Social plugins: expand your outreach on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, et al.

Social signals are everywhere online. Whatever website you’re on, chances are you’re not far away from a like, share, comment, tweet, retweet, pin or a +1 button. If you’re not sure what the significance of this is, chances are your follower base is still relatively low — but it doesn’t have to stay this way. In this article, we will explain how to embed social media plugins into your website in order to expand the outreach of your content on social networks.

Social plugins are optional software modules that can be used to connect your website with your social media platforms. All of the biggest social networking sites and apps, such as Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, and Facebook provide special plugins in the form of code snippets that enable internet users to share and react to online content across different platforms. If you embed these plugins in your website’s source code, you’ll benefit from the immense outreach of these networks.

Most social plugins contain widgets. These are graphic elements that are integrated into an area of your website in order to provide users access to certain functions. The best-known widget of this kind is Facebook’s ‘Like’ button. With this, your website visitors can share your content with their friends with a single click. This provides the basis of viral marketing.

Facebook alone boasts over 1.8 billion active users every month. More than 85% of these users are outside of the United States and Canada. Against this backdrop, it’s hardly any surprise that social plugins have become far more visible on the World Wide Web in recent years. The use of social signals such as likes, shares, and comments act as a kind of word of mouth promotion. The goal of  social media marketing is to direct this publicity as part of an ongoing marketing strategy. Social plugins help you create positive interactions and strengthen your online presence in Web 2.0. The available options vary according to the target platform.

Social networks now offer an extensive portfolio of plugins that allow website owners to create content that is suitable for cross-platform publication. In order to reach out to a target group that is competent and active on social media, content must be easy to share, comment on or to subscribe to. In addition, many platforms offer the possibility to embed content from social networks into their own website. We have brought together the best solutions from the best-known providers: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

The international social networking platform, Facebook, is an institution in the world of social media. In the face of ever-growing competition, the website remains the undisputed favorite for the vast majority of social media users. With the following social plugins, you can also allow visitors to interact with content on your website through Facebook.

To link your website with Facebook using social plugins, it’s necessary to take the following three steps.

1. Define the URL of the web page: first, choose the URL of the website that requires the plugin.

2. Generate an embed code: enter the desired URL into the Facebook code configurator and adjust the widget settings to suit your aims.

3. Copy plugin code into the source text: Facebook now offers two options for embedding elements into your website.
1. JavaScript SDK: if you want to embed a social plugin using the JavaScript Software Development Kit (SDK) from Facebook, two pieces of code are required. The first downloads JavaScript SDK and is inserted into the body tag of the page that is to be linked with Facebook. The second implements the social plugin and is inserted wherever the widget should appear on the website.
2. Iframe: you can alternatively embed the social plugins using Facebook’s iframes.

Facebook also provides a cross-platform login function for app developers. This enables users to sign into a previously existing Facebook Account via various webpages. A corresponding software development kit (SDK) can be used for this purpose and is available for iOS apps, Android apps, web apps and mobile web apps, Windows Phone, Desktop apps, and smart devices (including smart TVs and the Internet of Things). A manual check through Facebook is required for apps that use any data beyond the user’s profile, e-mail address, and friend list. Facebook also offers a login review, which ensures that the app meets the platform guidelines as part of a practice test.

As before, if you want to transfer Facebook content to your own website, the implementation involves only three simple steps:

1. Determine the URL of the Facebook content: select your chosen Facebook content. Whether it is a post or comment, a picture, a video, or an entire Facebook page, it should be publicly accessible.

2. Generate embed code: enter the URL for the chosen content into the code configurator available in the Facebook for Developers site. Click ‘Generate code’.

3. Enter plugin code into the source code: integrate the JavaScript SDK and the plugin code or iframe into the source code of the target web page. Here it’s important to note that the code for the JavaScript SDK is only implemented once for each web page, regardless of how many Facebook plugins you wish to embed.

It’s not always necessary to use the code configurator; an embed code is already included in the drop-down menu in the upper corner of much Facebook content. In this case, Facebook only displays an iframe. For further information on how to integrate Facebook buttons, check out this helpful guide.

