of a website with a social network is achieved through an API (application programming interface) - a set of ready-made functions, structures and constants provided by a web application (in our case, a social network) that can be used to develop the site. Integration of some functions takes a few minutes, others can be developed over months.

Here are the main methods of integrating a website with social networks that can bring new features to your project.

"I Like"

The remote content evaluation module is available in most modern social networks. These function by allowing you to post reviews of material on the website. Some networks have expanded the module’s functionality with the option of additional reposting of records on the social network itself.

The use of this module is advisable if you have a significant amount of unique content and a heavy flow of users who’ll be able to rate it - in this case, a new visitor to your site will be able to understand, according to previous estimates, with what kind of material it’s worth familiarising themselves with. In turn, you get the chance to evaluate what content users find interesting and how to better promote your website.

Registration and Authorisation via Social Networks

This module greatly simplifies user registration on your site - instead of filling in the necessary fields for registration or authorisation, the user simply clicks on the button of the corresponding social network. Using this module can significantly increase the number of registered users, and, consequently, increase the potential activity of users on your site.

Comments Module

Using a ready-made comments module from Facebook allows you to simplify the process of creating a portal, providing you with a ready-made functionality for discussing the material on your site.

The Advantages of Using Ready-Made Modules

• Easy integration - placing the model on the page is as simple as embedding several lines of code.
• Extensive functionality - the modules implement most of the necessary functions for discussion.
• No need to register - if the user is already authorised on the social network, they don’t have to register on the site - he or she can immediately join the discussion.

Main Disadvantages of These Modules

• Extremely limited configuration options - ready-made modules have a limited number of standard parameters that can be changed. If you want to change something in the appearance of the module, the Magora team can develop your own module.
• No functionality expansion options - if in the future you need to add the ability to evaluate content or another visitor’s comment in addition to the standard functions, there will still be a need to create your own commenting system.
• There is no option to post comments if necessary - in case you really need to implement another commenting system, you will not have the opportunity to extract information about old comments from the built-in module - thus, the entire discussion will have to start from scratch, which can negatively affect the user experience.
• Dependence on the availability of social networks - of course, the likelihood that any of the major social networks will be closed in the near future is scant. At the same time, however, in many companies employees have limited access to social services (in order to increase productivity), preventing them from spending their working hours on your website as some functionality will be unavailable to them.

Profit or Failure?

Sometimes integration is not necessary, simply because once a customer is already on your site, he or she will choose / book / order there. On a social network, even on Instagram or Youtube, you can’t fully reflect the style or convey the idea and all-round specifics of your company. While on the site, you can. On the website all proposals are in sight, whilst on the social network they need to be increased. And still on the site everything is serious, branded, while the network has the chance to scale back.

However, social networks have a number of undeniable advantages - if, of course, they are properly used:

• Locate the social network icons on each page of the site, including the “comment” and “like” buttons, on your blog or other pages with interesting and useful content.
• Set pre-moderation for the comments - this will save you from spam and help increase the level of trust between your brand and your audience.
• Provide users with the ability to log in to the site through Facebook or other social accounts.

With the right approach, the interaction of your website with social networks can not only increase its traffic but also improve the quality of the audience, i.e. attract your target visitors. If you still doubt whether you need to integrate social networks, have a look at your competitors - they’ve already done it. Don’t give them an advantage: get your hands on a tool that lets you implement all the top service functions - from search engine optimisation and social media promotion to analytical software integration, report automation and the creation of comprehensive client and subscriber databases. - Contact us today to discuss your website redevelopment.

Diana Maller

July 04, 2018