What Is Social Sharing?

Date First Published: 15th February 2024

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: SEO

Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Easy

Difficulty Level: 3/10

CONTENTS

Benefits Of Social Sharing
Risks Of Social Sharing
Effects On SEO

Learn about what social sharing is in this article.

Social sharing is the process of posting or reposting web content on a social media website to allow others to view and engage with it, increasing its reach and exposure. The content can be in different forms, including text, images, and videos.

To increase the chances of social shares for a blog post or other webpage, the content needs to be sharable, engaging, and interesting for the audience. For example, a blog post should contain images and videos, Ideally, sharing should be promoted across multiple social media platforms and it should be easy for users to share content with visible social share buttons to increase social shares.

The benefits of social sharing are:

Enhanced reach and visibility - Social sharing can increase the chances of content reaching a wider audience. As users share content, others can engage with it and they may share it further.
User engagement and community building - Social sharing is an effective way to build an online community and encourage engagement.
Traffic and conversions - Sharing content can drive traffic to websites and landing pages, which can lead to increased conversions.

Social sharing also comes with some risks. These include:

Risk of reputational harm - Once content is shared on social media, it can spread beyond the creator's control and can be commented on and interpreted in ways that the creator did not intend, which could bring unwanted attention and cause reputational harm.
Content misalignment - If the content is not aligned with the interests of the target audience or is poorly written, it can lead to a negative brand image.

Effects On SEO

Although social shares are not a direct ranking factor, they can indirectly affect SEO in that the backlinks generated through social media can improve the ranking of pages in SERPs. These backlinks are important for SEO as they increase the visibility of pages on search engines and contribute to a website's authority. Increased brand exposure can also influence the behaviour of searchers as they are more likely to click on a result that comes from a strong brand.