- By Kevin Muldoon
- Last updated: February 2, 2021
Social media has, without a doubt, revolutionised the way internet users share information online. When I first started blogging, it was common for readers to subscribe to blogs using RSS. Nowadays, however, it’s more common for people to follow a business or publication on Twitter or Facebook to be notified of new content.
Social media has become such an integral part of the internet that, for the majority of websites, it’s their second highest source of traffic!
As a website owner, you can take advantages of these changes by making it as easy as possible for people to share your content, which means including social media buttons on your website.
Let’s take a look at ten of the very best free and premium WordPress plugins for displaying social media sharing bars and buttons on WordPress posts and pages.
A Quick Word About Using WordPress Social Media Plugins
Whenever you activate a new WordPress plugin, you generally increase the total size of your web pages, which, in turn, increases page loading times.
The significance of this increase can, of course, be reduced by optimising your website with a WordPress caching plugin and using a content delivery network to distribute static copies of your website around the world.
However, you should be aware that WordPress social media plugins can be particularly detrimental to website performance.
My advice is to test the speed of your website initially using benchmarking services, such as GTmetrix and Pingdom’s Website Speed Test, and then run the tests again after you’ve installed a social media plugin. This will help you to see if the plugin has affected performance negatively.
Displaying the number of shares or likes a post has garnered showcases the popularity of an article and encourage others to share it too — but be aware that displaying the official social media share count of a page can increase page loading times significantly if it calculates counts by making API requests to external websites.
Certain social media buttons and icon styles can further slow down a page too, so play around with the plugin settings to get a good balance between style and performance.
1. Monarch — Part of Elegant Themes Membership
Created by Elegant Themes in 2014, Monarch quickly became one of the most popular WordPress social media plugins on the market — and it’s easy to see why.
Monarch is a user-friendly solution that allows you to display gorgeous social media sharing buttons that can be displayed in a number of ways, including above and below content, as a floating sidebar, as an automatic pop-up, embedded into images and videos, or in a fly-in box that slides onto the page.
Here’s a whole heap of live examples to check out!
More than 20 social media networks are supported, and there are many customisation options that let you define when the pop-up or fly-in sharing boxes are displayed. For example, you can display sharing buttons after a user has left a comment on an article or purchased an item from your store, or after they’ve scrolled to a certain point on the page.
Elegant Themes hasn’t changed Monarch much since it was first released — it’s still actively updated to address bugs, but it’s bizarre that social media networks such as Google+ are still supported, despite being discontinued years ago.
Monarch is included as part of Elegant Themes’ membership, which retails at $87 a year or as a one-off fee of $249. Signing up will not only let you download Monarch, but also give you access to Elegant Themes’ flagship Divi and Extra themes, email opt-in plugin Bloom and page builder plugin Divi, making it fantastic value for money.
Official Website
2. Easy Social Share Buttons — $20
Easy Social Share Buttons has continually been improved and refined since its launch in 2013, which has helped it to retain the title of the best-selling social media plugin on CodeCanyon, where it retails for an affordable $22.
The plugin supports more than 50 social media networks and allows you to display sharing buttons automatically in more than 30 positions. Many of the positions, such as pop-ups, fly-ins and floating bars, can be triggered by events such as time spent on page, purchasing an item or percent of the page that’s been scrolled.
Easy Social Share Buttons is also one of the only sharing solutions that supports newer social media networks such as Tik Tok and Snapchat.
The plugin has been ‘Performance Approved’ by the caching WordPress plugin WP Rocket (review), which highlights how well regarded it is for being optimised and not affecting website performance.
The versatility of Easy Social Share Buttons and the number of beautiful buttons that are available to users makes it an easy solution to recommend.
Sales Page | Official Website
3. Social Warfare — FREE/$29
Social Warfare, from Warfare Plugins, is an attractive social media sharing solution that inserts big and bold social media sharing buttons into your content. It has a simple user-interface that’s a joy to use.
Five social media networks are supported in the free version — Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Mix (formerly known as StumbleUpon) — while the number of shares for each network and the total number of shares can be shown.
Sharing buttons can be displayed in a floating share bar or above and below the content area, or, if you prefer, you can insert sharing buttons manually using a shortcode or PHP function.
The plugin also includes a ‘popular posts’ WordPress widget that lists articles with thumbnails according to the number of times they’ve been shared on social media.
The pro version of Social Warfare adds support for up to 15 social media networks, a pin button for images and the ability to customise how your content is displayed using the Open Graph protocol. Additional styling options and click tracking are also available if you upgrade.
A pro license costs $29 for a single website, $89 for up to five websites, $139 for up to ten websites and $349 for an unlimited number of websites.
I recommend checking it out.
Free Version | Pro Version
4. Jetpack — FREE
If you’re looking for a simple social media sharing solution, you may want to check out the sharing module within Automattic’s Jetpack plugin. It has more than 5 million active installations, so you may even have the plugin activated already. However, those of you who have never used Jetpack should be aware that you need an active WordPress.com account to use it.
