Are you looking for plugins to add social buttons to your WordPress website? Do you know which ones work best? Which ones stand out for some features or are less recommended by others? In this list, we’ve collected and analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the top six WordPress social networking plugins.
Today there are hundreds of WordPress Plugins for sharing content on social networks. Still, it is not always easy to decide which one best suits our strategy since we must take into account several parameters.
Some of them could be: the loading time they consume, if it is responsive, the design, if it is of good usability, etc. Taking into account these points, we have decided to analyze those that work best to help you decide on one of them.
Why do we think it is essential to know which are the best WordPress Plugins for social networks?
For one simple reason, we believe that no website should be dependent on just one source of traffic today. We all agree that getting organic traffic is one of the main goals of any website.
But, until we achieve that positioning, social traffic is fundamental to the success of any brand or company on the Internet. And to get that social traffic, including from TikTok, which is a top-rated app nowadays, nothing better than using the right tools. And this is where the importance of knowing how to select the best WordPress plugins to add social buttons to our website comes in. As well as using tools that can help with social media accounts just like lionelarnaudie who specializes in TikTok
5 Essential features when choosing the best plugin
Well, here is a point where there may be some discord since every website has its objectives; that’s why some plugin features may be better suited to some strategies than others. So, we will focus on five basic features:
1: The time or speed of loading the plugin
We know that the user experience on a website is critical today. That’s why the loading time of the plugin can’t be high since it slows down the web, and that can lead the reader to leave the website before it loads.
On the other hand, one of the essential points in the web positioning is the speed of loading the site, because if it is slow, Google will be able to penalize that web.
2: Make it responsive
That is to say, that it adapts to mobile devices. The plugin you select must be correctly adapted to smaller screens such as tablets or mobiles.
Why is this point significant? Well, because nowadays, a considerable part of the population has access to content through mobile devices, and if your plugins are not responsive, they may stop sharing those contents.
3: Freedom of location and management
An essential point, since not all plugins allow it. Most of them will enable you to place the plugin:
at the beginning of the post;
or at the end of the post.
But, to my way of thinking, it’s important that you can also place it on the side of the button panel and that you can fix it while the user scrolls in the content because it encourages the user to share the content at any time.
4: User’s opinion
Something we should also take into account because, in the end, they are the ones who use the plugins in their websites. We know that there are rankings for rating plugins, but they should not influence us since the authors of the plugins can hack many of them.
We recommend that you look at the average rating, as well as the positive and negative comments. And if you see something suspicious, investigate a little more before deciding on the plugin.
5: Support and updates
Essential when choosing the best WordPress plugins, since the plugins must be adapted to WordPress updates, if not later, we can have compatibility problems or vulnerabilities.
Then, there are other factors such as design or price, among others, but I think these five are essential for selecting a useful Plugin.
Best WordPress plugins for adding social networking buttons
The order is random, as it depends on the needs of each website. Therefore, the number on the list is not essential.
1. SumoMe
One of the most used nowadays and one of the most popular, possibly due to the enormous number of options it provides and also because it is a plugin that in the free version is complete.
Among its positive features, it stands out:
- Easy configuration and responsive;
- With support and updates;
- Allows to add button panel in any part of the website;
- Customize the colors of the social buttons;
- Possibility of connection with many social networks;
- We can add social buttons on top of the post images to share.
- It offers a lot of statistics;
- Free and Premium.
Negative aspects:
I think the main one is the high load time, which slows down the website. Whenever we test the loading speed of websites that use this plugin, this less positive aspect occurs.
2. Ultimate Social Deux
For me, it’s one of the best WordPress plugins for adding social buttons, both for its look and for the wide variety of options and functions it offers. As a highlight, the number of display options for social buttons, unbelievable!
Characteristics:
- Possibility of including more than 25 social buttons;
- Plugin responsive;
- Different positions (lateral, at the beginning or end of posts, widget, shortcodes);
- Add share counter and/or number of followers;
- Multilanguage;
- Possibility to customize button colors;
- Possibility of integration with Woocommerce, Google analytics, Visual composer, etc.
As a less favorable point, which is a payment plugin, $15. But, if you want something different, I think it is not a high price, with the functions that allow you to manage.
3. Add this
Other of the plugins that have more public, either by a large number of services that allow activating or by the number of social networks that allow us to add. Very interesting.
Features:
- Great variety of positions to add social bonuses;
- Responsive;
- With support and updates;
- Pretty impressive help forum;
- Free and Premium.
As a negative aspect, that to access more advanced options, we need to move to a pro plan, 10 dollars/month.
4. Monarch
This plugin from Elegant Themes is one of the latest social network sharing plugins that allow us to add different social button formats with modern, responsive, and very easy to use designs.
Features:
High quantity and variety of social buttons that allows adding;
Customizable buttons (size, color, location, etc.);
It will enable to add buttons at the beginning, end, and side of the contents, as well as in the images as Sumome, something exciting;
It shows shares counter and you can decide from which number of shares the counters are shown;
Less positive aspects:
In some blogs it can make the pages a bit slow, due to the many requests you can make to the server;
It’s a paid plugin, starting at $69/year, but in the end, the excellent stuff pays off ?
If you want to know more about this plugin, watch this Monarch video.
5. Digg Digg
Digg Digg is a plugin created by Buffer, and only for that reason already deserves to be in this listing because we have the confidence that some quality has. It is one of the classics since when we started with a WordPress is usually the first plugin installed to share our content on social networks.
Features:
Allows you to add a floating bar (vertical or horizontal) of social networks in WordPress;
Possibility of adding social buttons at the beginning or end of posts;
It is a lightweight plugin, so it does not overload the website;
We can share in many social networks: Facebook (share and Like), Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.
It is free.
As a less positive aspect, it is a plugin that is not updated for more than two years, which can take us back. It is essential to take it into account and see if it has incompatibilities with the new versions of WordPress or not.
6. Simple Share Buttons
simple-share-buttons WordPress plugin social networks another plugin that you can use to add social buttons to your website, and that stands out for its lightness and simplicity. If you don’t need many extra functions, this can be your plugin.
There are two versions, one free and one paid.
Simple Share Buttons Adder (free).
Simple Share Buttons Plus (premium).
Features:
- It consumes few resources, which makes it a very lightweight plugin;
- Plugin responsive;
- We can add the share counter;
- Select, configure and customize button design and color;
- View statistics and shorten links;
Conclusion
I hope this list of the top 6 WordPress Plugins for adding social buttons to your website is handy and helps you decide among the many options that exist, which one best suits your needs.
As we said at the beginning, there are many other plugins for this feature, so if you have tried one and think it works well, please write in the comments, and we will be happy to look at it and add it to the list.
What do you think of this list of best WordPress Plugins for social networks? Do you use any of them? What other Plugins do you recommend?
Keep reading the article at WPArena. The article was originally written by Editorial Staff on 2020-01-19 16:14:33.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.