Socialize It!
Contents
Socialize It!
Social media marketing has come into its own on the Web.
Thousands of Web pages are "bookmarked" by Delicious and StumbleUpon users every day, for others to discover. Facebook and Twitter users regularly share pages they like with their networks of friends or followers.
Social media marketing can result in solid traffic increases, if done correctly, so let's get you started doing it the right way...
There are many ways to use social media marketing sites to help your site. The TNT HQ has a Social Media Marketing series of articles to help you make the most of these opportunities. The link below will get you started...
http://sbitips.sitesell.com/social-marketing.html
Socialize It! gives you an easy way to add the buttons of the most important socializing sites to just about every page on your site. That gives your visitors many easy ways to share your site and spread the word.
Where and How Socialize It! Is Added
Socialize It!'s button bar has either 2 buttons or 8 buttons (you get to decide) and an optional link with text that you can customize...
These buttons and link appear at the bottom of each page of your site, except for a few excluded pages (see below). SiteBuilder adds them to your page after the last block you add (ex., a Text block containing Google Analytics code, a navigation Text Link block, etc.). On a block-built home page, the buttons appear after your Table of Contents, just before the footer.
The buttons are placed between horizontal lines, which are used to highlight the buttons and separate them from the content of your page.
The button bar is added to every page of your site, except for the following pages...
- default error pages (generated by SBI!)
- password-protected pages
- thank you pages for MailOut Manager, FBI! forms, and C2 submissions (generated by SBI!)
- for uploaders, all include files (you can add the ***SOCIALIZEIT*** tag to an include, wherever you want the button bar to appear, but SBI! will not add the button bar to your include files)
Add Socialize It! to Your Pages?
- Click Yes, 2-Pack or Yes, 8-Pack to add the Socialize It! button bar to all of your block-built pages.
- Click No to remove the button bar from all of your block-built pages.
- Click on the Socialize It! button to complete the process after you choose the next options.
If you're using SBI!'s block-by-block SiteBuilder, you must use this module to add Socialize It!.
When you enable Socialize It!, it adds the button bar to all your block-built pages (except for those noted above). Your entire site will be rebuilt with the Socialize It! button bar. (It could take an hour or three.)
You can remove the Socialize It! button bar, page-by-page, by editing any page in the usual manner -- you will now see an option to not include Socialize It! when you build pages block-by-block.
Ready?
To "Socialize It!" here, click on Yes, 2-Pack or Yes, 8-Pack and then click on Socialize It!.
If you later decide to remove Socialize It! from all your pages, click on the No button, then click on Socialize It!.
A good idea... If you have already been experimenting with social media marketing, you should also check your pages for any prior references to sharing your pages. Remove those references (in block-built and uploaded pages) and rebuild the pages.
Do You Want To Add a "What's This?" Link on the Button Bar?
- Click Yes to add the link.
- Click my own custom HTML explanation if you prefer to write your own.
- Enter the URL if you're using a custom explanation, after uploading and building the page.
- Click the Socialize It! button.
Some people aren't familiar with social media, and so won't be familiar with many of the buttons in the Socialize It! button bar. You can provide a link to a page that describes what social media are, and how to add your page to their favorite (or first) social media.
You can find the default message by clicking on the What's This? link in the Preview at the bottom of the tool page.
If you want to add the default What's This message, click Yes.
If you want to use a custom message, build your page first (with blocks or by uploading it). Then return to Socialize It!, click Yes, then click on my own custom HTML explanation, and enter the full URL, starting with http://.
Tip
- If you plan to upload a custom explanation, view the applicable default explanation (2-Pack or 8-Pack), view the source code, and copy the code. Replace the text with your own content, save, and upload the file.
Do You Want To Add a "Pay It Forward" Link Below the Button Bar?
- Click Yes to add the "Pay It Forward" link.
- Enter the text for the link visitors will click on.
- Select the background color you want the instructions box to appear on.
- Click on Socialize It! to save your changes.
- To remove the Pay It Forward link, click on No, and then click on Socialize It!.
The "Pay It Forward" link allows your visitors to copy some link HTML for this page, and add it to their blogs, Facebook profile (or page), Web pages, or anywhere else they can think of.
To add the Pay It Forward link below every Socialize It! button bar, click Yes. Then enter the text you would like to use for the link (maximum of 65 characters).
Select the background color on which you want the instructions to appear. The default is gray. You can select Transparent, which will show your site's background color, White, or the color of your choice by selecting Choose Color, then clicking on one of the 216 colors in the palette.
When you're done, click on the Socialize It! button to save your changes. That's it! You've just added a box to each page that has the Socialize It! button bar (it opens when your visitors click on the link).
The box on each page contains the URL for that page. The text in the code is taken from the Title you give the page. In the example above, the code in the box is from the Anguilla Villas, Hotels, or Resorts? page of anguilla-beaches.com.
Special Note for Those Who Upload Their Own HTML
If you upload your own pages, you add a new tag, ***SOCIALIZEIT***, to each content page of your site. Naturally, it's easier to add it to an existing SBI! include file. If you're using one of the SBI! CSS-based 3-column templates, add it to z-socializeit.shtml.
Wherever you add the ***SOCIALIZEIT*** tag, either in the page code itself or in an include file, the button bar appears on the live page. Simply remove the ***SOCIALIZEIT*** tag and upload the page or include file again to remove the button bar.
Where should you put it? At the bottom of each page. Why? No one is likely to share your page until they've finished reading it. Then they'll know how valuable your page is, and want to bookmark it/share it with others.
If you add the tag to a new include, be sure to use Upload Your Own HTML to upload one page. That will ensure that SBI! asks for the include file to be uploaded. If you're adding the tag to an existing include, simply re-upload the Include file itself using Quick Upload It!. Depending on the number of pages on your site, you'll see the button bar on all pages within 60-120 minutes (you may have to refresh a page to see the change).
For more information and instructions about using the Socialize It! tag in uploaded pages, see the Built-In Functions help in the Upload Your Own HTML module.
Very Important
If your entire site is HTML-uploaded, and you are not going to use the Pay It Forward link, you do not need to use this module to "activate" Socialize It!. (You do if some of your pages are block-built.)
If you plan to use the Pay It Forward link, you must activate Socialize It! (and change the link text if you desire), by clicking on the Socialize It! button at the bottom of the tool page.
If you're already using the ***SOCIALIZEIT*** tag, and want to customize the Pay It Forward link text, you will also need to activate it by clicking on the Socialize It! button at the bottom of the tool page.