April 18, 2019
7 Best Social Media Plugins for WordPress
Are you looking to add social media plugins to your WordPress website? If so, you might be overwhelmed by the plethora of choices. Here are some of the top plugins for you to choose from. These plugins will make it easier to share your content, build your following, and engage with customers and community.
1. Monarch
Monarch, one of the most popular premium social media WordPress plugins, is user-friendly and displays beautiful social media sharing buttons.
Monarch displays social share buttons from 35+ different networks in five different locations:
- Above or below the post content
- Floating sidebar
- Automatic popup
- Automatic fly-in
- On images or in videos.
On popups and fly-ins, you can trigger your social share buttons. One great way to do this is by using the option to display social share buttons after a user leaves a comment. By asking a visitor who has already commented (i.e., showed interest) you’re giving your share buttons’ conversion rates a boost.
With Monarch, you can also customize your buttons’ style, add social share counts, and add social follow buttons using a widget or a shortcode. Here are some examples of Monarch on display.
To use this plugin, you will need to purchase an Elegant Themes membership. However, there’s significant value in addition to social share buttons.
Price: $89 for all Elegant Themes products, including Monarch.
2. Jetpack
Jetpack is also a social media sharing solution, like Monarch, but it has fewer bells and whistles and it starts with a free version. This plugin is so popular it has over five million active installations. In fact, you may already be using it.
Jetpack displays simple sharing buttons for most social media platforms. You can display icons only, text only, icons with text, or the official social media sharing buttons. Jetpack discourages the use of official social media sharing buttons as their use will slow your site.
You can opt for the Personal version at $39 annually and get priority support, daily backups, expanded site activity, and spam protection in addition to the free features. There are also Premium and Professional versions with a slew of other features.
Prices: Free, Personal $39/year, Premium $99/year, Professional $299/year.
3. Swifty Bar
Visually and functionally, Swifty Bar is not your typical free social media share plugin. Swifty Bar displays a sticky bar at the bottom of the pages and shows the post category, its title, author, and a projection of how long it will take to read the article.
Social media sharing buttons for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are on the right. Navigation buttons sit at the end of the posts. These allow visitors to go directly to other articles and is a great way to keep them on your website.
Swifty Bar is a lightweight solution that looks great on mobile devices too. You can easily change the text used in the bar and enable or disable the social media platforms you offer.
Price: Free
4. MashShare
Do you like the Mashable-style social sharing buttons? If so, MashShare might be the free plugin for you. MashShare allows you to add a selection of social share buttons to your WordPress site.
In addition, MashShare will also display actual share count and, if you set it up manually, “virtual shares” to boost social proof. Virtual shares provide a fake minimum displayed until your real share count surpasses it. MashShare uses smart caching for share counts so it doesn’t slow down your site.
If you want basic buttons for the most popular social networks, the free version should be fine. However, you can buy a variety of premium add-ons for things like:
- More social networks
- More social share button placement options
- Click to tweet and/or select and share
- Google Analytics Event Tracking
There is also a useful add-on that allows you ask visitors to like a page after they have shared a post. They’re already interested in your content. Requesting an immediate like after a share is a good way to increase your chances.
Price: Free. Add-ons ~$19 or buy a discounted bundle.
5. Ultimate Social
is a low-cost social media sharing solution. This plugin has a whopping eight different button styles and color customization options. Display of social media sharing buttons is also customizable and can be:
- Above or below content
- Floating
- On the left-hand side of the page
- At the top of the page.
Use widgets, shortcodes or WordPress widgets to integrate buttons. On mobile devices, a mobile bar is displayable.
For those seeking a low-cost stylish option, Ultimate Social makes a great plugin choice. It supports more than 25 social media platforms, many configuration options, and integrates with Google Analytics.
Price: $20
6. Social Warfare
Social Warfare is yet another plugin with beautiful social media sharing buttons. But, it really excels in its more detailed features.
For example, you can display sharing icons manually, above or below, above and below, or floating as the user scrolls. In addition, you get click-to-tweet functionality, a great way to emphasize quotable sections and boost shareability. Readers only have to click once to share your best ideas.
You can also choose to display the actual number of shares after reaching a specified minimum threshold. This way, you’re boosting social proof and avoid displaying low share counts.
If you favor Pinterest, this feature will definitely boost your shares. You can upload Pinterest-specific tall images. As a strategy, Pinterest recommends this to boost shares. These taller images only show up when shared on Pinterest however, so it won’t impact the actual images in your posts.
Social Warfare is a powerful plugin with built-in support for all major social networks at an affordable price.
Price: $29
7. WP Social Sharing
WP Social Sharing is a lightweight plugin. However, if all you need is to add social share buttons for the major social networks, this plugin fits the bill.
You can easily add share buttons for:
Also, customize the share text and add custom text in front of your share buttons.
WP Social Sharing is responsive and uses CSS3 buttons rather than images.
Price: Free
As you can see, there are many social media sharing plugins on the market. Whether you’re looking for a robust premium plugin with add-on features or a back-to-basics plugin, you will find a solution above. Have questions about what’s best for your site? We can help. Contact us today.
