Social Media Integration: The Benefits and How To…

Social Media Integration Can Help Connect the Dots for Your Customers

Social media integration might not seem like a place to look to incrementally improve your year end numbers, but bear with us.

As we approach the end of the year and in-house marketers are pulled between driving end-of-year results AND setting budgets for an uncertain economic new year, there’s a lot of pressure to deliver more with less. One of the ways you can squeeze a little more out of your marketing budget is to leverage social media integration.

Overall, social media integration into a website is an effective way to build brand awareness, generate leads and sales, and increase customer loyalty. By following the following tips, you can successfully integrate social media into your website and achieve the benefits that it offers.

In this post we’ll look at what social media integration is, why social media integration is important, how it works, what the benefits are, and a few strategies you can start using today to see immediate benefits from social media integration.

Immediate Social Media Integration Inspiration

If you’re anything like us, you hate having to scroll through the definitions, history, why something is important, statistics, and more just to get to the good stuff. So, while the “how to” is further down, we wanted to get you some real inspiration for integrating social media into your website right up front. Here are four things you can do to get the wheels turning: 

• Display valuable social media UGC on website to build social proof & increase conversions
• Branded Hashtag Feed
• Add social posts to your website
• Add prominent social links on web pages
• Create the option to login with socials
• Incentivize users to join your social community
• Create great blog content and add sharing options
• Display social media videos
• Having a commenting system
• Social proofs

[dondivi_layout id=”371133″]

1. Display valuable social media UGC on website – UGC or User Generated Content can be anything created by your users including blog posts, images, and videos. This can help build social proof and increase conversions by providing valuable information that customers can trust.
2. Branded hashtag feed – By adding a branded hashtag to your website’s social media links, you can help followers discover and follow your brand’s latest posts and discussions. This will help to increase engagement and promote cross-promotion between your social media accounts. A branded hashtag feed can be as simple as setting up a feed on your site (see below) and have it filter ONLY posts that include your branded hashtag.
3. Add social posts to your website – Including relevant blog posts on your website can help generate leads and drive traffic back to your site. By incorporating share buttons, you can encourage potential customers to share your content with their friends.
4. Add prominent social links on web pages – Including links to relevant social media profiles on all of your web pages can help increase the reach of your content and drive more leads through social media Integration.
5. Create the option to login with socials – Giving users the ability to sign in with their social media accounts on your website allows them to access all of their accounts in one place, making it easier for them to stay connected with your brand.
6. Incentivize users to join your social community – Offering exclusive content, discounts, and other incentives to users who join your social media community can drive more leads through social media Integration. Including offers that appear via your website can more closely tie your socials together.
7. Create great blog content and add sharing options – By creating valuable and interesting blog content, you can help promote your brand on a wider scale. Additionally, adding share buttons and enabling comments on blog posts can increase the chances of customers leaving positive feedback about your brand online.
8. Display social media videos – Including high quality social media videos on your website can help to increase engagement and promote brand awareness. You can also use video content as an opportunity to teach customers about your product or service in a more engaging way.
9. Have a commenting system – Having a commenting system enabled on all of your web pages allows customers to leave feedback, ask questions, and engage with one another around topics related to your business.
10. Social proofs – Including images and videos of customers using your products or services can help to show potential customers that your brand is legitimate and worth considering.

Social Media Integration Defined

So, what is social media integration?

Simply put, social media integration is the process of integrating social media accounts into a website or other online presence. This can be done in a few ways: by embedding social media widgets on a website, through third-party social media management tools like Hootsuite, or by setting up dedicated pages for each social media platform on your site.

Social media integration provides businesses with endless opportunities. Luxury brands, for example, are already using social media and integrating them with their websites. Using social media aggregators on their websites, these brands display user-generated content created by their brands. As a result, they are able to attract more customers and boost their sales.

Why is It Important?

The integration of social media can enhance the marketing efforts of an organization by increasing followers and driving more traffic to the website. Many websites now feature share buttons, live Twitter feeds, and other social media integration. In addition to these tools, social media integration is also used to increase the visibility of marketing campaigns and to increase brand awareness.

Let’s dig into a few reasons why integrating social media into your website is important. 

1. First, it gives your website greater reach. By including links to your social media accounts on your site, you’re giving readers an easy way to connect with you and learn more about what you do. 
2. Second, social media integration can help you better track your brand’s reach and engagement. By tracking which posts are getting the most likes, shares, or comments, you can determine which content is resonating with your audience and make sure you’re spending your time and resources where they’re most effective. 
3. Third, social media integration can help you build relationships with potential customers. When they see your website as the place where they can find out more about your products and services, they’re more likely to buy from you. 78% of consumers are more willing to buy from a brand after a positive interaction on social media.

