Do Social Sharing Counters Influence Your Opinion or Behavior?
Miles Austin
Miles Austin is "The Web Tools Guy", providing tools, technology, and training for progressive thinkers.
You've been seeing these social sharing icons for many years now, and most of them show the number of times that the content has been shared in some fashion as this image shows.
Do these counters have any influence on how you perceive the value of the content or your desire to share it?
Please answer the six brief poll questions and learn the results as others respond to these questions.
Many top sites including LinkedIn, are testing the impact of not showing these counters as you will notice above.
In addition, many top-tier blogs have decided to shut off Comments from their readers. Reasons given include a significant drop-off in comments left, to spam, etc. Some are thinking that with the strength of social sharing, readers prefer to share rather than comment as they might have in the past.
Please share your views on these six brief questions at this link: http://www.fillthefunnel.com/social-sharing-counters/ and learn what everyone else is thinking after you respond.
Please share this with your connections and peers to that we can get the largest response possible. Visit the link from time to time to see what the consensus is.
Career Pivot | Author of Repurpose Your Career A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life | Forbes Top 100 Career Website | Podcast Host & Producer of the Award Winning Repurpose Your Career Podcast
9yMiles Austin, I tend to get very few comments on my blog but get lots of comments where I have share it like LI group, LI, FB, G+.... It is where it is shared is where I get the comments. What I do not see is if someone else has shared it and the comments it generates.
Former OLLI Manager
9yAnd I should say that Andrew's LinkedIn Insights blog is excellent!
Former OLLI Manager
9yWell stated, Andrew. I participate in this poll and I appreciate the social counters, but I also recognize this could just be a distraction.
Reassuringly expensive LinkedIn Coach.
9yThanks Miles Austin for bringing attention to this and for trying to shed light on the subject. I've followed the social share stats on my blog closely and like to think that they provide some kind of insight. If the showing of stats and comments is proven to have any kind of negative effect on user enjoyment/participation, I'll have no hesitation in removing them from my site.