One of the wonders of WordPress is the simplicity of adding plugins to your site instantly, providing functionality it would usually take a web designer days to develop. Social sharing is vital whatever your site offers, spreading your audience reach with one simple click and share and improving your SEO too. More shares, mean more traffic, mean more sales and transactions, so plug-ins that make your page easier to share are like gold dust. Here’s our top 5 picks of WordPress plugins to help you improve your social influence:
Sharethis
Almost familiar as the WordPress logo, the ShareThis bar has been around for years and familiarity like that can be a key driver in increased shares. With the ability to share to 120 different platforms it is also very comprehensive. One potential issue with that is the slowing up of your page load times, however it is free. (Update 17/06/2024 – Plugin Closed Oct 21 2023)
Social Media Feather
By contrast, SMF’s big selling point is its small size designed so it won’t affect your existing site’s performance. Simple in design it does a great job via widget to get your pages shared and it looks great, designed with hi-resolution and retina displays in mind. It is also free!
Floating Social Media Icon
As the title suggests this plug-in provides your chosen social media icons – all clickable – from a selection of 20 and in a variety of sizes, and floats them on each page of your WordPress install. A great visual prompt to remind visitors to share on social it makes any site more dynamic and engaging… and … it’s free. (Update 17/06/2024 – Plugin Closed Oct 27 2021)
Digg Digg
Made famous and popular by its use on sites like Mashable, DD has almost every button you may ever need and lets you float them or just have them appear at the bottom of each post, if you have a more discerning visitor. Free and simple to use, it’s from the team at Buffer who seem to know social media sharing as well as anybody on the planet. (Update 17/06/2024 – Plugin no longer available for download)
Social Box
Rather than sharing, the focus of social box is showing off your own social credibility in a neat widget with a great modern design. Supporting a wide range of social networks it can display a variety of statistics on your site beyond just Followers and Likes. It’s not free but at just $7, it’s an affordable investment if you want to be taken serious on social media. (Update 17/06/2024 – Plugin no longer available for download)