We are using a "share this" button for a video based startup, and in my experience it is not important how many people will click on that button, but the potential traffic that those link could generate. So my conclusion is that share this button is very effective for video advertising but less effective for social bookmarking.
Ask HN: How effective are "share this" buttons?
31–40 of 40 posts
Re: Ask HN: How effective are "share this" buttons?
#32When looking at music listings, the button to add the event to my Ggle calendar is kick-ass. I guess I could share my calendar with others too. I just thought I would share that with you.
Re: Ask HN: How effective are "share this" buttons?
#33As I user I do use these buttons, when I am not on my personal machines. If I am on one of my own machines, I use the wonderful Firefox plugin Shareaholic http://www.shareaholic.com/ to easily share links. As a developer would I use these buttons? Yes. Why use these buttons when it is possible for users to manually share links using X service? Because these buttons reduce the cognitive load of sharing that link. Maki…
That's an interesting link. I very much doubt the linearity of these things though.
Re: Ask HN: How effective are "share this" buttons?
#34"Share this" buttons gently remind people to spread the word, even if they don't use the actual button.
(referenced from Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz)
Re: Ask HN: How effective are "share this" buttons?
#35This is a complete guess and have no evidence to support it: I don't believe the buttons offer ANY advantage because the people most likely to use them are the same crowd of enthusiasts that already have the bookmarklets in their "bookmark toolbar" that offer the exact same functionality.
My complete guess is pretty much the opposite :)
My friends have no idea what delicious is, nor other tagging/bookmarking programs, but they love to find interesting/funny content on the web and share that on facebook. I do the same, even though I have delicious and facebook bookmarklets installed. Just lazy I guess
Re: Ask HN: How effective are "share this" buttons?
#36Our stats indicate a 0.3% click rate
Re: Ask HN: How effective are "share this" buttons?
#37interesting topic!
my project will be launching soon, and it'll be interesting to see which implementation we should take:
a) share this buttons b) "email this" button c) no buttons
Re: Ask HN: How effective are "share this" buttons?
#38I'd tell you if we could log into addthis.com with the credentials their site provided as our current username and password. Or if they replied to customer emails. AKA if they weren't a shit pile.
Re: Ask HN: How effective are "share this" buttons?
#39I can offer an alternative point of view in that they're clicked numerous times for other applications. I write tracking software for one of our clients who sends out hundreds of thousands/millions of emails to their 400,000 person email list (all legit/opt in). The emails have links to short movies that they can then click a Share Now/Send To A Friend button so their friend will get the movie link too.
I don't have any numbers off the top of my head, but they have a pretty decent click rate, way more than 10%. Most of these people are a non-technical audience, so I think that has a lot to do with it too.
Re: Ask HN: How effective are "share this" buttons?
#40This is a complete guess and have no evidence to support it: I don't believe the buttons offer ANY advantage because the people most likely to use them are the same crowd of enthusiasts that already have the bookmarklets in their "bookmark toolbar" that offer the exact same functionality.
My complete guess is pretty much the opposite :) My friends have no idea what delicious is, nor other tagging/bookmarking programs, but they love to find interesting/funny content on the web and share that on facebook. I do the same, even though I have delicious and facebook bookmarklets installed. Just lazy I guess
That's an interesting perspective I never considered. I guess I was restricting my domain to 'enthusiast' applications like delicious, reddit, digg, etc. Facebook, I agree, is one place where these links would benefit the user.