I am next week doing a plan on what I can do in Blocs in terms of social media integration.
I have on other platforms a good list of facebook, twitter and instagram layouts to make stylist integrations of these platforms, just wondering what people are doing now
I have the Instagram one sorted in Blocs, as like keep that as a grid and myself and future clients can do pics on their instagram on their mobiles and instantly uploads on the website, but I have seen some stunning ones in the past where the plugin is set like in a camera border, or as a photo inside an iPhone etc !
Twitter I have seen some great layouts and backgrounds. I can do the standard imbedded code as well as instagram.
Any stylish designs, or brics for Blocs - or what has anyone done that is great!?
I did a mention on this a few weeks ago and had no reply - with social media being such a massive part of business integration and other that just putting a link to the twitter page etc - lots of modern business websites have some great ways of displaying their last posts etc.
I do have a way to show images from instagram, but seeing if any of you here have done anything in Blocs to integrate something like a styled twitter grid? or facebook posts in a grid or pattern or something.
Anyone using plugins…good priced ones? or any tips on how to create something modern!? or unique?
HI @TMRJIJ, I saw a post on something like this on another platforms forum when browsing a few weeks ago and everyone was going crazy on it showing examples of plugins, free plugins - tricks with code to help people etc and people were designing some great things and sharing.
As social media plays a HUGE part of businesses, new, successful, brand awareness or social media for getting messages out to clients for announcements etc - i’m so surprised no one is picking up on this subject more for website integration within Blocs.
I’ve never really understood the appetite for displaying social media content on a website. I would have thought it better to allow site visitors to share YOUR WEB CONTENT on their own social media accounts, rather than display YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA content on YOUR web page. By having your content shared, you create backlinks (lots of them) to your webpage, which is the general principle of social media marketing. Simply adding your social media content to your social media account doesn’t do this unless someone connects to your account and shares your posts on social media.
I came across an interesting article HERE that explains how correct use of social media can get more visitors to your site by giving visitors relevant content in your web page that can then be shared with others. So, it would appear that social SHARING links on your web page are a far more effective way to go than simply connecting people to your own social media page, or displaying content from your social media account.
Of course, its very good to have links to your social media pages so people can choose to follow you if they wish. But, if you display your social media content in your web page, people lose the incentive to connect to the social media account and re-share your content - it’s already there on the page. In an ideal world, you want social media to link BACK to your website where the content can be read. This translates into inbound links and establishes greater authority in the eyes of search engines.
Cleary, a better option would be to create the content, first and foremost, on your website and then start the ball rolling by sharing that content on social media. Other visitors to your site should be able to do the same through a social media link associated with your content so that it can be easily shared many times over, thus improving the authority of your website.
I agree, I am not a fan of FB or Twitter feeds on a webpage. Instagram would be an exception (and that’s because a grid of images is a lot nicer than an iframe scroll box with text ).
The links I shared above are about creating social links for others to share your page, which I think (content dependant) is a good idea. That and making sure you have OpenGraph code on every page.
I think a lot of the hype is created from companies “specialising” in SEO but tend to spam you using gmail accounts
Yes, with Instagram it can be used a bit like a CMS, allowing you to host images and upload new ones that then get displayed in your web page. A great option for things like photography site and similar. But, apart from that, I see very little benefit in displaying feeds as such - much better to create the content on the web page and let social media share that.
Yeah - I agree, i think displaying twitter or facebook can look poor, but some sites I have seen have done it very tasteful - thats what I was seeing if anyone had done anything in Blocs as just posting half a page of twitter or facebook is pointless unless its offering something unique in delivery.
It’s very much as teaser like last 2 posts embedded in a custom frame in their colours - I understand from both sides of not showing it…and also showing it, but just showing last post or 2 posts can bring people into it.
I found a few sites recently which i thought looked stunning on how they did it, but not come across many that stand out now.
One had a page called " Being Social" and they had latest posts from each of their social media links and it was really good, the layout was like a tabloid newspaper front page and the header image was a facebook image, the text was from the facebook page and then the other 2 images were from instagram and then text down the sides was from Twitter and the bottom had their linked in. A lot of work had gone into it. It looked like it a proper newspaper !
I have used the instagram grid and just last 3 images and this does well and leads people into the Instagram account.
I guess it all depends what the site owner is trying to achieve. The aesthetics of laying out feeds is one factor that must be considered, but the question still has to be asked “ does it achieve the objective? ”
I recently came across this issue when I got involved in a website for a small restaurant chain. After about 9 months of launching a new online booking system on his website, No one was using it. Instead, they were calling the restaurants to make reservations. Furthermore, looking at his site’s analytics, we discovered the vast majority of website visits were only to the menu pages of the site.
This was because he was posting all his news and events information on social media, and the general public that knew his restaurants were simply going to the facebook page to find out what upcoming events or specials were on the way.
To get things back on track, we introduced a different system of posting events information on a specific page of his website. The events page also had call to action links to the reservation page of the website as well as a set of social sharing links. Whenever a new post (event or news) was put on the website, he would then share the post on his social media account, effectively forcing people to click on a link to the post that took them to his web page and its links to the reservation system.
The end result was marginally short of spectacular. Now, about 90% of all reservations are made through the online reservation system, and a much broader range of web pages are being viewed. His visitor numbers soared also, presumably, because other people were visiting the events page and sharing the content with their followers. This has ultimately improved his SEO ranking with Google because he now has a large number of inbound links to his website and the content changes frequently.
This minor change has also helped in the owner’s bottom line. People who would simply phone in their reservation would often forget and result in a no-show on the day. Because much of the reservation work is now being done on line, he has had the opportunity of collecting a reservation fee on-line (deducted from the final bill) and the system automatically sends out SMS and email reminders to the client the day before and a couple of hours before the reservation time. Result - more people actually turn up for their reservation and for those few that don’t, they lose the reservation fee.
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