Two social media changes you need to integrate NOW

I was going to do another video tip today, but there is more pressing news and two new product developments from both Google and Twitter that is essential for all e-commerce websites to try and get on board with straight away.

The first one is from Google. It’s no secret that Google have been trying to get into Social Media for quite some time now and each time, failing. Until now, we’ve been able to safely ignore their attempts but in the past week we have seen a new service from them that they’re investing so heavily in that it is rumoured the entire companies bonus scheme depends on the success of it working. Furthermore, Google have utilised their most powerful of services to leverage support from this and integrated directly into the heart of their search engine.

Google +1 button – essential for e-commerce

Whether you are a fan and think it’s a great service or not, there is no denying that Google are confident this is the future of search results and will be shaping the future of their search engine.

The service is in the form of a +1 button, something you will be seeing a lot more of over the coming weeks. The earlier you integrate it, the more you’re likely to achieve in the rankings.

If you don’t already know what the +1 button is, it’s much like the Facebook “Like” button. You click +1 on the things you like most, but the difference to the Facebook like button, is that the +1 button will have a direct impact on both organic, but especially your search results in the future.

There has been arguments out there that say the +1 button spells the end for the smaller e-commerce company, with the larger sites out there getting more “+1 clicks” as a result of their already-large user base. Nobody knows for sure how the results will look in a few weeks time once the service has started to seat comfortably, but I’m sure Google are wise to this and I can imagine there will be some sort of weighting system in the algorithm that will benefit businesses of all sizes.

Whatever your opinion on the +1 button and how successful you think it may be, it is obvious that you need to get on board with it as soon as possible to achieve maximum benefit.

How to integrate the +1 button into an e-commerce site

This is actually quite easy.

1. In the HTML code of the website (most likely a footer file), you will see the </body> tag near the end. You will need to copy/paste the following code just above this closing tag:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js”></script>

2. Wherever you would like the +1 button to appear on the website, copy/paste the following:

<g:plusone></g:plusone>

Et voila! It will place a +1 button there.  It will look like this (feel free to click it!):

You don’t have to worry about specifying a URL or page as the script will automatically detect this, but if you would like to over-ride the page with a custom URL then you will need to add the href tag to the +1 code like so:

<g:plusone href=”http://www.talkingecommerce.com”></g:plusone>

On a side note, you can also specify the size by including a “size” attribute specifying small/medium/standard/tall or optionally not include the count with count=”false”

Integrating the new Twitter follow button to an e-commerce site

The next one is a bit more straight forward to explain. Previously, you could place a button on your website that would link through to the users Twitter feed, where you would be able to follow them.

The new button, if signed in to Twitter, will be a one-click follow solution. Users don’t even leave the page and will be following your Twitter feed instantly.

For instructions and a generator for the code to create one of these buttons for your website, please visit http://twitter.com/followbutton – this will give you a button that looks like this:

Follow @nickpwatson

I hope you find this article useful and as always, I warmly welcome any feedback.