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One Click to Share: Native Sharing Across All Content

December 18, 2025 5 min read Randal Eastman

Five steps to share an article. Copy URL, switch apps, paste, send. Today, that friction is gone. Every brand profile, founder story, and insight article now has native sharing—one tap to your device's share sheet.

Earlier this week, I wanted to share an article with Olya. I opened the article, selected the URL, copied it, switched to messaging, pasted it. Five steps for something that should take one.

Today, that friction is gone.

What Changed

Every brand profile, founder story, and insight article now has a native share button. One tap opens your device’s share sheet—message it, email it, save it, or send it to any app you use.

Desktop browsers: Standard share menu with copy link, email options Mobile devices: Full iOS/Android share sheet with all your apps No login required: Works immediately for all visitors

The share button lives in the article metadata line, right next to the reading time indicator. Discrete, accessible, exactly where you need it.

Why It Matters

Most of our traffic comes from mobile devices. The Web Share API gives mobile users the same sharing experience they expect from native apps—their familiar share sheet with WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, email, Messages, whatever they actually use.

No clunky modal with social media buttons. No copying URLs manually. Just tap → share → done.

Desktop Convenience

Desktop browsers get smart share menus with copy link, email options, and installed apps (like Slack or Microsoft Teams). Some browsers even show recent contacts.

The experience adapts to your platform. That’s what native APIs do.

Zero Friction for Curation

Brandmine illuminates exceptional brands. Our users—investors, partners, journalists, researchers—discover profiles worth sharing. Making that sharing frictionless means more people see quality brands.

When I find a brand with an interesting vertically-integrated model, I want to send it to our research team immediately. Not in five steps. In one.

The Technical Choice

We implemented this using the Web Share API, a browser standard supported by all modern mobile browsers and most desktop browsers.

Fallback behavior: If a browser doesn’t support native sharing (rare, but possible), the button copies the URL to clipboard automatically.

Implementation: Pure vanilla JavaScript, no dependencies. ~30 lines of code. Works with our existing Alpine.js setup without conflicts.

Progressive enhancement: If JavaScript fails to load, the page remains fully functional—share button just doesn’t appear. Content is never blocked.

Where It Works

Brand Profiles: Share exceptional founder-led businesses with partners or portfolio teams Founder Stories: Share resilience narratives with your network Insight Articles: Share market intelligence and strategic analysis Updates Posts: Share this article (try the button above!)

Every content type that deserves circulation now has frictionless sharing.

iOS: Tapping share opens the familiar iOS sheet with Messages, Mail, WhatsApp, Telegram, Copy Link, Add to Reading List, etc.

Android: Native Android share menu with your installed apps and recent contacts.

Desktop Safari/Chrome: Smart menus with copy link, email, and installed apps.

You might wonder why we didn’t add the traditional row of social media icons (Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn). Three reasons:

1. Platform Lock-In

Social media buttons assume everyone uses the same platforms. They don’t. Our audience includes users in China (WeChat, Weibo), Russia (VK, Telegram), India (WhatsApp, ShareChat), and dozens of other markets.

The Web Share API respects user choice. Whatever apps you have, you can share to.

2. Privacy & Performance

Traditional social buttons often load third-party scripts, tracking pixels, and analytics. That slows page load and creates privacy concerns.

Our implementation uses zero external resources. No tracking. No bloat. Pure browser capability.

3. Mobile Reality

On mobile, social buttons are awkward. You tap “Share to WhatsApp,” it opens WhatsApp Web or tries to launch the app. The Web Share API is designed for this—it’s the platform-native way to share content from browsers.

Implementation Details

Location: Article metadata line (reading time / publish date section) Icon: Lucide share-2 icon (consistent with our design system) Behavior: One tap → native share sheet → done Fallback: Automatic clipboard copy if Web Share API unavailable Files: apps/hugo/assets/js/share.js + partial integration in templates

Browser Support:

✅ iOS Safari (all versions)
✅ Android Chrome (all versions)
✅ Desktop Safari (macOS)
✅ Desktop Chrome (recent versions)
✅ Firefox (recent versions)
⚠️ Fallback to clipboard copy on older browsers

The Design Philosophy

Minimal by default: Share button is small, discrete, doesn’t compete with content Accessible: Works with keyboard navigation, screen readers, touch targets Consistent: Same placement across all content types Fast: Zero external dependencies, loads instantly Respectful: No tracking, no analytics, no third-party scripts

What This Unlocks

Team Collaboration

Research teams can share profiles with colleagues immediately. Investment teams can send brands to partners. Journalists can bookmark articles for later reference.

Network Effects

The easier it is to share Brandmine content, the more people discover quality Global South brands. Every share is a potential new partnership, investment, or media opportunity for the founders we illuminate.

Mobile Workflow

Mobile users now have the same sharing capability as desktop users. That matters when 60%+ of our traffic comes from phones and tablets.

Try It Now

This article has a share button in the metadata line above. Tap it and see your native share sheet. Send it to someone who’d find it interesting.

That’s the whole point—making great content easy to circulate.

Found a browser where sharing doesn’t work? Let us know so we can test and improve.