With social media playing such an important role at the top of the marketing funnel, every online business should provide visitors with a hassle-free way to share their website content on social media. Luckily for WordPress users, this is easy with the social media widget. There are social media widgetsplugswhich allows visitors to share your website content on their social media profiles, follow your company's social media profile, and connect your WordPress website to your social media presence in other ways. A well-done social media widget can increase engagement with your content across platforms, generate traffic from non-organic sources, and potentially reach new audiences. To begin with, let's take a look at the 14 best social media WordPress widget plugins. What we like:With over 100,000 active installs, AddThis is one of the most popular ways to add social sharing buttons to your WordPress sites, and it's not hard to see why: this free plugin makes it easy to create clean, modern social embed buttons on every page. AddThis allows the use of different types of buttons, including floating buttons (that hang on the side of the screen as the user scrolls), inline buttons (that can be embedded into content), and drop-down buttons (ideal for saving space on mobile devices). Finally, you can connect to over 200 social media platforms and even customize the button colors to match your brand. Price list:Free. What we like:AddToAny Share Buttons helps increase social engagement by adding simple share buttons on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Tumblr and more. Buttons are placed with a shortcode or a widget. Your social buttons can float or remain stationary depending on your preferences. You also have the option to add a part timer to each button. You can also upload your own custom buttons instead of the built-in buttons. The plugin is optimized for mobile devices, supports Retina and is compatible with other modern plugins. Price list:Free. What we like:This Freemium share button plugin offers 16 different button designs that can be connected to more than 200 social media platforms. The buttons can be customized with animated effects to grab the visitor's attention and encourage them to share. You can also display your social counters on your buttons. If you like popups, the free version of this plugin also allows you to display popups and encourage your visitors to follow your social media accounts or share your content.The best social media widgets for WordPress
1.Add
2.AddToAny share buttons
3.Social media sharing buttons and social media sharing icons
Is alsopremium version of this pluginsupport for additional social networks, better optimization for mobile devices, more customization options and pop-up control, and features that increase engagement, such as the ability for users to follow you on Facebook without leaving your website.
Price list:Free; $29.98 per year.
4.Easy social sharing buttons
What we like:Easy Social Share Buttons is CodeCanyon's best-selling social sharing plugin, offering an almost unparalleled amount of functionality and customization to your social sharing strategy. If you want a feature-packed premium option, this is the way to go.
The purchase includes compatibility with over 50 social media sites, a huge range of design options, fine control over the visual details of the buttons, built-in analytics, and a mobile-friendly design.
The features of this plugin go even beyond social sharing buttons and include comments, bookmark buttons,email subscription buttons, click-to-tweet, built-in Instagram feed, print and email buttons, and social chat integration so users can message you on Facebook from your website, for example. And this is just a sketch of what Easy Social Share Buttons can do.
Price list:$ 22.
5.Social war
What we like:Social Warfare is another plugin that offers both a free version and a premium version so you can test it before upgrading. The plugin developers emphasize the speed of this tool and make sure that the share buttons look great but don't slow down the page load time.
Social Warfare works with the most popular social media platforms you need, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest. It is possible to make the share buttons sticky so that they stay on the page and also add the number of shared posts to the buttons.
If you pay for itpremiumversie van Social Warfare, you'll have access to other social media platforms like Reddit and Tumblr, as well as email buttons, Pinterest pins on your images, click-to-tweet functionality, automatic link shortening, and access to more button designs.
Price list:Free; $29 for use on one website.
6.AccessPress Share on social media
What we like:This freemium plugin also allows you to share your website content on popular social media platforms. The free version isn't as feature-rich as the other premium options we've listed so far, but will get the job done for first-time website owners looking for a code-free way to put social buttons on their site.
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn Digg, and Email Sharing buttons are included in the download, as are five button themes for quick customization. Buttons are mobile friendly and contain short codes.
AccessPress Premium for social sharingit offers even more themes, more social sites, popups, widgets to place buttons and share counters.
Price list:Free; $16.
7.Simple social media sharing buttons
What we like:The Simple Social Media Share Buttons plugin combines ease of use with the flexibility and robust features of a free tool. It allows website owners to place social sharing buttons in the sidebar, above and below the content they post, or directly within the content. Supported platforms include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp.
