One of the major aspects in our content overloaded world is social media. Which as you know, is an important tool for any small business. It’s excellent for increasing brand awareness and generating leads among many other benefits. Since social networks are spread throughout multiple places on the Internet, you can create a website and make it into a social hub that houses all of them together.
How, you ask? Easy. By utilizing a couple of apps that can be seamlessly incorporated into your site. The great thing about all of these (free) apps, available in the Wix App Market, is that you don’t need to know a single line of code to start taking advantage of their many features. Take a look at our carefully curated list of apps that you can add to your website to make it a one stop social shop.
Facebook can almost be seen as an extension of your own website, as it’s another great place to find information about your business. Still, if you’re looking to keep visitors on your site, you may want to keep that extension short with an app like Facebook Feed. Don’t let the no-frills name fool you, it does its job and it does it well. In essence, it will stream your Facebook posts that you’ve posted to your business page, including photo and video posts on to your site. That means, anyone browsing your site can instantly get a taste of your Facebook activity without having to leave or search for it. Best of all, the setup is as easy as adding your profile URL into the settings and you’re ready to go.
There are a couple of other nifty features like the ability to stretch the app to full width so that it spans across your entire page no matter the size. Talk about an immersive experience. Other features include the ability to add ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ buttons, and the option to choose what content to share on the feed itself.
2018 has been the year of the ‘Gram, with several enhancements being released, such as Instagram Stories and IGTV taking center stage. Show off your perfectly styled feed by streaming it live to your site using Instagram Pro. For such a conceptually easy app, it offers up some great customizations, like what profiles and hashtags to include (or exclude) from a feed and how the feed itself is displayed on the website.
As the physical size of the app is 100% flexible, you can dedicate an entire page to your Instagram feed. Other features include: a pop up with all the detailed info of every image (likes, comments, caption and hashtags) – bringing the look and feel of Instagram to your website.
You didn’t think we’d forget about the little blue bird, did you? Twitter moves fast, but it’s still a great way to connect with your audience. By showing your website visitors that you’re part of the chatter can actually help you gain some more followers.
Twitter’s baby blue color scheme certainly isn’t going to match every color palette of every business, which is why it’s a good thing you can customize the color of this app to your heart’s delight. On top of that, you can also customize the borders, styling and layout. You can even add your own custom CSS and JS to the app as well, which is pretty impressive.
The three aforementioned social media apps are perfect for an a la carte experience, but what if you want to display all your networks in one stunning widget? In order to keep things looking neat and organized you can use Social Media Stream, which allows you to add all of them into one stream.
The app doesn’t stop at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as you can also add in your Pinterest account or a specific board, a Tumblr blog and your YouTube channel or playlist, making it a jack of all trades. Adding a feed is as simple as throwing in your profile URL in, and customizing the layout, design, and colors is a cinch. This is the perfect solution if you would rather aggregate your social feeds all into one.
We live in a content driven (and overloaded) world, but it turns out we can’t seem to get enough of it. So why don’t you streamline the process for your visitors by creating a curated list of content they can browse right from your website? Like so many other apps on this list, Easy Content’s name describes exactly what it does best: It allows you to add content to your website, easily.
This is a nice way to keep visitors on your page, especially if you’re looking to become a news source for a particular subject. You can set up how you want the app to display on your website, then dive into the settings to select the type of content that you would like to show up. You can choose multiple subjects to display, including custom subjects, so you can cater to your audience’s broader interests.
The app also allows you to choose how often the stories update, pin stories to the top or even remove stories you’d rather not have displayed. These super-shareable stories are sure to keep the buzz going on your website. For example, creating a blog that's tech-driven could share news worthy stories happening in the technology industry or an online boutique could post articles featuring the upcoming fashion trends of the season.
Wix Pro Gallery is the most professional (and free) online gallery around. With advanced image settings, you can control the quality and sharpness of your photos, so that they look exactly how you intended them to.
Created with the social world in mind, you can easily share any pic directly from the gallery itself, making your stunning gallery readily available to be shared to social networks or via email.
When researching a business, most people will read as many reviews as possible of a place they intend to use first. They may find your business on Google or Facebook and then head over to Yelp to read reviews or a similar combination of paths and review sites to form their ultimate choice on whether to purchase your services or product.
Make your website the ultimate decision maker by including any valuable reviews on your site by adding My Reviews. The app will display existing reviews from Google, Facebook, and Yelp, allowing your site visitors to get the most up-to-date information they’re looking for about your business – without having to leave your website. Not only are you doing them a solid but keeping them engaged on your own site can lead to further interaction.
Plus, offering up reviews of your business on your site shows real transparency and helps build trust.
Video has unquestionably dominated the online world, and rightfully so. Video is not only attention grabbing, it’s a very popular medium in the social media space (just take a quick look at your Facebook feed and you’ll understand what we’re talking about). If you’re looking to keep the party on your website, adding Wix video can help you do just that.
Have a YouTube channel that you’d like to stream on your website? By using Wix Video, you can sync your YouTube Channel to your website. With “live” video being all the rage these days, you can also host your YouTube Live and Facebook Live videos directly on your website. Of course, videos that you add directly to your site can be shared to a number of different social networks as well. So basically, you get the best of both worlds!
When you’re running your own business, it’s important that your customers know that “you’re there” for them. You can show them this by allowing your customers to message you via Facebook directly from your website. With Messenger Live, your site visitors can start a conversation in a chat box on your website, and you will be notified via Facebook Messenger to continue the conversation.
Since it is a Facebook app, you’ll also know who you are talking to giving you the opportunity to personalize the conversation. The app will allow you to set your hours so your customers will know exactly when you’re available to chat. This is especially helpful if your visitors come from all around the world.