The microblogging service, Twitter is a platform that enables people to share their opinions and experiences in short tweets. These short messages are similar to Facebook status updates, but they are limited to 140 characters. Twitter is a major player in the world of social media, with around 313 million active users per month writing or retweeting. With its enormous outreach, Twitter is the ideal platform for content writers to share their work beyond the boundaries of their own website. Like Facebook, the microblogging service also offers a variety of social media plugins that allow website visitors to tweet content.

The embed code for these interactive social media buttons is available from publish.twitter.com. The process of integrating this button is very similar to the Facebook function.

1. Select your chosen Twitter button: select the desired button from the selection of Twitter plugins on offer.
2. Configure button: configure the button as required via publish.twitter.com and generate the plugin code.
3. Enter the embed code into the website source code: insert the code in the place where you want to have it appear on the website.

Twitter content can also be integrated into your website quickly and easily via the social plugin, either as individual tweets or in the form of a Twitter timeline.

The microblogging service also provides website owners and app developers with a cross-platform login feature. Using ‘Sign in with Twitter,' any website visitor can obtain a registered user account without the unnecessary hassle of registering separately with each app. All data required for the authentication of a new account (i.e., name, e-mail address, etc.) are managed centrally via the user’s Twitter account. ‘Sign in with Twitter’ can be used as a login alternative for websites and iOS apps as well as for mobile and desktop applications.

Embedded tweets and the Timeline widget can also be configured individually via publish.twitter.com:

1. Define the URL of the Twitter content: first, enter the URL of the Twitter content you wish to embed into your website.
2. Choose a social plugin: select the desired social plugin at publish.twitter.com, copy the URL into the input mask and click on Preview.
3. Transfer embed code to the website: copy and paste the embed code generated by Twitter into the source code of your website.

Google+ is a social media platform created by the search engine, Google. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Google+ contacts are divided into so-called circles. When posting anything to the social network, users first select which circle they want to share their content with. It is also possible to add non-registered users to Google+ circles. In this case, Google+ sends an email notifying the user of the post.

Like other platforms, Google+ also offers a wide variety of plugins that allow website owners to share content on social media in a variety of ways. As with Twitter and Facebook, these interfaces also allow you to integrate text, images, and video content from Google+ into your own website.

Google+ offers the following social media plugins, among others:

If an internet user shares a link to your website on social media, Google+ automatically adds a preview, known as a snippet. It comprises of a page title, a short description, and a thumbnail. This data is extracted from the page content of the shared URL. The following technologies can provide this information:

• Microdata markup through Schema.org
• Open Graph protocol
• Title and meta-description

Google uses these with descending priority. If the information cannot be read in the preferred format, Google attempts to generate the title, description, and thumbnail from the website content.

As with Facebook, Google+ requires a JavaScript SDK in order to integrate interactive social media plugins into a website. The embed code should be placed before the closing body tag of each webpage that is to be linked to Google+. You can then add as many plugins as you like on the respective pages. The required codes are available for configuring individually at developers.google.com/web.

Pinterest is a social network that enables users to collect images with captions and arrange them thematically into virtual pinboards. The popular image-sharing platform now offers five different social plugins that allow website owners to expand the potential outreach of their online content. Alternatively, content uploaded to Pinterest by other users can be integrated into your website as pins.

Before you integrate social plugins into your online projects, you need to implement a JavaScript library for Pinterest in each of the relevant webpages. A corresponding code snippet is then provided by the Pinterest widget builder. This is where you also create the embed codes for individually configured buttons and pins, as well as board and profile widgets.

With 467 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is the biggest social network that centers on building professional relationships. Rather than gaining friends, the purpose of the platform is to help users find contacts and connections in their area of work. Another aspect that makes LinkedIn unusual among social networking sites is the option to describe and present your own company. For entrepreneurs, the network opens up an important communication channel through which interested parties can be scouted by both potential collaborators and employers. They can also find relevant brands, products, services, and career opportunities.

