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Social sites that allow people to quickly share the stories, videos, and information they like and/or find valuable online have grown exponentially over the last couple of years.
And, therefore, so have the number of ‘sharing buttons’ many chiropractors are displaying on their website.
The mindset is, “If I give visitors to my chiropractic website enough choices of social sites where they can pass along my site to their friends… the odds increase that they will click a share button… and I’ll get more traffic in the process.”
Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of what actually happens as the number of sharing choices increases on your chiropractic website.
Often referred to as the Paradox of Choice – coined by author Barry Schwartz – as our choices increase, so does our ‘choosing anxiety’.
[You can watch a video of Barry Schwartz discussing the Paradox of Choice at TED.]
This is why testing has shown that a maximum of 3 sharing buttons should be used on your chiropractic website.
Personally, I recommend right now you use the Facebook Like and Twitter buttons. And, that’s it.
They are the two primary social sharing sites that have been proven (through testing) to be most effective for generating viral website traffic.
(In the near future, we will most likely be forced to add an additional button – Google’s +1. But, we’ll see…)
From my experience with Chiropractic websites, you don’t really need anything else besides facebook or twitter. Do you think people are going to upvote your site on reddit. Of course they won’t! So just focus on the necessities
At most at your google place!!
