This article looks at various social media platforms that work best with WordPress, what makes them good, and what to look for in a social media plugin before you decide to download one.
What Makes a Good WordPress Social Media Plugin?
Social media plugins for WordPress have one thing in common: they slow down your website. This is because they have to load additional stylesheets and scripts.
You have to strike a balance between its features and performance ability. Usually, a plugin with many features
becomes less effective if it slows down your website and gives users a poor experience. Also, it needs to be more effectively displayed on your website. Fewer options reduce clutter and offer good user experience.
Most social media plugins give you an option to show icon before the article, in the side bar and below the article. Decide where you would like to display them and whether the plugin supports your opinion.
Let’s now look at a comprehensive review of few social media plugins for WordPress.
1. EA Share Count
Apart from being the fastest social media plugin in the list, it is also easy to use. It has a limited number of most popular social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Stumbleupon, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
There are three button styles and you can choose whether to place them manually, before or after the content. Custom post types can also be enabled.
The social media plugin can get share counts for each network or you can choose share count on all networks. Since EA Share Count is hosted on GitHub, you need to know how to install it if it’s your first time to use it. You need to follow instructions on how to install WordPress plugins from GitHub.
2. Monarch
This is a great WordPress social share plugin that was developed by a team from Elegant Themes.
Some of its great features are:
• You can display share counts after reaching a certain number. This helps to avoid negative social proof
• It has an impressive looking interface to monitor your social shares. You can choose to
display social icons in your sidebar or other widget areas
• The plugin also allows interesting placement options like triggered popups and fly ins. This is meant to motivate social share
• It is built for speed and is highly optimized
• Its selling point is the value you get from Elegant Themes membership. It has built-in
statistics to track social shares, follows, and likes
• You can choose when share counts are displayed
• Has an easy-to-use interface
• The social share is equipped with WordPress social media widget
Price: $89/year and you can cancel anytime and get access to other plugins that have over 80 WordPress themes. At $89 per year, you can access 87 WordPress themes and five WordPress plugins.
3. Social Warfare
This WordPress social share plugin works for anyone. It allows you to add visually stunning sharing buttons to your blog in various locations. You can add them above or below the post using shortcodes or even floating share buttons.
What makes it interesting is its ability to upload Pinterest-specific images and descriptions. Pinterest is known for driving traffic in certain industries. Features
• Has support from popular social networks
• Has several eye-catching themes
• Support for Twitter Cards
• Displays floating share buttons
• Can display individual or total share count
• Add custom tweet text for individual posts
• Able to track social shares with UTM tracking to see how much traffic the plugin is sending your way
• Has a pin-it button
• Fully mobile responsive
• Choice of 75+ different color and styles
• Add custom WordPress social media widgets to post to show share number
• Responsive, can feet any screen size
• The price is affordable
• A drag-and-drop feature to add or remove social network
• Frame buster that help you stop others from framing your content
• Supports WhatsApp The Social Warfare plugin option works for both desktop and mobile. Price starts at $29/year for a single website and $200 for 10 websites. You can cancel anytime.
4. Sumo Share
This social share plugin is not a typical WordPress plugin. Sumo integrates with WordPress sites easily.
One unique characteristic that Sumo has is made up of apps that are designed to help you build traffic. The setup is very easy since they have specific WordPress plugin. You can use these apps with any site that supports HTML.
“Share” is an app responsible for sharing buttons.
The social media plugin can add your social buttons by clickable interface. Click on where you want to be. For mobile devices, you can select a different placement.
One particular feature that is remarkable in this plugin is its ability to order your social sharing by the network that gets most sharing from.
Free tools to automate your site growth
It comes with basic analytics data that helps you to know how many people are clicking on your share buttons. From this you will be able to determine which networks are most popular with your readers.
Features
• Supports most services including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp and more
• Easy to use interface
• Other aspects of your share button can be customized
• Various placement share buttons
Conclusion
Now you have work cut out for you and you can make a wise decision on which social share plugin for WordPress works out for you. Remember, the lesser the features the faster the plugin. For social media plugins, simplicity works best. I won’t recommend a specific social media plugin since everyone has different views of what is good or not. Make sure that the plugin integrates well with your site’s design. Also, check whether the plugin supports different locations within the post and page.
Here are few more topics that you shouldn’t miss:
The Best Social Media Tools for Your Social Media Accounts
Musts before launching your Social Media Marketing Campaign
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