LinkedIn also provides the following range of sharing functions:

LinkedIn also offers a code configurator for each of its social media plugins. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest, however, unregistered users only have access to the embed code for the share button; all other social plugins require users to have a LinkedIn profile.

The integration of this widget is analogous to the other platforms using a JavaScript SKD and an appropriate plugin code.

Xing is also a business network and a competitor of LinkedIn. Members of the online service use it for work-related exchanges in order to train themselves professionally or to open up new career opportunities. Unlike the internationally oriented LinkedIn, however, the platform is primarily geared towards German-speaking countries. Even if the multilingual user interface covers all relevant markets, over 90% of all Xing traffic comes from the D-A-CH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland). Nevertheless, Xing’s user base of approximately 15 million  can prove quite useful for website operators. Particularly if these German-speaking countries are relevant to your target group, it can be worthwhile possible to link your Xing profile to your website.

Xing offers three social plugins that enable users to interact via the social network.

Xing also has a social plugin that enables your website’s visitors to log into your website or app using their existing Xing profile. With this plugin, users avoid a long-winded registration process — often the biggest obstacle in the registration process.

To integrate a social plugin from Xing, you simply need to generate the required JavaScript code using the code configurator at dev.xing.com/plugins/ and embed it into your online project. The code line should be pasted in the source text in the exact position that the button should appear on the webpage.

In addition, Xing provides a social plugin for Microsoft Outlook 365 that allows users to import their current Xing contact data into the popular e-mail program automatically.

Now that you’re familiar with the most important social media plugins and the various possibilities for interaction these provide, all that remains is to ask yourself the following question: would these functions have a positive effect on the performance of my website?

One thing is for certain: the search engine market leader, Google, does not take social signals like likes, shares, tweets, or pins into account as part of the ranking algorithm. Matt Cutts, the former head of the Google Web Spam team, explains the reasons behind this decision in a 2014 YouTube video.

In the short video clip, Cutts explains that Google doesn’t consider the potential number of followers website owners have gained/could gain for their content as a relevant criterion for the Google rankings. Similarly, likes and shares are not taken into account for the positioning of search results.

The reason for this is simple: Google considers posts on Facebook, Twitter, etc., to be individual webpages, which, in principle, can be indexed. However, social networking sites generate much more new content every day than traditional websites, and not all of these webpages are relevant. Google ultimately works with limited resources, albeit at a tremendously high level. It can be assumed that the search engine market leader does not attempt to crawl and index social media.

The webmasters at Google have also considered the fact that social media content and connections are often volatile. Users are free to delete posts, change their relationship status, end friendships, unlike a page and unsubscribe from their contacts at any time. Each indexing would therefore only be representative of a moment, carrying little overall weight. Google also does not necessarily have access to all content on Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms.

But that’s not to say that social plugins do not have an effect on the success of your website. In fact, there is an extremely strong correlation between social signals and the Google ranking position of that website, according to a 2016 Searchmetrics study. This study proves the correlation is even higher than with any other factor that has an influence on the ranking. But correlation doesn’t automatically lead to a causal connection.

One explanation for the fact that high-ranking websites often also produce a lot of social signals is as follows: the highest positions in the search engine results pages (SERPs) are usually occupied by well-known brands. These brands tend to have their own social media department, whose primary aim is to maintain a dominant position in social media.

It would be a mistake to interpret a social plugin as a kind of SEO plugin. Instead of focusing on your ranking in the search engine, you should take into account the following effects that creating connections to social media can bring:

• Social plugins can expand the outreach of your content and help to generate a larger reader base.

• Generating new traffic through shares and likes on social media platforms directly increases traffic to your website at the same time.

• Having a strong presence in the most popular social networking sites increases awareness of your company, your brands, goods, and services.

• Every social media plugin acts as a point of contact with potential customers who are part of the touchpoint management and can be used to ensure a positive brand experience.

You should, therefore, perhaps consider social plugins not, in terms of search engine optimization but rather the potential effect on the brand name, reputation, customer service, customer relationships, and reliability.