When speaking last week at SES San Jose on the Igniting Viral Campaigns” session, one of the questions that were asked in our Q & A session was about Social Media buttons.  Basically, the question was:

“What buttons should I put on my site?”

The short answer is that there is no standard answer for each site … but scaling down what should not have buttons can help you find the right answer for your site.  This list should help you identify what buttons should be placed and where they should exist based on some poor implementations in the wild.

Is the Button Relevant?

It seems like a no brainer, but you should make sure that the buttons that you choose match with the content that you have on your site.  Many times some of the multi-site share buttons like a ShareThis might be a bit bloated and not have the most relevant social sites for your domain.

Here is an example of a Purse blog with a Digg button on each post.  With Digg being mainly comprised of males, the relevancy is clearly low.

PurseBlogDigg

And here is an example of a women style forum with a Digg button on each forum posting:

WomensStyleDigg

Is the Location Relevant?

Clearly, the item with the social buttons should have the potential to help those share socially-relevant content.  However, it is surprising how many sites slap these buttons on everything, not just the best content for social media.

Here is a great example of Buy.com, a major e-commerce site, with a Digg button on each item in the store.

BuyDiggButton

This application directly on a product page clearly doesn’t fall in line with Digg’s Terms of Use:
“to advertise to, or solicit, any user to buy or sell any products or services.”

Here is another example of another major store, Walmart, who is placing a Digg button on every single product review.  Even if this isn’t against the Terms of Use, it doesn’t really make any sense to try to help users promote reviews onto Digg.

WalmartShareReviews

What Buttons Work For Me?

This is the question that you should be asking yourself rather than slapping every button under the sun onto your site.  In the past, we have compiled both a list of the most popular social buttons and badges, and also a list of some niche social sites that might be right up your alley.

In looking for other buttons to add to your sites, our best advice would be to scour your analytics to find out what is sending traffic, as you will most likely have continued success on these sites.

“Can’t Go Wrong” Buttons for Your Site

Two buttons really stand out that shouldn’t ever hurt your site and its ability to be spread in a social fashion.  These two buttons would be for Twitter and Facebook.  If you are taking the time to put content up on your site, then it should probably be worthy of being shared on the social networking sites.  However, the type of content can determine how successful these buttons could be.  I wouldn’t place these on a product page in a shopping cart, nor would I place these in a sign-up form for a newsletter as they could pose a distraction.

At the end of the day, your buttons should be small social value adds to your site, not big honkin’ distractions.  For a comprehensive list of social media buttons and badges, check out a post we did earlier this year.  The more targeted and relevant your buttons are, the better off they will perform!