It is understandable that you want people to consume your content and then share it with all their friends.  It is also quite considerate of you to try your best to make the process easier, by adding sharing methods directly to your content. The “social” toolbars that are showing up with great frequency lately however, may not be the best route to take to accomplish this.

Many of these toolbars are full of chunky code and just make a decent number of visitors  leave the site before it finishes loading.  Many of these toolbars are, for lack of better expression, butt ugly and completely clash with the design of your site. The worst offenders actually load in front of your content, preventing users from reading what they came to see.

To be honest, once one of those things pops up on my screen, I’m pretty much done. Your content can be FANTASTIC, but I hate the “social” toolbars with a passion.  If you added one of those atrocities to your site for a mainstream visitor, you probably could have just added a small “Add to Facebook/Email” link somewhere.

It is much worse when the content is geared toward more of the tech savvy/extra geeky crowd. Probably 80-90% of us have a stack of sharing bookmarklets we can navigate in our sleep.

The toolbars scream desperation, and that is just not attractive.