Recently one of my blogging buddies asked me this question.
Question is so small..
My answer is.. this post!
I’m making a post exclusively on this topic because I wanted to let my readers know that less is more while sharing content.
Why you should not use all the sharing buttons in your sidebar?
I think you will better understand what I’m saying by looking at the image (see the right side image once).
I will explain bit more about it now..
Lets answer this question first.
Why do we use social sharing buttons in our blogs?
To get more exposure, social proof etc right?
I’m pretty sure that we don’t need all of them to get more exposure! Because they don’t work at all.
Moreover, if you use bunch of social sharing buttons (which are useless), you are making your blog’s loading time even slower!
Once we will analyze what’s wrong with the blog which is using too many sharing options.. And lets discuss what can that blogger do to get more exposure from his blog.
If you observe the image, you can easily say that, he is not at all getting exposure from
- LinkdIn
- StumbleUpon and
- BufferApp
Why his readers are not sharing his content?
This is the single most important thing that everyone should understand.
You should give as less options as possible if you want to make your readers to take action while reading your blog.
What to do to get more social networking exposure?
Simple.
Provide less options.
The less options you provide, your readers are more likely to share your content!
Don’t you believe me?
Okay, here’s another blogger who is giving less options to his readers to share his content (but he is getting maximum exposure).
The less options you give, the more you’ll get!
What did you observe?
More shares, more tweets and more +1′s right?
That’s the power of “less is more” strategy.
It works..
Because the above image you are seeing is my recent posts image! You have to trust me, because I’ve shown you the live proof (here’s the link to that post) and also I discussed why you should not provide too many options to your readers to get unnoticed.
Over to you
Only few people will follow this strategy… who are smart enough to understand the logic behind this.
I hope you understand the logic 
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
In my opinion, this is one of the smartest tips ever shared.
And you’re right – people will doubt and not use it. But not only will people not make any choice at all, they will (a) make no choice, thus not share; (b) choose only the most popular social sharing sites (the ones with the highest counter numbers, because people are basically herd animals); (c) choose only their one favorite site (leaders among the herd); or (d) share somewhere else, but in such small numbers that you only dilute your exposure and never gain “critical mass” required for anyone to notice or care.
Have you ever tried this experiment, though, without showing the buttons? Is there a way to artificially show a higher count on one of the lesser used buttons to see if my theory (b) above really holds true? (I’ve done this on other sites with different counters – it holds true on polls where people can see a count of votes before voting.)
Hello Holly
I’m glad that you’ve commented here after a long time. I’ve never published my content without showing the sharing buttons.
Thanks for your insightful comment, I think I need to analyze it bit more!
One more awesome post Rahul (Y). I’m totally agreed with this. Just going to uninstall “Share This” plugin
Thanks for stopping by Vidu
Rahul, you always shares powerful tips, I do agree with you, the floating bar sharing buttons isn’t good. It not only makes a blog load blog, but it has many more disadvantages like It makes it difficult for readers to read the post.
So, that is the reason Daniel is using only two social sharing buttons which is Twitter and Facebook below his posts on Daily Blog Tips.
This is another lessons I have learned from your blog today, Thanks.
Ehsan U.
Wow. You got my point Ehsan. So, you understood the logic behind this strategy now, I hope you will try it on your blog too!
ya really @mr. Rahul i am Agree With you but stumble is batter you can use one more sharing button in your blog if you agree with me than you can do it all of that’s your post is very awesome keep it up
I don’t use SU for my social sharing Rahul, may be I’ll give it try soon! Thanks for the tip
I am agree with Rahul Kashyap , You just try stumbleupon and it will give you huge traffic. We have already implemented stumbleupon my our blogs are getting pretty nice traffic from them.
Interesting post Rahul!
A lot can be discussed about this topic, which makes it rather interesting.
While I have been thinking about reducing my buttons from the side bar too, but I see a lot of people using all the buttons that I put up, which makes it tough for me to decide!
I think perhaps a lot depends on your blog visitors. If you notice after putting up several buttons that there are some social networks that aren’t doing well, it’s best to remove them. But if they are working well for you and people are sharing your content through then, then why not let them be on your blog.
Yes, the loading time and speed play major roles and if you really have more buttons it slows down your blog a little. Also, like you mentioned if you are targeting just 2-3 main networks, then less is always better. But then what about the other networks and how do people share your post on those? (Just inquisitive so I ask!)
Another option is to have a simple ‘Share” button somewhere on your blog through which people can share your posts on various networks too.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Harleena
You’ve raised so many interesting questions, I’d love to answer to few of them.
