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I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs

ankursethi.com

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Re: I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs

#51

Post by deepsun »

afavour wrote: post #14
raincole wrote: post #10

> The share buttons got clicked 14,078 times. That’s a 0.21% usage rate, which works out to about 1 in 476 visitors. In other words, people not only click share buttons, but do it quite often?

Yeah I think the author needs a dose of reality about how many users do anything on a site. Something that 1 in 476 visitors do isn't that bad. Especially when there's no real ongoing cost to doing so.

Especially on government websites like gov.uk serve. It's not a website with cute beanie hats you'd want to share on your socials.

Re: I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs

#53

Post by joshstrange »

theturtletalks wrote: post #43
joshstrange wrote: post #31

0.21% sounds low but my initial thought is "I don't know if they are making the point they think they are". Conversion rates are always pretty low. That said, I've never clicked on a share button mostly because: - I don't know what it will do, it's not consistent at all - It might add extra crap "Your friend shared 'Story Title' with you!" - It will probably try/want to add tracking crap I always just copy the URL an…

Exactly but companies have started hijacking the copy icon button as well. You’d think that would just copy what’s in the text box, but they add tracking and other stuff. The worst is the YouTube share button. You can share the button with the exact second mark in the video and I would do that. Then one time I noticed the URL was shortened and added a lot of tracking.

Nothing bugs me more than copy/pasting some text from an article and getting:

    "Text that you copied"
    
    - From XYZ Times (httx://abc123.tld/path/to/article)
Apple Books does that nonsense as well and it drives me up a wall.

I'm sure there are browser extensions to tame but this thankfully there aren't many website that do this that I care to visit often.

> Then one time I noticed the URL was shortened and added a lot of tracking.

Ugh, yeah, this is really annoying as well. When a dedicated share button is my only option (like in a mobile app) I often open an incognito/private browsers window and paste it in so I can get redirected and then rip off all the tracking crap. Back when I used TikTok I had an iOS shortcut that I would "share" to which would rip off all the tracking for me. I always would feel gross when someone "anonymous" would share a TikTok or similar link and there would be a banner at the top of the page "Real Name shared this with you, follow them?".

Re: I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs

#54

Post by filup »

mgiampapa wrote: post #9

I use share buttons all the time on social platforms, and apps like Amazon that don't have any other way of deep linking. Lot's of people use apps that don't expose a link, share buttons are great and even better when they use standards like your OS's share functionality.

I have a hunch that amazon links do track somehow based on timing. Does anybody do that?

There are so many products on amazon sharing a link to one specific product and having someone else open it shortly after sounds like a high enough confidence.

Again just a hunch.

Re: I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs

#55

Post by preciousoo »

raincole wrote: post #10

> The share buttons got clicked 14,078 times. That’s a 0.21% usage rate, which works out to about 1 in 476 visitors. In other words, people not only click share buttons, but do it quite often?

What definition of “often” includes a 0.21% rate?

Re: I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs

#56

Post by 6510 »

jdw64 wrote: post #34

0.2 %is quite significant, isn't it? My small website (www.makonea.com) gets about 90,000 visitors a month on average. (That's about 300 per day?) So that means a post gets shared about once every two days. Maybe I should seriously consider making my posts more shareable. And if I promote it on HN, I'd hope there's a 0.2 %chance that people would check out my site.

Imagine what buying high value visitors costs. 10 bucks is nothing to gain one person who is actually interested. At least 300 free money right there

Re: I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs

#57

Post by jatora »

blitzar wrote: post #32
raincole wrote: post #10

> The share buttons got clicked 14,078 times. That’s a 0.21% usage rate, which works out to about 1 in 476 visitors. In other words, people not only click share buttons, but do it quite often?

> Visitors were twelve times more likely to click an advertisement. I would have guessed clicking on ads was rare

I work in digital marketing and I am continually shocked by the amount of people that click my disgusting ads. (nearly all advertisements are morally disgusting)

Re: I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs

#59

Post by preciousoo »

kxrm wrote: post #35

Reddit is full of YouTube links with the `si=` param which indicates they clicked the "Share" button. All indicators are this article's premise is not true.

The link sharing platform is full of people interested in sharing links, that makes sense, similar to how a mall would be full of people interested in shopping

Re: I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs

#60

Post by 6510 »

TheRoque wrote: post #47

I click on the share button to get the link, that I copy and share myself. And it's on my phone only, on my computer I'd just copy the URL since I'm out of an app The YouTube share feature let you pick the time to share but they removed it for some reason m..

it now is the tiny toggle at the right top.
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