Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn- Social media channels are indispensable to the success of online businesses today. With countless users engaged on social media platforms, businesses are increasingly recognizing the need to integrate their WordPress websites with social media.
This symbiotic relationship offers dual benefits - it amplifies the website traffic and expands the follower base.
Given the prime importance of social media integration, we have made a list of the 7 best WordPress social media plugins for 2023. These recommendations are based on their features, pricing, and popularity. These plugins will empower you to leverage the potential of social media to boost your online presence. Let’s get started.
What is a social media plugin for WordPress?
A social media plugin is a tool that lets visitors share the content of your site on their social media accounts. It typically adds social sharing buttons to your website, enabling visitors to easily share your content with their followers or friends on social media.
What are the benefits of social media plugins for your WordPress site?
Given that each member of your target audience has at least one social media account, imagine the reach you’ll receive if they share your content with their social network! This organic reach and visibility will ultimately lead to increased traffic to your site and conversions.
Increased visibility
Social media sharing plugins make it effortless for visitors to share your content on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and more. This can significantly increase the visibility of your website and attract more traffic.
Expanded reach
When your content is shared on social media, it can potentially reach a much wider audience than your immediate followers or website visitors. If your content is engaging and share-worthy, it has the potential to go viral, resulting in increased exposure for your site.
Enhanced user engagement
By integrating social sharing buttons into your website, you encourage visitors to actively engage with your content. Sharing allows them to express their interest in your posts, and it can lead to conversations, comments, and discussions around your content.
Improved SEO
Social media shares can indirectly impact your website's search engine optimization (SEO). When your content is shared on social platforms, it generates backlinks and signals to search engines that your content is valuable and worth ranking higher in search results.
Brand promotion
Social media sharing helps promote your brand and establish your online presence. When users share your content, they are essentially endorsing your brand in their network, increasing brand awareness and credibility
Traffic generation
As your content gets shared on social media, it drives traffic back to your website. This increased traffic can lead to more conversions, such as newsletter sign-ups, product purchases, or inquiries, depending on your site's goals.
Analytics and insights
Many social media share plugins provide analytics and insights into the number of shares, likes, and comments your content receives on social platforms. This data can help you understand which types of content resonate most with your audience and tailor your future content strategy accordingly.
What should you look for in a WordPress social media plugin?
A social media plugin for WordPress may have many features, but is it worth installing? How do you decide which is best for your business? Let us see some of the factors you have to look for when selecting the best social media plugin for your WordPress site.
Social platform integration
Does the plugin support social media platforms where your target audience is present? Ensure that the plugin you select supports integration with major social media platforms relevant to your target audience, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. The more platforms it supports, the wider your reach will be.
Social sharing buttons
Look for a plugin that provides attractive and customizable social sharing buttons. These buttons should be easily visible on your website, allowing visitors to share your content with just a single click.
Customization options
The ability to customize the appearance and placement of social sharing buttons is important. Look for plugins that offer flexibility in terms of button styles, sizes, colors, and positioning, so you can seamlessly integrate them with your website's design. The floating and sticky horizontal and vertical share bars are one feature that you need to look for, as they follow the visitor as they scroll down the page, making it easy to share the content.
Share count display
It can be beneficial to display the number of shares your content has received on social media. Look for a plugin that includes this feature, as it can help build social proof and encourage further sharing.
Social follow buttons
In addition to sharing buttons, consider a plugin that offers social follow buttons. These buttons allow visitors to easily follow your social media profiles without leaving your website, helping to grow your follower base.
Social login integration
Some plugins provide the option for visitors to log in to your website using their social media accounts. This can streamline the registration process and encourage user engagement.
Loading speed
Ensure that the plugin is optimized for performance and doesn't significantly impact your website's loading speed. Slow-loading plugins can negatively affect the user experience and SEO. Select a plugin that loads the social share icons asynchronously, meaning it loads after all the other content on the site is loaded. This minimizes the impact on the site’s loading speed.
Analytics and tracking
Consider plugins that provide analytics and tracking features, allowing you to monitor the impact of social media shares on your website's traffic and engagement.
Compatibility and support
Check that the plugin is compatible with your version of WordPress and any other essential plugins or themes you may be using. Additionally, look for plugins that offer reliable support and regular updates to address any issues or security vulnerabilities.
User reviews and ratings
Before finalizing a plugin, read user reviews and ratings to get insights into the experiences of others who have used it. This can give you a better understanding of its reliability, ease of use, and overall performance.
