“Social media is not just an activity; it is an investment of valuable time and resources. Surround yourself with people who not just support you and stay with you, but inform your thinking about ways to WOW your online presence.”
– Sean Gardner, Social Media Influencer
WordPress Social Media Plugins are an integral part of any modern blog. Along with maximizing your social shares, a dedicated social media plugin can you provide you with lots of additional benefits like –
- An easy sharing solution for the visitors,
- Encourage visitors to share your content,
- Increase search engine visibility for your blog,
- Customize the sharing icons/buttons,
- Provide detailed statistics about your visitors’ social behavior etc.
In order to get these benefits, you will need a reliable social media plugin for your WordPress site. And what are the best social media plugins for WordPress?
Glad you asked. I have a created a list of the best WordPress social media plugins for you. Let’s take a quick look at some of the important aspects of the plugins.
| Plugin Name | Price | Best Feature |
|---|---|---|
| Social Network Tabs For WordPress | $14 | Powered by AJAX |
| Social Share & Locker Pro WordPress Plugin | $14 | Lots of icon designs |
| Socialsider – Universal Social Sidebar | $13 | Advanced customization options |
| AddThis Sharing Buttons | Free | 200,000 installs |
| Social Media Feather | Free | Easy to use |
| Shareaholic | Free | Attractive display options |
| ShareThis | Free | Detailed social analytics |
| Ultimate Social Media and Share Icons | Free | Supports 200+ social networks |
| WP Socializer | Free | Has custom widgets |
| Mashshare | Free | Lossless vector icons |
| Floating Social Bar | Free | Used by WP Beginner |
| Social Sharing, Follow Bar & Share Buttons | Free | A/B testing feature |
I am sure you are looking forward to get more details about the plugins. Here you go.
1. Social Network Tabs For WordPress (Aff.)
Social Network Tabs For WordPress is an excellent premium tool for displaying attractive-looking social sharing buttons in your WordPress site. The plugin lets you combine all the social networks into a single tab and make the tab slide out or static.
Unlike most other social sharing plugins, this one uses AJAX to load the social networks. Therefore, using the plugin will not affect your website performance. The flexible positioning options let you place the social tab on any edge of the browser.
The plugin comes with several custom shortcodes to display the social sharing tabs in various locations. It is possible to hide the social buttons for mobile visitors.
2. Social Share & Locker Pro WordPress Plugin (Aff.)
Social Share & Locker Pro WordPress Plugin comes with all the necessary options for optimizing your social presence. Besides displaying the social sharing buttons, the plugin also allows you to lock content until the visitor shares them in a social media network.
The plugin comes integrated with 28 social network, which includes all the leading ones. You can choose from any of the 10 readymade sharing themes. Each theme includes high quality, retina-ready CSS3 icons. The integrated social share counter displays the number of total shares for your content.
Social Share & Locker Pro works perfectly with popular WordPress plugins including WooCommerce, BuddyPress, JigoShop, Visual Composer. The plugin is also provided with multiple custom shortcodes.
3. Socialsider – Universal Social Sidebar (Aff.)
Socialsider is a simple but powerful plugin for displaying social sidebars in your WordPress site. The plugin comes with 62 social icons, 6 color styles and several positioning options. You can choose any of the two backgrounds – light and dark.
The fully responsive social sharing buttons will look perfect in mobile devices too. You can choose to make the icons half-hidden or not. Other customization options include edge radius, shadow, opacity, spacer etc. You can also choose to open the links in new window.
4. AddThis Social Sharing Buttons for WordPress
Having more than 200,000 installs, AddThis Sharing Buttons is definitely one of the most popular social sharing plugins for WordPress. With support for more than 200 social media platforms including all the major ones, this powerful plugin comes with a lot of useful customization options.
There are two ways to control the sharing buttons – from WordPress and from Addthis.com. If you control from WordPress, you can choose to place the sharing buttons above or below the content, in the left or in the sidebar.
Addthis.com provides you with additional options like mobile toolbar, newsletter sharing buttons, vertical and horizontal follow buttons etc. Besides choosing the icons, you can also choose where to display the sharing buttons.
5. Social Media Feather – lightweight social media sharing and follow buttons
Social Media Feather is another simple and nice-looking social sharing plugin for WordPress. The lightweight plugin provides easy ways of adding social sharing and social follow buttons in the posts, pages or custom post types of your WordPress site.
A special feature of this social media plugin is its retina and high resolution support. As a result, your social sharing buttons will look attractive in the HD screens. In order to deliver a fast performance, the plugin does not rely on JavaScript. Therefore, using the plugin will not have any impact on your website performance.
The plugin also comes with several custom widgets. It is possible to place the widgets in your desired location and display social media sharing buttons wherever you want.
