You’ve arrived. You’ve carefully crafted your WordPress website and social media profiles, and now you’re looking for a way to integrate the two to increase reach and engagement with your users.
While there are ways to do this without any other code or widgets, many plugins have surfaced to make the integration that much easier—and that much better.
Second only to websites, social media has positioned itself as a crucial part of online presence and business. Without proper social media integration, you may lose out on countless users, and your content may never reach the eyes and ears of those it should.
Facebook alone has more than one billion users, and it would be a shame for your blog posts and website pages to not reach the maximum amount of people possible.
There are too many WordPress social media plugins to name them all, but we’ve collected a list of 10 of the best that you can use to get started today. Some are free, and others come at a price, but all are worth the time and effort.
Sociable
A popular and fast-growing social media plugin, Sociable (Free) is highly customizable and provides different methods for measuring the ratings of your posts, pages and comments. You can include your latest posts, tweets, mentions and follows as well as display the count of your visitors from Facebook and Twitter. The backend interface is user-friendly with drag-and-drop capabilities.
Slick Social Share Buttons
Whether you want a floating or sliding panel for your social media icons, you can use Slick Social Share Buttons (Free). The plugin hides the social media icons under a general Share button, and the icons slide out when the button is pressed. You can customize the icons panel to be horizontal or vertical or to include a user counter or not.
Artiss Social Bookmarks
Some social media plugins include limited options for social media profiles, and others offer a more expansive selection. Artiss Social Bookmarks (Free) has one of the best selections: the highest number of social networks at 270, including Chinese, Japanese and Russian networks.
ShareThis
With ShareThis (Free), you have access to 120 different social networks. The Hovering Bar can keep these network buttons in view even as you scroll, making it that much easier for users to share.
With the plugin’s MultiPost feature, users can share your page, post or other content via multiple social networks all in one step without leaving your website.
WordPress Social Stream
WordPress Social Stream ($14) is a unique way to share your social media activity all on one page. The plugin creates a wall of content pulled from each social media account you select, which can either use a rotating feed or a filterable wall.
You can control the number of days shown or the number of items displayed per network (15 networks in total).
Social Locker
Social Locker ($21) is a content-locking mechanism and a set of social icons wrapped in one neat package. With this plugin, you can lock a part of your blog post, page, etc. which can only be activated if one of the social buttons is pressed, such as having to Like you on Facebook.
This will encourage users to take social action in order to retrieve the content they want—garnering you more follows and potential engagement. Built-in analytics allow you to monitor user activity.
SocialPop
When you want your social icons to be available but less prominent on your website, SocialPop ($5) can help. When a user hovers over the icons, they will pop up in a variety of customizable directions: up, down, left or right.
They also offer other customizable effects like monochrome colors and the choice or circle or square icons.
Social Network Tabs for WordPress
In addition to profile and sharing buttons, Social Network Tabs for WordPress ($12) includes feeds of your social media profiles in their interactive tabs.
Slide out (or choose static) tabs, and click on the icon to reveal your latest Tweets or wall posts and help increase reach and engagement for your social network shares.
Facebook Walleria
If you’re concentrating your social media efforts on Facebook, Facebook Walleria ($14) will gather and embed several different Facebook posts into one user-friendly interface on your page.
The wall is integrated in real-time with your website so that users can comment on your posts without ever leaving your website.
Social Metrics
(Free) is great for measuring just how well your content and social shares are doing on the backend. You can filter these results by both date and category for better analytics and experimentation.
There is a pro version available for $69.90 with better functionality like downloadable reports and a search box.