The sharing module allows you to display simple sharing buttons for Twitter, Facebook, Pocket, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, LinkedIn, Telegram, WhatsApp and Skype, and email and print buttons are available too.
You can choose to display official sharing buttons or use icons with text, icons only or text only. I’d advise against selecting the official social media sharing buttons, as these will slow your page loading times significantly.
Jetpack also lets you choose what post types sharing buttons are published on across your website.
Jetpack is a simple social media sharing solution with few customisation options, but it integrates under your content seamlessly and looks good under articles. Additionally, if you display sharing links via text only, Jetpack adds no additional weight to your page.
My main disappointment with Jetpack’s sharing module is Automattic has moved all settings from the WordPress admin area to WordPress.com, which, without doubt, has made it less user-friendly.
Official Website | Plugin Download Page
5. Grow by Mediavine — FREE/$29
Formerly known as Social Pug, Grow by Mediavine is a beautiful social media solution that lets you display round, rectangular or circular buttons.
The free version of the plugin supports four social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn, while email and print buttons are available too.
Sharing buttons can be displayed above and below your content area, or as a floating sidebar on the left or right-hand side of your page.
Upgrading to the pro version of Grow by Mediavine increases the number of social networks to more than ten. It also lets you customise what’s shared by readers, and the new ‘Click to Tweet’ feature helps you to create quotable and shareable content.
The pro version also adds an option to display sharing buttons via a pop-up, which can be triggered by a number of different events. There’s also a sticky social media bar for mobile users, and support for Google Analytics and Bitly.
A license for Grow by Mediavine Pro retails at $29 for one website, $59 for up to five websites and $129 for an unlimited number of websites.
It’s easy to recommend Grow by Mediavine: It’s one of the simplest social media sharing solutions to set up, and it has many useful customisation options and styling options.
Plugin Download Page | Official Website
6. Simple Social Buttons — FREE/$19
Simple Social Buttons is a user-friendly WordPress social media plugin that has support for several popular social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Reddit. Buttons are also available for WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, print and email.
A total of seven button designs are available, including circular designs, rectangular designs and official sharing buttons. If you wish, you can also display the number of shares for each network and the total number of shares for all networks.
While Simple Social Buttons is easy to use, it also gives you great control over where your social media buttons are placed.
In the free version of the plugin, you can display social media buttons on a floating sidebar, and above and below content. Social sharing buttons can also be restricted to certain WordPress post types, and to categories, tags, archives and search pages.
Additional styling options are unlocked if you upgrade to the premium version of Simple Social Buttons. Upgrading also allows you to display social media sharing buttons on images and through pop-ups and fly-in boxes.
A license for Social Share Buttons Pro costs $27 for one website and $79 for up to ten websites. The developer license retails at $199 and allows you to use the plugin on as many websites as you wish.
I recommend checking out Social Share Buttons if you’re looking for a simple solution that has nice icon designs and support for different sharing bar positions.
Plugin Download Page | Official Website
7. Ultimate Social Media Icons — FREE/$29.98
If you’re looking to display social media sharing buttons using icons, you may want to consider Ultimate Social Media Icons. The plugin does things a little differently by placing all configuration options in one big plugin settings page, guiding you through a total of eight steps.
In the first three steps, you can select the social media networks you want to display, customise them and then choose where they’re shown. You can display icons in a floating bar, via a shortcode, through a widget, in your theme header and after blog posts.
I didn’t find Ultimate Social Media Icons’s setting page to be as user-friendly as the developers had perhaps planned, but, if you go through each step, you’ll find many customisation options.
The next five steps are optional. You can select the design of your icons, choose whether you want to display counts and make changes to the icon designs. The last two steps ask if you want to display subscription opt-in forms to increase sign ups.
While more than a dozen social media networks are supported in the free version of Ultimate Social Media Icons, USM Premium adds support for hundreds more. It also adds more icon designs, animated icons and improved control over where social media sharing buttons are displayed.
The premium version of Ultimate Social Media Icons is available for a one-off fee of $29.98, and comes with six months of support.
While the premium version of Ultimate Social Media Icons is fairly priced, I believe most WordPress users will be happy with the free version as it supports so many popular social media networks.
Plugin Download Page | Official Website
8. SocialSnap — FREE/$39-Plus
SocialSnap is another solution that bills itself as ‘The Ultimate WordPress Social Media Plugin’ and packs many great features to back up this claim. It has a user-friendly interface where settings are displayed on the left-hand side and a live preview is displayed on the right.
The free version of SocialSnap allows you to publish social media sharing buttons on images, above and below content using inline buttons, and to the left and right of content using a floating bar. Seven sharing buttons are available, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Mix, email, print and copy link. You can also promote up to six social media profiles using SocialSnap, and there’s a useful ‘Click to Tweet’ tool for embedding tweets in content.