6. Shareaholic – Social Media Share Buttons, Related Posts, Social Analytics & More
Shareaholic provides a simple and easy way of growing your website traffic by displaying social sharing buttons, related posts etc. With support for all the major social networks, the sharing buttons are also provided with share counts.
Besides bit.ly, Shareaholic supports other URL-shortening services including Google’s URL shortener, TinyURL, Shr.lc etc. You can choose from four themes and several headlines. It is also possible to choose the position, layout, size and alignment of the sharing buttons. You can also choose to display the sharing counter on the top, side or as badges.
7. ShareThis – Social Media Share Buttons and Social Analytics
ShareThis is an excellent free social sharing plugin to increase the social activity of your WordPress site. You can choose any of the 120 social channels, which includes all the popular names. It is possible to use small or large icons, display counters or use one of the readymade social sharing bars.
You can get more detailed social insights by creating a ShareThis account. This will allow you to access the social quality index, social channel reports, daily sharing activity etc. The plugin will also install several custom widgets, which could be useful to get more shares from your visitors.
8. Ultimate Social Media and Share Icons
Ultimate Social Media and Share Icons is a feature-rich social sharing plugin for WordPress. Supporting more than 200 social media platforms, the plugin comes with 16 different icon designs. Icons could be enhanced by applying various animations like hover effects, automatic shuffling etc. You can choose to make the icons float or sticky.
It is possible to enable or disable the share counts with the icons. Other customization options include reordering the icons, custom sizing, custom spacing, alignment etc. There is an option to enable the sharing buttons after each post. You can also choose to display a pop-up asking the visitors to subscribe.
9. WP Socializer for Social Media Sharing
WP Socializer is a powerful social media plugin for adding social sharing and social bookmarking buttons in your WordPress site. The plugin allows you to add the buttons in your posts and sidebar. There is also a floating sharebar available. The sharebar could be placed in either vertical or horizontal mode.
The plugin will also install several custom widgets including dedicated widgets for Facebook like box and Google+ badge. It is possible to show the buttons in specific locations like the home page, categories, tags, author pages, search pages etc. You can also choose to display the buttons above or below the content.
10. Mashshare – Social Media Icons SEO Share Buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Subscribe
Mashshare offers reliable, highly customizable social sharing buttons for your WordPress site. By default, the plugin displays a large share counter along with separate links for Facebook, Twitter and subscribing to your newsletter. The high quality lossless vector icons look great in any display.
You can extend the plugin features by getting the free and/or premium add-ons including Google Analytics, responsive buttons, more social networks etc. There is also a dedicated shortcode with multiple parameters for customizing the output. The plugin works perfectly with all the popular SEO plugins.
11. Floating Social Sharing Bar
With a strong focus on retaining the website performance, Floating Social Bar is another social media sharing plugin for WordPress. The plugin is designed to increase your search engine visibility while not having any impact on your website performance. Unlike the other social media plugins, this one focuses on the big names only.
The simple user interface of the plugin lets you drag and drop the social media icons you want to use. It is also possible to reorder the position of the buttons. The plugin is used in popular sites like WP Beginner and List25.
12. Social Sharing, Follow Bar & Share Buttons by GetSocial.io
This is an all-in-one WordPress social media plugin with lots of powerful features. The plugin has 5 social sharing apps for optimizing the social share of your WordPress site. It is possible to A/B test the location of the apps and to use the best-performing app afterwards.
Additionally, there are 3 social follows apps and several conversion and engagement tools available for you. Besides the free apps, you can purchase the premium apps too. The sharing bar could be positioned as horizontal or vertical. You can also go for the floating share bar.
Which Plugin to Choose?
Well, I have covered 12 social media plugins in this post. While each of them has its fair share of strengths and weaknesses, you need to pick one plugin from them.
If you are okay with a premium plugin, you should go for Social Network Tabs For WordPress. Priced at $14, this plugin comes with very familiar sharing icons which your visitors will instantly recognize. It will also have the minimal impact on your website performance.
And if you are looking for free options, you can consider AddThis Sharing Buttons or Social Media Feather. AddThis Sharing Buttons comes with a really simple user interface and offers lots of customization, positioning and display options.
On the other hand, Social Media Feather allows you to add both social sharing and social follow buttons. The lightweight plugin also has retina-ready icons.
Final Words
Social media could be a very powerful tool for promoting your blog, product or service. And it is very important to provide a convenient sharing solution for your visitors.
While choosing a reliable social media plugin is a challenging task, I hope this list will be very helpful for you. However, if you don’t have the time, why don’t hire an WordPress expert to do the job for you?
Are you using any of these plugins in your WordPress site? If yes, please share your experience by leaving a comment below.
