Five Steps to Add Social Sharing Buttons To Your Blog
Good morning! Hope you are well this weekend!
I am excited. My sister is visiting from Chicago today.
I did set up my social sharing buttons this week.
Next week, I plan to write up my profile pages on my different social media accounts and get used to using them.
I’ll let you know how that goes.
For now, I thought I’d share how easy it was to set up the social sharing buttons.
Step One – Choose and Install a Social Sharing Plugin
I used Social Share Icons & Social Share Buttons. There’s a Plugins section on the left margin of your WordPress dashboard. Just click on Add New Plugin. The page will show a variety of popular plugins. Above the boxes of different plugins, it reads Keyword, and there’s a search box. You can search social share buttons, and various options will pop up. My trainer suggested this one. He also recommended Social Media Feather and Ultimate Social Sharing Buttons.
I did not pay for the premium plugin at this time. They seemed to be giving it away at just $30 if I invested within a short period, but I needed to know whether I needed it. The marketing department knows how to make you feel like you need to upgrade immediately, but I decided to wait until I knew I needed it. I’ll make that investment when I am more advanced in using social media.
Then, you click the button that says Activate.
If you installed this plugin, it appears as Ultimate Social Media PLUS in the left margin. Oddly, the title doesn’t match the plugin’s name, but the name was probably too long.
Step Two – Set Up Which Icon Buttons Will Show
- RSS Feed is highly recommended. I had to look up what an RSS feed is. It’s a way of keeping up with all the blogs you read.
- Email is highly recommended.
- Facebook is highly recommended.
- X is highly recommended.
I would recommend the following options if you have them set up.
- YouTube
- Houzz
- OK
- Telegram
- VK
- Copy link
- Mastodon
Step Three – Choose What You Want the Icons To Do
Each platform will have different options.
For example, I can give you the option to visit my Pinterest page and/or pin my blog on Pinterest.
In my plugin, I place a checkmark on the options I choose to use.
Step Four – Choose Where the Buttons Will Be Displayed
Decide where you want the buttons to appear on your blog post.
Tip: I liked the idea of having the buttons appear on the center side of my post. People could share my posts wherever they were in the article. The buttons would be handy at all times.
However, on a cell phone, the buttons cover the text. It was very annoying.
So now, I have the buttons at the bottom of the page.
Step Five – Test the Buttons
The next step is to test the buttons and ensure they work as expected.
Share your blog posts on your social media accounts by clicking your social sharing buttons. Visit your social media platforms to ensure your content shows as expected.
Conclusion
Following these five steps, you can easily set up social sharing buttons for your blog. It actually is a simple process.
You can encourage readers to share your content by including a call-to-action with the social sharing buttons.
You will reach a wider audience and meet new readers as your original readers share your blog posts and attract new readers to your blog.
It’s very exciting. I’ve waited far too long to dip my toe in the waters of social media, but I’m diving in!
How do you feel about using social media in your business? Do you have any qualms about it? Why or why not? I’m hoping you have had positive experiences with social media. I’d love to hear about them! Please leave a comment 🙂
Oh! And I just remembered! Please share my blog on social media! Thank you!
Ciao for now,
Nakina
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. I didn’t know about this plugin, and will have a look at it this week. Like yourself, I’m slowly dipping my toes into social media, so sharing golden nuggets like this really help. I really appreciate it.
The 5 steps are broken down really well and breaks it up to manageable chunks that aren’t overwhelming. I’ll let you know how I get on x
You are welcome, Sarah!
I’m glad it’s not overwhelming. That was my goal!
I have put this off so long because I was intimidated.
Happily, it turns out there was no need to be so 🙂
Nakina
I haven’t used any of the social media plug ins but thanks to you, I now will!!
Good for you, Kate!
I’m so glad to inspire you!
Cheers!
Nakina
Thank you for sharing. WordPress has so many options, and it is great to learn about each one! Really appreciate how you broke down the steps to try out this feature.
It does, Alison. There are so many plugins, it’s hard to know which to choose.
My pleasure to break it down into steps. Something like this would have helped me do this much sooner, so I wanted to share it with you all.
All the best,
Nakina
I love this post… it is simple yet so informative and specific to social sharing buttons and what to do with them. Very practical and well written. Thank you for the tip.
I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it, Vanessa!
