When Sharing Buttons Work

At the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) we use sharing buttons on our website to help people share content from web pages with their colleagues and friends. With one click, a user can post a page’s link to popular social networking sites or send it via email. The article To Use Social Sharing Buttons or Not looks at some ways that social sharing buttons are actually used. Here’s a look at what works for us.

On our main website, GAO.gov, we have sharing buttons on the summary pages of our reports and testimonies, as well as on our topics pages. Similar to our neighbors in the U.K., we found these sharing rates were generally low. We were happy to see a very different picture when it came to our blog, the WatchBlog.

In January, 2014, GAO launched a new blog as part of our continuing effort to reach our audiences—Congress and the American people—where they are currently looking for information. Our blog format allows us to provide a little more context about our work than we can offer on its other social media platforms.

The WatchBlog has now been viewed over 12,000 times, with much of the traffic coming from Facebook and Twitter. Readers are also eager to share our blog posts on social media using our sharing buttons. Overall, our sharing rate as a percentage of pageviews is 15.2%.

The five most popular blog posts have sharing rates between 15.2% and 45.2%.

<td valign="top" width="132">
  <b>Social media shares</b>
</td>

<td valign="top" width="102">
  <b>Pageviews</b>
</td>

<td valign="top" width="121">
  <b>Shares as percentage of pageviews</b>
</td>

<td valign="top" width="132">
  273
</td>

<td valign="top" width="102">
  604
</td>

<td valign="top" width="121">
  45.2%
</td>

<td valign="top" width="132">
  123
</td>

<td valign="top" width="102">
  368
</td>

<td valign="top" width="121">
  33.4%
</td>

<td valign="top" width="132">
  114
</td>

<td valign="top" width="102">
  294
</td>

<td valign="top" width="121">
  38.8%
</td>

<td valign="top" width="132">
  93
</td>

<td valign="top" width="102">
  334
</td>

<td valign="top" width="121">
  27.8%
</td>

<td valign="top" width="132">
  45
</td>

<td valign="top" width="102">
  297
</td>

<td valign="top" width="121">
  15.2%
</td>

Page

Navigating the Complexities of the Federal Budget

GAO’s Defense Capabilities and Management Team

Government Accountability Office: What’s in a Name?

GAO’s International Affairs and Trade Mission Team

An Introduction to GAO’s High Risk List

Many reads have shared blog posts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Twitter was the most popular choice for sharing.

<td valign="top" width="132">
  <b>Total blog post shares</b>
</td>

<td valign="top" width="132">
  799
</td>

<td valign="top" width="132">
  612
</td>

<td valign="top" width="132">
  423
</td>

Social media platform

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this trend. We hope you take a moment to check out the WatchBlog!