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Are there any studies that prove that action text like "share this" near social share buttons increase sharing?

For example, would "share this" action text in the header encourage users to share more?

header screenshot

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  • Does searching Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) yield any useful results? What kind of search terms have you used? Aug 19, 2019 at 5:04
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    @locationunknown, I have used terms "social share buttons", "social buttons best practices", "social buttons on websites", "social buttons affordances" on Google Scholar. It didn't give me any useful information
    – Peter
    Aug 19, 2019 at 8:42
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    It makes it clear that it is for sharing rather than just a link to the social media for that site so it might encourage some sharing. Personally I tend to use the built in browser sharing options where available or just copy the url rather than hunting for a share button on the site as share features are often unpredictable. Jan 14, 2020 at 15:39

2 Answers 2

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Seems there are no much usability studies for this exactly. But there are two premisses that go in direction that with text there will be better performance:
A) Context / functionality will be clearer. There are number of studies that suggest labeling the icons works better https://uxplanet.org/unlabeled-icons-sacrificing-usability-to-look-pretty-415408a0e115
B) Element will be more visible with text addition. You could even extend wording to gain bit more visibility to "Share Article on Social media" or similar

And ofcourse, it will be very unlikely that placing text will kill the CR/CTR, so if there is no special cost for your layout to place it - it could be a smarter choice.

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May be if you add more context to it, something like - "Let your friends know what you are reading."

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  • That's too long, even longer that the article title on the left. The header might look overloaded.
    – Peter
    Aug 18, 2019 at 10:32
  • Yeah. Thanks for your inputs @Peter Aug 18, 2019 at 13:48

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