Pricing
Last but not least, select a plugin that suits your budget. Many times, a free plugin may not serve the purpose. Compare the pricing plans of different plugins, and then come to the best conclusion.
These are the factors you need to consider when selecting a plugin for your site. So now, let’s proceed and list the 7 best social media plugins for your WordPress site for 2023.
Build An Engaging App For Free
1. Smash Balloon
(Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed)
Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed is a powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to display your Instagram photos on your website. It's easy to set up and use, even for beginners, and it offers a wide range of customization options so you can display your photos in the way that best suits your website.
Features ⚙️
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Display feeds from one or multiple Instagram accounts.
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Choose the number of photos to display.
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Control the layout of your feed.
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Add captions and links to your photos.
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Customize the style of your buttons.
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Make your feeds responsive and mobile-friendly.
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Improve your website's SEO.
Pricing
The free plan allows you to display feeds from one Instagram account. The paid plans start at $49 per year.
2. Social Warfare
(Social Sharing Plugin - Social Warfare)
Social Warfare is a WordPress plugin that assists you in increasing social media shares and improving the SEO of your website.
Social Warfare's smart sharing buttons are designed to be as user-friendly as possible. This makes it easy for visitors to share your content on social media, which can help you reach a wider audience.
Social Warfare is SEO-friendly, which means that it can help you improve the search engine ranking of your website. This is because the plugin adds social media meta tags to your website, which tell search engines about the social media shares of your content.
It also allows you to track the performance of your social sharing efforts. This information can help you optimize your social sharing strategy and get the most out of your social media efforts.
Features ⚙️
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Choose from top social network sharing buttons like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
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You can choose where you want your share buttons to show up.
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Insert floating share buttons to follow readers down the screen.
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Choose from a variety of button styles and colors, and you can also add your own custom text and images.
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Display the number of times your content has been shared on social media to encourage visitors to share it.
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Place click-to-tweet quotes inside your posts or pages.
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Enable the Image Hover Pin Button to place a Pin button over the top of every image inside the content.
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Share count to track the performance of your social sharing efforts.
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Adds social media meta tags to your website, informing search engines about your content's social media shares.
Pricing
Social Warfare offers a free plan that includes all of the basic features. Paid plans start at $29 per year and offer additional features, such as the ability to add social sharing buttons to your widgets, menus, and WooCommerce products and the ability to track the performance of your social sharing efforts.
3. AddToAny
(AddToAny Share Buttons)
AddToAny Share Buttons is a popular WordPress plugin that lets you add social sharing buttons to your website. It supports over 100 social networks and bookmarking services, so you can give your visitors plenty of options for sharing your content.
Features ⚙️
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You can choose from a variety of different button styles, including floating buttons, sidebar buttons, counters, follow buttons, image-sharing buttons, and in-content buttons.
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You can customize the look and feel of your sharing buttons and where they appear on your site.
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Utilize the vertical or horizontal floating share bar to encourage your visitors to share your content. It follows the user as they scroll through the screen, so it's always visible.
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It also lets you add social sharing buttons to your images.
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If your social sharing buttons are disabled by a browser extension, AddToAny Share Buttons will automatically show the share count for your content.
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It tracks how many times your content is shared on social media, so you can see which networks are driving the most traffic to your site.
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It integrates with Google Analytics, so you can track how your social sharing buttons are performing.
Pricing
This social media plugin is free to use.
4. Sassy Social Share
(Social Sharing Plugin - Sassy Social Share)
The Social Sharing Plugin - Sassy Social Share is a simple and easy-to-use WordPress social media plugin allowing website visitors to share content over their favorite social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Reddit, and other 110 social sharing and bookmarking services. The efficient use of this plugin on your store helps it get indexed faster and improves search engine optimization, resulting in increased user traffic.
Features ⚙️
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Options to customize icon shape, size, background color, and logo color.
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Share counts are supported for Twitter, Buffer, Reddit, Pinterest, and other select social media channels.
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Standard and floating layouts with URL shortening services.
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Enable or disable the social sharing bar on individual pages or posts or at the top or bottom.
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Enable or disable vertical and floating sharing interfaces on mobile devices.
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Scalable vector graphics for social share icons to load fast and scale to any size.
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The plugin is compatible with WPML and multilingual websites.
Pricing
This plugin is free to use on your WordPress website.
