Squarespace 6 news and features continue to become available as the company polishes its next generation web publishing platform in the beta phase of development of Squarespace 6. This week, we take a look at five sweet new social media features that will be a part of Squarespace 6, and will allow website publishers greater options and ease when integrating social media with Squarespace.
1. Add Social Content Blocks to Your Website
Let's start with the basics. Squarespace 6 will allow you to create social media content blocks that fit in the sidebar of your website on networks such as Foursquare, Instagram and Twitter. Squarespace will likely download all your social content in advance so your website will never slow down when loading and fetching your latest tweets at the same time.
2. Publish to Social Networks from Your Squarespace Blog
Squarespace 6 will save you time and effort with their new social accounts publishing system. Simply connect your social media accounts to your Squarespace website, then adjust the settings for how people can interact with you on those social networks. This feature allows you to include social media follow icons on your website navigation as well as auto post new content to your social media accounts.
3. Turn a Squarespace Page or Gallery into a Facebook Page Tab
Squarespace really shows how far they want to push Squarespace 6 with this next feature. You'll be able to connect any page or photo gallery on your Squarespace website to a tab or tabs on your Facebook page. Check it out. Here's a photo gallery on my Squarespace beta website. Now here's the tab for the photo gallery on my Big Picture Web Marketing Facebook page (which you should totally like, by the way).
4. Plug-and-Play Social Media Sharing Buttons
Let's say you want people to be able to like or tweet a blog post or web page on your website. With Squarespace 5, you have to install a little custom code if you want to display a like or tweet button on Squarespace. With Squarespace 6, simply select from a list of social media networks, then log in directly from Squarespace. Social sharing buttons are added to your site with ease, and your days of copy/pasting social code snippets are over.
5. Blog Contributors and Their Social Media Networks
Squarespace users with multiple authors or contributors are going to be thrilled with Squarespace 6. Social features are just the tip of the iceberg. But for starters, your authors will be able to add social media account information to their author bios. Look for more news on multiple blog contributors on Squarespace 6 in the near future.
What do you think of these sweet new social features coming out on Squarespace 6? Are these features in line with what you're expecting from the next generation in Squarespace web publishing, have they raised the bar, or do these new social media features leave something to be desired?