The sharing buttons are available in four designs and three sizes. The total number of shares can be displayed too, and you can choose to only display the buttons on posts, pages, archives and more.
The pro version of SocialSnap greatly enhances the number of features and options that are available to you. It increases the number of social media sharing networks to 34 and social media follow networks to 40.
It also adds Google Analytics integration, URL shortening, page view counting and advanced statistics. The higher-tiered premium plans also add support for social media logins, auto posting new content to social media networks and a booster feature that automatically promotes old articles.
SocialSnap Pro retails at $39 a year for a one-website license, $99 a year for a three-website license and $299 a year for a 15-website license. The developers frequently reduce these prices with up to 30% discounts, reducing the entry-level price of SocialSnap Pro to only $27.30.
SocialSnap is undoubtedly one of the best-looking social media sharing solutions on the market. The free version is a fantastic plugin in its own right, but if you upgrade to SocialSnap Pro you’ll unlock a host of tools that’ll help you to increase social media traffic to your website.
Plugin Download Page | Official Website
9. Novashare — $29.95-Plus
NovaShare is a fast WordPress social media sharing plugin that only adds 5 KB to the front-end of your website.
A total of 21 buttons are available for social media sharing and 52 social media networks are supported for the included social follow widget. Sharing buttons can be displayed above and below content or on a floating bar, and there’s a Pinterest Pin button too, as well as a highly customisable ‘Click to Tweet’ block.
The plugin settings area is simple to navigate. You’ll find options to display share counts, set button colors and set the breakpoint for where you want buttons to be displayed on mobile devices. There are a dozen stylish button designs available, and these can be manually placed in one to six columns — although the auto-width mode is the most practical button layout.
Novashare also has support for Google Analytics and Bitly link shortening.
Novashare retails at $29.95 a year for a one-website license, $69.95 a year for a three-website license and $149.95 a year for unlimited websites.
The market for premium WordPress social media sharing plugins is competitive, but if you care about website performance Novashare should be top of your list. The plugin was developed by Forgemedia — the same team behind the amazing WordPress performance plugin Perfmatters.
Official Website
10. Social Share & Locker Pro — $20
My final recommendation is Social Share & Locker Pro, which retails at only $20 on CodeCanyon.
This advanced social media solution supports 44 social networks for sharing, and a whopping hundred networks for social media follows.
Sharing buttons can be displayed above, below or even inside content. You can also display sharing buttons in floating bars, slide in boxes and in images. As the plugin name suggests, you can also lock content until the visitor has shared the page.
Ten standard theme templates are available for sharing and following, and a further three templates have been created specifically for mobile users. The total number of shares can be displayed in your sharing bars, and you can enable tracking to show page views. If you so desire, you can add fake counts to visitors.
Out of the box, it works with popular WordPress plugins such as WooCommerce, but it can work with any WordPress post type.
Since it was launched in 2014, Social Share & Locker Pro has continually been improved. It supports a staggering number of social media networks and gives users hundreds of customisation options.
The sheer number of options available in Social Share & Locker Pro is astounding, but the plugin is easy to use.
Official Sales Page
Honorable Mentions
There are thousands of social media sharing plugins available for WordPress. Many of these were eliminated from this list because they were outdated or no longer supported, while others were removed when I tested them and found errors.
As you’d expect, when you curate a list of the best ten, many good solutions don’t make the cut for one reason or another. In some cases for example, I didn’t included a plugin because the functionality was similar to another solution in the top ten.
In a previous version of this article, we included Shareaholic, AddThis and MashShare. They’re all versatile social media solutions and I encourage you to check them out.
If the social media plugins in our top ten don’t fit your needs, here are a few other solutions worth checking out:
Final Thoughts
When it comes to social media sharing, everyone has different views on what’s good and what’s not. For this reason, I’d encourage you to test out a few of the options listed above, and, in the case of premium solutions, review the demos of each one thoroughly.
Shop around and pay attention to where the plugin lets you display sharing buttons within posts and pages, the styles that are available, and the social media sharing networks that are included. Ideally, you want to choose a solution that supports your preferred networks, integrates well with the design of your website and doesn’t negatively affect your website performance.
For many years, I used minimal social media solutions such as Jetpack on my own blog, as I appreciated their simplicity and the fact that text links didn’t increase page loading times.
Over the past few years, I’ve switched between Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress and Elegant Theme’s Monarch plugin, but I’m always open to the idea of changing my social media sharing button setup when better solutions come along.
You should be too, particularly as the market is changing so quickly. WordPress plugins such as SocialSnap are raising expectations in quality, and Novashare has demonstrated that a WordPress social media plugin doesn’t have to slow your website down.
Using any of these? Which would you say is the best? Any you dislike? Any favorites?
Kevin Muldoon is a professional blogger with a love of travel. He writes regularly about internet marketing on his personal blog and actively talks about technology on YouTube.
Keep reading the article at WinningWP. The article was originally written by Kevin Muldoon on 2021-02-02 01:44:00.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.