You’re welcome for the tip.
This week, I will wrap my mind around to what extent I should have a presence on different social media platforms. I hope to have something practical to share on those next week.
At this point, it seems like I need to be active everywhere all at once, and that is not practical!
Hope to see you then, too!
Nakina
Thanks for the step by step instructons. As per usual I haven’t heard of half a dozen social media platforms as you have listed in step two of your list.
For me – I use a few social media platforms to announce when a new blog post is published – and I do that manually. I have branded myself as @SoapboxBob or some variation on my social media platforms. And while I’ve done not a whole lot with my YouTube channel – it has been around since 2007!
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Hey, Robert!
I’ll have to checkout your YouTube channel! 2007, wow! That’s a while back!
I didn’t know many of those platforms, either.
I think I’ll try a few of the popular ones and stick to those.
Have a great week!
Nakina
I’ve got my links to social media on the footer of my page, which is the WordPress template, but I definitely like the plugin you’ve set up much better. It’s much more visible, and I’m sure more likely to get clicked on. I’m going to set that up, thanks for sharing.
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Sure thing, Nathan!
Glad you like it!
Nakina
Hi Nakina,
It’s so great to see that WP seems to have a plug-in plus free options for almost anything you want to do.
I am at the beginning stage and have just a FB page and blog, right now exploring further using YouTube, but I also like to be able to use Pinterest.
I am interested in using RSS feed but need to do more research first.
Thank you for a great informative post
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You’re welcome, Eleanor!
I’ve looked a bit into the RSS feed.
You can manage one with a internet browser extension. There’s one made by Google: RSS Subscription Extension .
Or get an app such as Feedly, Reeder, or Feedbin.
There are also some online RSS readers: Feedly, Inoreader, and The Old Reader.
I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any questions 🙂
Nakina
Hi Nakina,
Have to say, I love this blog sharing! I just learned another thing today by reading your post. Never had thought of adding this type of button to my posts to get people a little more engaged.
Will definitely look to using it in the near future! Merci!
Oh, fantastic, Marc!
I’m interested in seeing if they do increase engagement. I’m sure they will; it is an easy way to reach a broader audience.
De rien!
Nakina
Nakina,
Thank you for the tips on social sharing buttons and how to set them up. I have been wanting to do this and now will be able to.
Sherri
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Oh, great news!
Glad to help!
Nakina
Nakina, thank you so much for this great post. That’s really useful information around social media as most people talk about it, but I don’t really know how to actually lay out and share all the different channels. You’ve laid it out very well here. thank you. My only question is you’ve listed quite a long list for social media platforms in my experience three or four or five probably more than you need. What are your thoughts? Do you think we should have as many as you listed or would you say just pick a couple of them?
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Atif, great question!
Those are the possible platforms available for the plugin I chose.
I won’t be using that many, by far.
I’ve heard you should only share on platforms you’re willing to keep up with.
One thing to keep in mind is we’re dealing with people. So, we need to be able to respond to them or we’re ignoring the people who want our help.
This is a big concern of mine, since I don’t have any social media presence to speak of. I actually ordered Social Media Sharing for Dummies . (I find those books can be great as quick summaries to find out what I don’t know so I can ask some intelligent questions.)
I’m going to be taking a look at it this week as well as getting feedback from Glenn regarding how to keep track of all these social media platforms.
I know Glenn recommends Facebook, Linkedin, and I think X. My plugin recommends to also use Pinterest and Instagram.
I’ll let you know what I find out.
Cheers!
Nakina
Hey, James, here. Great job on setting up you SM buttons. In reference to your question about social media use, I have 25K followers on twitter. That said, I only use twitter now (X) to show that I’m an expert in several niches based on my twitter profile. http://www.twitter.com/jamescoe
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Thanks, James!
Congratulations on your Twitter following!
I’ll check it out!
Nakina
Thank you for putting this together! I found it very helpful. I wasn’t aware of the plugins you mentioned but I like how your site looks so I may have to install those!
You’re welcome, Lauren!
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Nakina
Hi Nakina! I have been toying with adding Social Sharing Buttons to my blog post and now that I have a few recommendations on Plugins and your 5 steps, I will consider closer. This was a very valuable post for me so, THANK YOU!
I’m so glad you found it useful, Ernie! I’m so glad to help 🙂
Nakina