Social media integration will make your website more interactive and personal. After all, people like to buy from people they trust. By integrating social media with your website, you can show your visitors who you are and how you do business. It will also help you build a relationship with your customers. You can engage customers by letting them leave comments, ask specific questions, or even send them direct messages.

How Does Social Media Integration Work?

There are a few different ways to integrate social media into your website. The simplest way is to embed a widget on your website that will take users to your corresponding social media account when they click on it. This method is popular among smaller businesses because it’s easy to set up and doesn’t require any programming skills.

Another way to integrate social media into your website is through third-party social media management tools. These tools allow you to administer all of your social media accounts from one place, track your brand’s performance across all of your channels, and run automated posts and ads on all of your accounts.

The most popular way to integrate social media into a website is by setting up dedicated pages for each platform. This method is popular among larger businesses because it allows you to control the look and feel of each page, as well as the content that appears on it. You can also use this method to create separate accounts for different parts of your business (e.g. website, blog, social media, etc.).

Social Media Integration Tips

There are a few ways you can integrate social media into a website.

However, before you start, take the time to audit your social media accounts and make sure that they’re all aligned with your business goals and objectives. This will help you to determine which platforms are most relevant to your audience and which content is best suited for publication on those platforms.

1. First, you need to make sure that your posts are relevant to your audience and designed in a way that will draw their attention. If your posts are too promotional or focused on your own products rather than the benefits that your audience can gain from using them, they’ll be ignored.
2. Second, you need to make sure that your website design is compatible with social media integration. Most websites today are, however if your website platform is too simple (it doesn’t allow too much customization) or too complex (it requires a developer to make any changes), you might struggle here.
3. Third, you need to make sure that the content on your social media pages is suitable for publication on a website. You need to make sure that the content you publish on social media is relevant to your business and resonates with your audience. If it’s not, they’re likely to ignore it, which will erode the impact of your social media presence and lead to lower customer conversion rates.
4. Fourth, you need to be sure that the links between your social media pages and your website are accurate and easy to use. If your customers are having trouble finding the links, or if they experience any technical issues when clicking them, they’re likely to abandon your social media presence altogether.
5. Fifth, you need to make sure that all of your posts are published regularly in order to keep your audience engaged. If you don’t publish new content, your audience will grow restless and move on to other sources of information.
6. Sixth, you need to make sure that your posts are well-written and engaging enough to compel your audience to read them.

How to Integrate Social Media Into Your Website

One unique way to integrate social media into your website is by setting up dedicated pages for each theme, topic or platform. This method is popular among larger businesses because it allows you to control the look and feel of each page, as well as the content that appears on it. You can also use this method to create separate accounts for different parts of your business (e.g. website, blog, social media, etc.).

How to leverage social media integration on your website:

1. Log in to your account on whichever social media platform you’re using.
2. Click on the “Pages” tab at the top of the screen.
3. Under “Pages,” click on the “Create a New Page” button.
4. Enter a name for your page and select a category from the drop-down menu.
5. Select the social media theme, topic or platform from which you’d like to publish your content.
6. Click on the “Publish” button.
7. Add your desired content and publish it. If you’re using a popular platform like WordPress, this can be achieved quickly through the use of a plugin or theme.
8. Repeat these steps for each theme, topic or social media platform that you want to integrate into your website.

Social Media Integration Mistakes to Avoid

In the following, we’ll look at different mistakes made when integrating social media into your website, including:

• Don’t add share buttons to service pages
• Don’t link to dead accounts
• Don’t show low sharing numbers
• Beware of heavy Javascript

1. Don’t add share buttons to service pages – why would you avoid this? Adding share buttons to service pages can be a way to increase the number of shares and retweets that your content receives. However, this can also lead to users leaving your site without taking any action or completing any tasks. Additionally, if your service pages are not focused on providing information or services that are relevant to social media, then it’s unlikely that users will share them on social media anyway.
2. Don’t link to dead accounts – this is another common mistake made when integrating social media into a website. By linking to inactive or dead accounts, you’re giving users the impression that your site is trustworthy and reliable. Furthermore, by linking to inactive or dead accounts, you’re likely causing traffic and leads to disappear.
3. Don’t show low sharing numbers – this is another mistake made when integrating social media into a website because it can give the false impression that the content is popular and worth sharing—OR if your sharing numbers are low, it could send the message that people don’t really find value in your content.
4. Beware of heavy Javascript usage – when integrating social media into a website, it’s important to use light or no Javascript at all. This will help to keep the page load time down and ensure that users have a smooth experience when visiting your site. If you’re going to use Javascript, make sure you are able to minimize it.

Drive Growth Integration 

Integrating social media into a website can be a great way to grow your business. By following these tips, you’ll be able to create content that is both relevant and engaging, and keep your audience engaged with regular updates.

Ultimately this means tight integration between your content hub: your website, and your social channels. This should improve the process your users go through as they move through your funnels.