If you give valuable content to your readers, they will share your content no matter you’ve sharing buttons or not. That’s bit tricky part though, we need to provide them flexibility and easiness while sharing. But I don’t think we should put all the sharing buttons on their faces to share the content. This will surely make them panic, they may don’t use anything to share and they may leave without taking any action after reading a good blog post (this happens every time with me)
For any blogger, there will be few favorite traffic sources from where he/she gets good amount of traffic everyday. For me Facebook and twitter are the biggest traffic sources. I also use remaining social media networks such as Digg, SU etc, but I’m not good at driving quality traffic from them (this is also one of the reasons, I don’t use all of them).
But as you said, it’s really a smart idea to use ‘share’ button on our blogs, actually I’ve tried it too, but it dint work for me!
Thanks for stopping by and sharing a wonderful comment Harleena
Agreed Rahul. Less is always more. And with the given info overload on the internet I’m sure if you give more options, you simply confuse your readers.
However, (pertaining to this particular post) we might need to experiment on the social services and their placement in order to get the picture of what works for our blogs. Coz not all blogs are the same.
I do this quite often
Thanks for the brilliant tip!
Hello Jane,
I think I’ve missed this point “If you give more options, you are unnecessarily confusing your readers in the crowded internet”.
Thanks for adding value to the post. And also I agree “all blogs are not the same”. We need to experiment to know which works better.
Thanks for stopping by Jane
Hi Rahul
Nice post
less is more. i agree with you , it is always better to use few most popular social share buttons rather then confusing the visitors with many social share buttuns, which most of the visitors may not have account with. It is better to promote your post in major social networks which majority of the visitors have account on.
thanks for sharing
Bryan
Hi Bryan,
Glad you like the post. Promoting our content in major social networking sites can bring quality and consistent traffic to our sites. Also we should never intimidate our readers.
Thanks for dropping your comment, keep visiting!
How about the one I’m using? It is much different than the ones you’ve pointed out and will it work?
Interesting points here though
Yours is perfect fit for blogger platform blogs. I don’t usually blogger platform blogs, but you are maintaining it as if you are running it on a WordPress platform. Nice work
Hehe thanks. 18th is nearing
Hey Bro,
I only use 3 social share buttons aswell, as I want my content to be shared on those platforms only. Why? because those are the places I want to target and feel is best suited to the content.
People overload readers with too many options, along with wasting an opportunity by displaying sub-par social buttons.
I like minimal
===
Simmeon
Hi Simmeon,
Minimalism is the way to go if you want to make a better blog for your readers.
Ask any pro web designer, he will say “less is more”. But noobs don’t find it as a pro tip, they make everything complex by doing nasty things!
I’m glad that you’re also using the same digit (3)
awesome tips…. also using lots of javascript on your blog to load those buttons will cause your blog to move slower.
great tips as well…
Thanks for stopping by Kharim
You’re doing really great with your blog and congrats for finishing 300 posts on your blog, I’m really glad.
Well, I am already using only 3 sharing buttons and same plugin that you are using
Why ? Because Less is more. Great going Rahul..
Having all those social buttons could make you think that it’s good since you’re making it easily sharable across different networks, but there are times that those buttons aren’t doing you any good at all. I have to agree with what you said about limiting it to just those networks with the better engagement.
Gerald Martin
What I do is I just see from which social networking sites am getting more visits then I will add that site`s sharing button.
This is what I’m doing now on WPSquare, it surely works
I use FB, Twitter, Google+ and in additional to these 3, I also use stumbleupon which is good to get some referral traffic.
You are right on this topic to the possible extent. Giving more sharing options will create a mess and they will stay unused. Better is to give only three basic sharing buttons as they are the real bosses when talking about social media
Dude… Pinterest and SU together send me half my daily traffic. And LinkedIn, these days, I feel it much better than this distracting facebook. However, I don’t get much from FB/Twitter/Google+
Awesome Tip Rahul,
Every one use almost every social site sharing link, I am one of them Now gonna try your Tips on my blog..
Thanks for sharing…
Wow, I never knew that social sharing buttons can slow down a wordpress blog.
Thanks for sharing, honestly among all the sharing buttons options on my blog, only facebook like, google plus and twitter button I noticed people were using.
Rahul, Thanks for your visit to site and suggestion. After reading the article immediately implemented “less is more” strategy
Though less is not always more, less is at least more in this situation. Too many choices and you’re sure to confuse readers and drive them away.
Very useful share indeed, Rahul.
But your website is more popular. Your readers are more hence you get more social shares. The comparison is unfair.
Hey Rahul,
My last article outlined 7 reasons why people don’t share out blog posts and I think I missed out this one you shared here. It’s very smart and correct. I’ll have to kick off some idle buttons from my bar.
Very excellent post man
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