Is alsoprofessional versionwhich lets you customize button colors, add animation transitions to buttons, hide buttons on mobile, and show share counters next to buttons. Pro also unlocks pop-up and scroll buttons.
Price list:Free; $27 per year for use on one website.
8.to share
What we like:MashShare is unique in that it doesn't rely on external scripts to load the social sharing buttons. Instead, everything is loaded from your servers, which in turn reduces load times.
MashShare is also a modular plugin - most of the functionality comes from free and paid plugin add-ons such as photo sharing, Twitter hashtags, YouTube video sharing, sticky buttons, and Google Analytics- integrations. Install the modules you need to avoid a bloated website.
Price list:The basic version of the plugin is free; Add-ons are free and paid. You can also purchase an add-on package starting at €39 per year for eight add-ons on one site.
9.Highlight social media channels
What we like:The built-in Instagram feed is another fantastic way to drive site visitors to your social media audience. If you want to embed an Instagram feed directly into your WordPress site, Spotlight Social Media Feeds is one of the best plugins for the job.
Setting up a channel is as easy as linking your account, selecting a template, and posting your channel with a block, widget, or shortcode. You can also link multiple Instagram accounts to your feed and organize posts by date or popularity. Channels are responsive on mobile devices, indexed by search engines, and accessible to users with disabilities and limitations.
Ofpremium version of the pluginit comes with more templates, the ability to add post captions and stories to your feed, filters for your feed, and Instagram feeds with purchases.
Price list:Free; The premium version starts at $39.
10.Social media-pen
What we like:For WordPress admins who want social button functionality without burdening their site, the Social Media Feather feature is worth a try. True to its name, this plugin is lightweight and helps you quickly add social sharing to all your posts and pages, manually or automatically.
Social Media Feather works with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tumblr and email to allow visitors to share or follow you across platforms. Buttons are placed with widgets or shortcodes. There are also some customization options, but they are limited compared to the other options.
Price list:Free.
11.Supersocialisator
What we like:Super Socializer is an all-in-one social media WordPress plugin - allows you to share on social media,social loginand social commenting options in one place, all made easy for beginners.
As for the buttons, you can set their shape and size, background color and logo, and set the layout to be horizontal, vertical, static or floating. There are 24 networks you can use, from Facebook to Twitter to Discord and other SaaS software like Dropbox.
In addition to social buttons, Super Socializer enables social login (with WooCommerce checkout compatibility) and social commenting, allowing users to comment on your site using their social media accounts. All this is free and you do not need to register to use the plugin.
Price list:Free.
12.Social stream for WordPress
What we like:Social Stream for WordPress is a high-quality social feed plugin that, unlike Spotlight Social, allows you to use different channels. You can embed feeds from Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, and more, making it a great way to fill your pages with content.
This plugin has everything you need to customize and manage your feeds, including post filtering and moderation features, lightboxes to view individual posts, social counters, 'like'/'favorite' options for posts directly in the feed, and the option to create a custom color scheme for the entire data file.
Price list:$ 49.
13.Grow socially
What we like:Grow Social, formerly Social Pug, is another paid plugin that deserves your attention. Thanks to regular updates, this plug-in is equipped with the latest features.
Social buttons can be placed anywhere on the site, making it easy to share content. You can also use mobile sticky social media share buttons. Create a custom set of social sharing buttons and display them at the right time. You can even add custom messages to popups.
Price list:$ 34.
14.WordPress about the cache
What we like:WordPress to Buffer is a popular social media engagement platform that makes it easy to schedule posts, analyze performance, and manage all your accounts in one place. The Buffer WordPress plugin automatically sends posts from your website to your Buffer account for sharing on social media.
Additionally,WordPress does Buffer Prooffers more flexible scheduling options, status messages when posts are posted or updated, and conditional posting based on a post tag or category.
Price list:Free; The Pro version starts at $39/year (or $199 one time purchase) for use on one site.
Social media widgets that spread the word
If you want your visitors to share your WordPress posts and pages on social media, a social media widget for WordPress is an absolute must. Without writing any code, you can easily promote your content to visitors. In addition, most of the plugins mentioned above are available for free, so you can try them out before upgrading. This is good for you, your followers and your budget.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in March 2020 and has been updated for completeness.
Subjects: WordPress-plug-ins