Share links on social media

[govuk-design-system]

What

Help users share or follow government content on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Why

Used on:

• Petition Parliament
• GOV.UK - Imperial War Museum Appointments

Anything else

• Read draft guidance Social media links: Dropbox Paper

[ghost]

It would be good to get some stats on usage of social media buttons on Gov services. From past experience and reading online articles they don't seem to be used that often to warrant them being present on the page.

[henocookie]

Also interested in the use of social share links on NHS and Government service. Especially at the end of services, such as registering to vote on GOV.UK

[36degrees]

Social share links on GOV.UK Publishing components: https://components.publishing.service.gov.uk/component-guide/share_links

As used, for example, on news stories: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fast-tracking-uk-innovation-apply-for-business-funding

[rosemaryling]

Hi,

While trying to find an old blog about why social media buttons were removed from GOV.UK pages I came across this thread.

Might be useful if you're reviewing the need for these buttons, lots has happened in 6 years: https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2014/02/20/gov-uk-social-sharing-buttons-the-first-10-weeks/

Thanks, Rosemary

[Terry-Price]

Hi, Not sure if there has been any research on my points below, but wanted to share them with you:

When a department uses lots of social links, could it be considered to order them alphabetically.

One or two departments use hyphens to separate the platform name and the subject, this may look more elegant if an endash was used instead. Perhaps this could form part of the guideline.

Example of a department with a long list of social icons

Lastly and more minor; not sure if there’s any high user value in colouring them with the department accent colour. Is anyone going to know what that means and as so many are blue; the ones that are not could be seen as a mistake. User recall would be improved too.

Best, Terry

[quis]

On the Emergency Alerts pages on GOV.UK (example) we knew that one way people would try to check the veracity of the information was by sharing with friends in chat apps like WhatsApp. So we used a ‘copy link’ button instead of social media share icons. On mobile (where most of the traffic is) this becomes a ‘Share link’ button, which uses the web share API to trigger the devices native sharing features

Page	After clicking button