Why I am no longer including social share buttons on posts

As I continue my push away from social media, I have decided to remove social media sharing buttons on my website posts.

Social media buttons have been around for over a decade allowing visitors to share social media posts with friends and followers.

While these buttons make it easy to share content, many come with unnecessary tracking from the social media platforms or the actual sharing toolbar itself. Those wanting to share my posts can easily copy and paste the link into an email or social media post without the tracking.

Social media has evolved greatly over the past 10-15 years. The content has shifted from personal posts to more branded content. In general, people have been posting less and scrolling more.

Social sharing does create opportunities to bring people to read or watch your content on your website if you can break through the algorithm. Many social media platforms have algorithms that make it extremely difficult to be seen if you do not pay to promote your content. 

This pay to play push to deliver information and content makes it negligible to even have social sharing buttons on your website. It also comes with the cost of having your visitors data collected by these platforms.