The best social plugins for WordPress

In this article, we’ll see the best social plugins for WordPress. Also, you’ll discover what social plugins are and what you need to consider when choosing them.

We already wrote about the importance of social networks in our content strategy. But how can we technically implement them in our blog? Through plugins.

It’s not always easy to integrate social media with your website. Fortunately, if you use WordPress (and there are chances that you are actually using it), there are tons of plugins that will do the job for you.

On the other side, the supply of Social plugins for WordPress is so vast that a lot of people can easily get confused. In this article, we’ll help you choose the best social plugin for your WordPress website.

We’ll see:

• what social plugins are;
• the things you should take into consideration when choosing them;
• the best social plugins for WordPress.

Let’s begin.

What are Social Plugins?

With social plugins, we mean all those plugins that integrate social networks in your blog. These are the plugins that allow you, among other things:

• adding sharing buttons;
• showing how many times readers shared your article in their social channels;
• to add “like” or “follow” buttons to your social media pages.

What are the best plugins for WordPress?

Things you should consider when choosing a plugin

There is a ton of plugins out there, both free and paid. How to choose the one that best suits you? Let’s put aside special needs for a moment. The first two things you must take into account are:

• how they affect your website performances because you know that a slow-loading page affects your SEO;
• how they improve your user experience. Namely, the way they blend with your page aspect and how easily your users can find and use them.

Taking these aspects in mind, here’s a list of our favorite social plugins for WordPress.

AddtoAny

With its minimalistic interface, AddtoAny is one of the most popular and customizable social plugins.

It allows adding any (ha!) social network and other platforms, so your readers can share your content in their social networks, email, or bookmark it.

It also has an integration with Google Analytics and Bitly, the possibility to customize the appearance of the sharing buttons, and it has a small impact on the website performances.

Finally, it works great on mobile devices, with floating icons and the possibility to open the social media’s mobile app when the user clicks on its icon.

Floating Social Media Icon

We like it because it offers a very user-friendly solution. Floating social media icons follow your reader as she scrolls down or up your page so she can share your article at any moment.

You can also customize the appearance and integrate short links. Finally, it is also very lightweight.

Shareaholic

Shareaholic is one of the most popular social plugins for WordPress. It is a very lightweight yet comprehensive plugin since it supports many social media (including the most popular, of course) and shows a sharing counter.

It boasts full mobile compatibility; link shorteners support; Google Analytics integration to monitor the post performances.

It also integrates well with other social plugins.

MashShare

It is very similar to Shareaholic and as much as popular.

It is a high-performance, customizable, comprehensive social plugin with tons of supported social networks; a sticky, floating social bar; support for Google Analytics and many other options.

It is one of the best plugins you can get for free.

Shared Counts

This plugin allows you to display a share counter. You can decide to show it either at the top or the bottom of the page.

Also, it supports a limited number of social networks, but it includes the most popular ones.

It helps you increase the social proof of your content, encouraging your visitors to share your post in their turn.

Sassy Social Share

We love this plugin because it is stylish and very customizable, and it also supports more than 100 different social media. You can decide to add a floating sharing icon, choose among many icon styles, rearrange the icon order, and integrate a sharing counter.

Also, it supports link shortening, AMP, and WooCommerce. Finally, it is very lightweight.

Social Login

As the name suggests, with WordPress Social Login, you can allow your users to log in with their social accounts to comment on your posts. It can nudge your visitors to interact with your content, sparing them the annoyance to create an account or leave their email address.

And what’s in for you? A much-commented blog post can be a massive boost for your SEO.

Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed

Images are crucial for good content, yet they might pose a performance problem and thus, an SEO problem. The right solution comes from Smash Balloon. You can embed your beautiful, social-appealing photos in your post without hindering the website performances.

Click to Tweet

If you plan to enrich your article with memorable (and quotable) sentences, you can use Click to Tweet to allow your readers to tweet excerpts from your text with a click.

It will help your self-esteem and also your social reputation.

What plugins do you use or going to use among these? Are there some you want to add to this list? Tell us with a comment!