5. Shared Counts
(Shared Counts - Social Media Share Buttons)
Shared Counts is a WordPress plugin that displays the number of times your content has been shared on social media. Users can share your posts and pages with their friends on social media, increasing traffic and social engagement on your site. It's a simple and effective way to show your visitors how popular your content is, and it can also encourage them to share it themselves.
Features ⚙️
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It includes social share buttons and email sharing with reCAPTCHA support to prevent abuse.
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Shared Counts displays the number of times your content has been shared on networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
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You can customize the look and feel of the share counts and where they appear on your site.
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It is GDPR-compliant, so you can be sure that your visitors' data is safe.
Pricing
The pricing for this plugin starts at $40 per month. If you are testing, its free plan includes up to 500 daily queries.
6. Social Snap
(Social Share Buttons, Social Sharing Icons, Click to Tweet - Social Media Plugin by Social Snap)
If you're looking for a powerful and versatile social media plugin for WordPress, Social Snap is a great option. It helps you leverage the power of social sharing to drive more traffic to your website. It allows you to control how visitors share and view your content.
What is unique about this plugin is that it has extended features such as social login and advanced analytics. Also, this plugin works asynchronously, so it doesn’t slow down your website.
Features ⚙️
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Allow users to share your posts and pages to improve website traffic.
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Place the share buttons before, after, or both before and after content.
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Floating sidebar share buttons with plenty of customization options.
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Display beautiful social links to display follower counts.
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Automatically post on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn when you publish new posts.
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Allow visitors to log in using their favorite social networks.
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Control how posts are displayed on social media channels.
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Encourage users to tweet your quotes using customizable Click to Tweet boxes.
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Get detailed insight into how your audience shares and interacts with your website content.
Pricing
The paid plan for the Social Snap plugin starts at $39 per year.
7. UltimatelySocial
(Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons)
This social plugin for WordPress lets website visitors easily share the content of posts and pages across 200+ social media platforms. A unique feature of this social media plugin for WordPress is that you can give the social media icons an animation effect to make your visitors aware of the share icons. You can also display a pop-up asking visitors to follow or share via social media icons. This plugin’s social media share icons load after everything else on your page has loaded to optimize it for speed.
Features ⚙️
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Give several actions to social media share icons, like Like and Share options.
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Give animation effects like mouse-hover effects and automatic shuffling to make visitors aware of the buttons.
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Select from a wide range of icon design styles to match your website’s theme.
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You can opt to customize the available icons for color and size or upload custom icons.
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Define which pictures and snippets of text should be shared for every page and post.
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Use URL shorteners for cleaner links.
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Make the share icons float or stick.
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Display social media share counts for each page on your site.
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Display a popup asking readers to share the content or follow your social media profiles.
Pricing
A free version is available with restricted features. Subscribe to its paid plans, starting at $ 29.98 for six months.
A mobile app for your website to increase social media shares
Have you ever considered having an app for your store to increase social media shares? We’ll tell you why having an app for your WooCommerce store can indeed provide additional benefits for social media shares compared to just a website.
Ease of sharing
Mobile apps can offer seamless integration with social media platforms, making it easier for users to share products, promotions, or content directly from the app. App users can quickly share product pages, discounts, or their own experiences on social media.
Push notifications
You can leverage push notifications in your app to notify users about new products, exclusive offers, or social media campaigns, encouraging them to share the information with their networks.
Enhanced user experience
Mobile apps provide a more immersive and user-friendly experience compared to mobile websites, leading to increased engagement, loyalty, and ultimately, a higher likelihood of users sharing your content on social media.
App-specific features
Mobile apps can offer additional features and functionalities that are not typically available on a website. For example, you can integrate social media login options or provide social media sharing incentives within the app, making it more enticing for users to share your content.
If you believe that a mobile app aligns with your strategy and can enhance your social media sharing efforts, get started with Swipecart. This no-code app builder is designed to create apps in minutes without writing a single line of code. It has pre-designed templates and pre-coded widgets, all visible on a visual drag-and-drop interface. Any non-technical user can build an app effortlessly and integrate plugins and third-party integration tools to add advanced features to the app. We recommend having an app for your WooCommerce store, as it can help you gain online visibility and attract new customers.
Wrapping Up
Have you found your pick from our list of the 7 best social media plugins for your WordPress site? What are the factors you will consider while picking the best plugin for your website? And if you are planning to have an app for your store, try the no-code app builder Swipecart. It can definitely be a valuable addition to increasing your site’s social media presence!
