WordPress Social Media Share Buttons or Icons for Sharing and Following Available With the Jetpack Plugin from WordPress
Plugins and Widgets for Social Media Buttons
WordPress Social Media. Plugins Are Used to Get the Social Media Buttons. Some plugins add the share buttons automatically. Some need a few settings to be chosen. Others create a widget for you to drag over to the widget areas for the sidebar or for bottom widgets if you have them.
Publicize is the label for the social media buttons in Jetpack Plugin
Jetpack is a plugin from WordPress.com that is now available for users of self-hosted WordPress.org websites and blogs. It has several dozen features available and if you are not familiar with it please read the article on this website about it.
Note: Regarding Questions About Social Media Icons in Header
There have been a lot of questions about how to add social media icons in the header or near the header in WordPress Twenty Twelve. If you use the default Template (see the Template choices to the right of the text box) then you have a blog style with a sidebar and you can add the social media icons to the top widget so they show in the upper right of the screen. If you are using the Front Page Template then there is no sidebar, just room for a Featured Image, plus two Bottom Widgets where you can add social media icons at the bottom of the page. If you use the Full Width No Sidebars Template then again there is no sidebar and there are no bottom widgets in that Template. To get the social media icons near the top right with a static homepage you could choose Static Page in Settings and choose the Default Template. The same page will always show for your homepage but it will be a blog style with a sidebar so you can add the social media icons in a widget in the upper right.
Jetpack Publicize Share Buttons Have Statistics
Show Which Social Media Sites, Posts and Pages Had the Most Shares.
Social media share buttons from Jetpack have statistics as well. You can see how many times each social media was used for sharing and which posts or pages were shared the most.
Option #1: Share Buttons Can Be Hidden Behind a Box Labeled Share That Opens When Arrow Clicked
The Share buttons are hidden behind a box that says “Share” and that has an arrow. When the visitor clicks the arrow then a larger box full of all the buttons opens up. But initially they are not visible. Only the word Share with the arrow can be seen. This saves room and looks more neat and tidy but some readers might miss it or fail to be motivated by it to share. There are pros and cons.
Social Media Sharing and Following from Jetpack
Option #2 The Share Buttons Can Be Automatically Visible Below the Article
Steps:
- Go to the Dashboard
- Go to Plugins, Add New
- Type Jetpack in the search box
- Click under Jetpack to install it
- Click Install under the word Jetpack
- Go to Plugins, Installed Plugins
- Click Activate under the name Jetpack
- Click on Settings under the name Jetpack
- There will be several dozen features you can add to your site.
- Click on the Learn More to read more about the Jetpack Social Media buttons
- Click Configure to set up the buttons
- First you will see the Follow buttons. If you are going to use these then type or paste in the links to your own social media sites.
- Below them will be the Share buttons.
- Drag the Share buttons that you want to add to your site over to the smaller grey box to activate them so they will hide behind a Share button. Option #1 Hiding the Share Buttons Behind One Button Labeled Share: When the down arrow is clicked then the whole box full of buttons opens up. This is a less cluttered look but the icons are not readily as visible. Option #2: Showing All the Share Buttons Automatically With Putting Them Behind One Share Button. To do this drag the icons over to the much larger grey area to make them available.
- Click below that to choose whether to use the default button style or to use the Official style. The Official style uses the graphics associated with each of the share sites so I recommend it because people recognize these.
- Click to choose whether to use just the icon or button or to use the button plus the name of the share site in text. I recommend using the text name as well as the button graphic.
- Click to choose where you want the buttons to show. Showing them on the homepage, posts and pages will allow visitors to use them and it is recommended.
- Click Save.
- Check the front of your site and you will see the social media buttons.