There are hundreds of ways to add social media buttons to your blog or website.
Since I just went through a blog redesign, I wanted to share with you my process for choosing the best social media buttons to add to your blog or website.
By adding social media buttons to your website, this makes it easier for readers to share your content across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and so on.
When you make it easy for readers to share your content on their social media channels, this can help out your site a lot.
As a result, this can lead to higher engagement, more interactions, and more pageviews on your website.
A word about plugins
A lot of people who build their own blog think that adding plugins to quickly solve a problem is the right thing to do.
While you can quickly build your blog, you need to be sure you really need to use a plugin instead of having someone code the feature into your site.
When you add a lot of plugins to your site, not only can this significantly slow down the load times, but you can affect your SEO ranking as well.
When you add social media buttons to your site, be sure you don’t overwhelm your readers.
Before adding any social media buttons, be sure you look at your social interactions in Google Analytics. This way you can determine which social networks you should include.
Let’s take a look at five types of social media buttons you can add to your blog or website to help make it easier for readers to share your content.
5 Ways to add social media buttons to your blog or website
1. Digg-digg
Digg-digg was created by the people who make Buffer, a social media scheduling tool.
One of the pros of using Digg-digg is that it is a lightweight plugin you can setup and install in minutes.
The only cons I see with this plugin is that it doesn’t offer much customization as far as the style of the icons.
2. Jetpack by WordPress.com
Jetpack is more than just a way to add social media buttons. In addition to being able to add social media buttons to your blog or website, when you install Jetpack, you can also add additional functionality to your site.
This includes:
- Email subscriptions
- Related posts
- Contact forms
- And more…
To me, this is makes Jetpack extremely powerful but a bit overwhelming.
Fortunately, you can choose to install all or some of their features.
3. Simple social buttons
For those of you looking for a basic set of social media buttons, Simple social buttons would be a good addition to your site.
The setup process to add social media buttons was very quick.
One other thing I found very helpful was that you could quickly add social media buttons before or after your post without needing to know any programming.
4. HS Social media buttons
Most of the social media buttons we have discussed so far are very plain. As more and more websites take on a modern look, you might want to have social media buttons that match that look.
A fourth type of social media button you can add to your site is HS social media buttons.
With this type of social media button, you get a clean look to your social media buttons.
If you like, you can also customize this WordPress plugin some.
5. Flare
The last way to add social media buttons to your blog or website is to use a product called Flare.
In my opinion, this is the most comprehensive social media button you can add to your site.
Not only can you customize the colors, but you can also customize the placement on your blog or website and even change the style of the buttons.
For example, you can make them circular or round the corners or make them square. This way they fit with the style of your overall website theme.
Where Flare really shines though is that they offer two different versions. Flare for WordPress and Flare lite.
This is important to know because as I mentioned earlier, when you add plugins, they can slow down your site.
With Flare, you can install a plugin or you can use Flare lite which you customize on their website and one line of code to install it on your own site.
This means you don’t have to install another plugin!
Which one did I choose?
Ultimately, I chose to add social media buttons using Flare lite. This was because it did not require adding another plugin to my site.
I also chose this set of social media buttons because it allowed me the flexibility to customize it with minimal effort.
Your turn
Which social media buttons do you currently have installed on your blog or website?
Leave a comment below and tell me which social media buttons you chose and why.