How to use empty titles for buttons on the ApplicationBar?

What sorts of people use social sharing buttons and how do they use them?

• The web is littered with buttons and links to quickly share content on a variety of social networks. I'm interested in knowing more about how these buttons and links are used and what types of people use them. I'm looking for studies, personal experience and general throughs. These little icons/links/buttons are everywhere, should they be? A few things I'm personally curious about: do specific demographics share via buttons/widgets? What about those that prefer to share directly on a site or from an app? does displaying a button with a low share count (1 like, 0 re-tweets etc.) change a users perception of the content or site they are viewing? Does a high count? are there any examples of sites that have seen long term success on social networks without including any social links or buttons? Will a specific demographic avoid or ignore generic messages (I just liked a video on youtube! <link>)? Any demographics that are more likely? When presented with a generic messages to send what type of user will leave it untouched? What type of user will create their own content? Are there any trends in followers/friends of users that share via buttons/links? What are your experiences and thoughts? Do you have any good reading or data on the subject?

• Answer:

  Wow, that's a lot of questions in a single post. You might actually get more input from people if it weren't so broad and encompassing. And asking "who uses social sharing buttons and how do they use them" is like asking "who uses telephones (or email) and how do they use them (it)?" Generally speaking, the buttons people use are the ones that give them the best access to their relevant social networks. Facebook reaches hundreds of millions of people who tend to be networked based on friendship and family, so there are lots of people sharing "interesting things" like music and news. Other sharing mechanisms may target different audiences and networks, such as LinkedIn for professional networks. People may share pop music on Facebook (and not LinkedIn) and job ads or market research on LinkedIn (but not on Facebook.) We also need to consider why people are sharing: to become influential? to be helpful? to be funny (and liked)? We may be able to find patterns in who shares what on which network(s), but the real answer lies in the motivation of the individual and value and purpose of the content being shared. I would not put a Digg button on a job listings page at Cisco, and I would not put a LinkedIn button on a pair of jeans at http://Levis.com. Be careful about drawing conclusions from patterns of behavior based on observational data, demographics, and web analytics. Most of the time these are just correlational and tell us nothing about causality and the true relationships among the variables. Just because the data may show that younger women are more likely to share and respond to apparel and fashion items shared on Facebook than to videos liked on YouTube doesn't mean they shop more than they watch videos - it just tells us that it may be (a) more meaningful or valuable for them to do one over the other for some reason, OR (b) easier to do one over the other, OR (c) that they watch videos on mobile devices where it is harder to share then when they are shopping on laptops, OR (d) any other plausible explanations for the difference. People will do what is valuable and meaningful to them, and if it is fun and easy then the probability increases. Understand what people need and like, then you can better predict what they may want to share and where they may want to share it.