
Ask HN: Do people still use the social media buttons on your website? - ctack
I&#x27;m about to start a new project and am curious if the social media share buttons that appear on many websites are or ever were actually used?
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Avalaxy
I'd like to have them, but I don't want to load any external scripts on my
site (for speed purposes mostly). Is it possible to make your own share button
and share something on the various social media networks with just an URL, or
a POST request?

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niftich
Last year, a project that does this was featured as a 'Show HN':
Sharingbuttons.io [1]

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12209595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12209595)

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Avalaxy
That makes things really easy. I especially like that they use SVG instead of
images. Saves yet another request :)

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mattbgates
I always put them on any project I do in which I want people to share the
page. I have always had success and the buttons serve as a reminder for people
to take action. They are less likely to just share the URL than if they see
buttons there to help them.

This website has got a bad reputation, but I've rarely had any issues with
them. I think any issues I have had were easily handled with some CSS or some
htaccess URL blocking.

Nonetheless, I still use it on all my websites. Simply copy the code into the
pages you want or the footer if you are using a platform like WordPress, and
the code takes care of the rest.

[http://sharebutton.net/](http://sharebutton.net/)

FYI: I am in no way associated with the owner of that website.. I just think
whoever created it did a great job at making social sharing easy... and no
plugin required!

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tmaly
yeah they load up my Google Analytics stats with referral spam all the time.

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wirddin
On Desktop, I guess users click on it because there's no other native way to
share.

On Mobile phones, users tend to go the native way - for most of the people,
they use Chrome's share because it's easier.

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Arun_Billava
Yes, If things are interesting or if they get any rewards they will share with
the people. Specially whatsapp or any other messaging application.

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ctack
I didn't know about the whatsapp share button - that is very neat.

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tmaly
I would be curios to know which of the buttons gets the most use

