Do you know how to transform your website for social media by using WordPress plugins? These suggestions will offer several ways to improve your online presence without significantly adding to your workload — tools that take advantage of shareable content, site speed, comments and more.
The use of social media is a necessity today for online marketers. Reaching your audience through social platforms is the key to any successful digital marketing strategy.
However, managing multiple accounts, posts and interacting with your audience can be time-consuming. The good news is there are plugins available to help with all your social media endeavors.
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WordPress has some of the best plugins you can use in the social sharing space. But before considering any of the free or paid plugins, it is imperative that you take some time to review the pros and cons of each tool.
The right one should help you meet your objectives with all the services needed to complete your tasks easily. Before we dive into some of the best plugins on WordPress, here are a few practices you should muster to achieve better results:
Create shareable content
Even with the use of the best WordPress plugin, if your content is not shareable, you will not achieve your desired objectives.
People love sharing content that holds a personal meaning for them. Therefore, to create must-share content, focus on crafting content that emphasizes on the core wants and needs of your audience, and deliver solutions to their problems.
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For example, if you blog about WordPress, you can write a few posts tackling mistakes that bloggers often make. Start with the topics you are knowledgeable on, and don’t post anything you are not sure about.
Strategize for specific social networks
There are so many social media channels to cover within a very limited period of time. The best approach is to rely on focused strategies. These are more likely to bear better results. There are different ways of tailoring your content so that it has more impact on specific networks.
- Facebook. To succeed on Facebook, give your posts gripping titles that command attention. Include featured images. The opening paragraph should be engaging, too, as your audience will see it before they click on your post.
- Twitter. With Twitter, you are limited to 140 characters. You have to make your posts concise. The content should also arouse curiosity.
- Pinterest. If your posts have visual content, do not ignore Pinterest. Delivering high-quality imagery is the key to succeeding with Pinterest.
- Google Plus. Formatting for Google+ is similar to formatting for Facebook.
Be ready to go viral
Turn to social media with the knowledge that your content might go viral overnight. Therefore, in all your efforts, you must focus on originality and entertainment. Do not copy-and-paste content from your competitors or feed your audience with irrelevant content.
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Leverage the power of your archive
The worst mistake you can make is promoting your best content once and leaving it at that.
Most social media channels make it possible to promote your content more than once with automated schedules. For this to work in your favor, create several versions of promotional materials around your content and feed these to your audience through scheduling tools.
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Automate with plugins
Time is always a factor when it comes to online marketing. Simultaneously managing WordPress and juggling social networks is not easy.
There is a good chance you will forget about one or more networks or compromise on quality to keep up. The good news is WordPress plugins for social media are there to make work easier.
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The social media plugins will help you automate your posts to Twitter, Facebook and any other social media account. There are a couple of plugins you should consider using. Below is a review of some of the best.
Digg Digg
Digg Digg a WordPress sharing plugin that offers a slick share bar located on the left-hand side of your post.
The sidebar floats as you read. It’s also possible to put this button at the top or the bottom of your post. The plugin offers social media newcomers many great features including buttons for Pinterest and Buffer.
With more Internet users relying on blogs for information, these buttons are important in increasing social sharing. Studies show that the placement of sharing buttons can boost social media sharing by up to 7 times.
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SimpleReach
SimpleReach works by presenting your readers with other valuable articles from your blog as they go through a post. The tool helps keep visitors on your blog or website longer and also increases their chance of sharing your articles.
W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is simply a performance plugin that will expedite the loading speed of a blog by up to 10 times.
The plugin works by caching every aspect of a blog or website, which subsequently reduces the download time. Everything is made to be snappy.
A website’s loading speed determines the amount of time spent on it. The longer a website takes to load, the more likely visitors are to click away.
This tool will increase interaction and sharing of your posts by making your website fast.
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Facebook Comments
Just as the name depicts, this plugin makes it possible for readers to comment on a product or post using their Facebook profile. The plugin will boost the number of Facebook shares on your website and also give your audience a better way to interact with your content.
Social Metrics
This plugin will make it easy for you to track your social shares across any network. You can filter the results by category or date to make it easy for you to understand.
Once you know where each of your posts stand in relation to social media shares, you can put more effort to improve the number of shares.
Combining WordPress, social media and social media plugins gives you powerful tools to drive outstanding results for your company. All you need to do is make sure you select the best plugins that are true to the core of your content strategy.
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Jack Dawson is a WordPress enthusiast and a UI and UX specialist for Big Drop Inc. Follow him on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.