Phil Lauterjung

Perhaps my first question should be, do you know what those social buttons are and why should you use them? OK, so that was really two questions. Most bloggers are told to put them somewhere on their pages when they first start blogging. That way, we are told, your readers can share your wisdom easily with others. At this point I have lost count as to how many buttons one would have if they showed them all. The other problem is that only people with way too much time know what they all represent. So, I found it interesting when Pingdom recently surveyed the Technorati Top 100 blogs to discover which of those little buggers really get used.

Social Share Button Usage on Top 100 Blogs

Here’s a chart showing their results:

What’s most interesting is after the top 4 options there is a dramatic drop off. That seems to beg the question – do we really need the dozens and dozens of options that are currently available? By “we” I’m really speaking to the blogger community and their readers. It would seem that the “general share option” is sufficient to cover the many dozens of lesser known communities. Indeed, 58 of the top 100 include the general share option; with 19 having that as their only option.

Another interesting finding was that 6 of the top 100 don’t have any sharing option. Hmmmm, I wonder what that says? Do they have so many readers that they don’t feel the sharing option is necessary?

What’s Up With Google Buzz?

You may have noticed that Google Buzz only shows up on 6 of the top 100. That might seem surprising since Google has made a large push in promoting Buzz; and, in trying to address the early complaints. However, Google has not yet released an official button to use for Buzz. Others have jumped in and designed their own buttons, button Google hasn’t. Of course Twitter has never released an official button either, and that doesn’t seem to hinder them.

Here are some to the third party Buzz buttons that Pingdom found in their survey:

Google Buzz Buttons

What has been your experience with using these buttons? Do you use them, and if you do, which ones? I be particularly interested in hearing from those that use some of the lesser known buttons/communities. What do you get from those that you don’t get from the highly used ones like Twitter and Facebook?

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