Social media is the call of the hour and can sometimes drive you more visitors than what you get from Search Engines. In October, the top eight social media sites drove as much as 29.49% of all traffic that sites received on September 2014 (Source). Now this is the fact that can kick your butt, to optimize your site to best suit for social media shares and traffic. You have no option but to share your posts to various social media sites and ask your readers to do the same. The best thing you need to do to increase your social media referral traffic is to use social share buttons or plugins which enable your readers to share blog content on to their social profiles.
If you don’t put social share buttons on your blog, I doubt if your audience will share your posts by copying the link then pasting in their statuses to share because it doesn’t look easy for them but if you have share buttons installed, they can easily share your blog posts in just 2 clicks.
Thus your blogs must have social share buttons in order to make the posts easily share-able. There are multiple social sharing button plugins available for free which you can install in your blog.
In this post I am sharing an ultimate list of social share buttons for WordPress blogs which are as:
1. Shareaholic: Shareaholic is by far the best social sharing plugin (downloaded 1.2 million times) that can be found on the WordPress repo. It is not just a sharing plugin, they have other options like adding related content, a “pin it” option on images when they are hovered on, and also has the option to monetize your visitors with affiliate link ups and showing ads.
Shareaholic offers sharing functionality to almost all platforms and can be used either at the beginning of the post, in the sidebars or at the end of the post. It can be used anywhere on the web with the call of shortcodes.
2. Flare: If you wanted the best looking social sharing plugin that did not alter your page loading time then it is Flare. The lite version of flare is free and still works even if the parent version has stopped receiving support from the makers. It can be used as floating bar on the left, right side of the blog thereby constantly urging the readers to share the post.
3. Social sharing by Danny: Social sharing by Danny comes with the simple concept of “why to increase your page load time with images other coding for a feature (sharing) that 95% of your users will not use”. They have simple share options which appear as links. It has a simple script of just 600 bytes (jqerry independent) that will not induce loading of your site. The only con is that it offers only 3 options for sharing like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.
4. Floating Social bar: Floating social bar is developed by WPbeginner, the most popular site for WordPress tutorials. It is light and floats on the header of the post as the user scrolls down. This acts like a floating bar but this does not have much effect on the site loading speed as they don’t load the script while the page is loading, instead show a replica of images with all the count till that time.
5. Sharethis: With over two million downloads, sharethis shows that simplicity and style can be amalgamated without having to sacrifice functionality and page load time. You get an option to add from over 120 social channels and as floating sidebar or below the post or above it, all at your choice. Sharethis provides the analytics on the sharing activity of your site through the unified social analytics dashboard.
6. Add this: Addthis is also with 2.14 million downloads showing it is the king of social share buttons. The plugins have a staggering support for over 300 social channels including the modern and “trendy whatsapp sharing feature”. It also provides analytics based on social usage of your site that is emailed to your registered account. It has also recommended content option and other tools that might otherwise have called for a separate plugin.
7. Digg Digg: This is been developed by the bufferapp and is the best when it comes to website loading time and simplicity. The plugin has lazy load effect that means it loads after the parts of your website with higher priority loads. This can be placed with the top, bottom or sidebar of the post.
8. Simple Social buttons: Simple social buttons does what it says. It has elegant simple social share buttons like the Pin it, Google plus, Facebook and twitter share. This free WordPress social sharing plugin can be customized to be used anywhere in your post, top or bottom.
9. Jetpack: Jetpack is not actually a social sharing plugin but is by far one of the best ensemble of plugins from Automattic, the developers of WordPress. They have huge number of functions including free WordPress social sharing buttons that work with non-java enabled browsers like opera mini. They are simple yet powerful and fully featured. Besides this jetpack has a plethora of other useful features.
10. SumoMe: SumoMe has become the top choice for many people because it simply offers fabulous gifts which otherwise are paid features through other plugins like optin monster. SumoMe has email subscription widget and elegant social sharing buttons for the sidebar of your WordPress blogs. It adds sharing options for your blog’s images and highlighted text too. This can come handy for sharing text quotes and custom images too.
11. Share buttons by Add to any: Add to any is among the top most downloaded WordPress social sharing plugins for WordPress. It offers retina display enabled icons and is over 3.5 million times. This huge number speaks for its popularity.
12. Professional share plugin: Professional share plugin gives a professional social share widget on WordPress and it is decent in looks. The social share plugin for B2B businesses and other marketing blogs is Professional share plugin. It can however be customized to be placed in any part of your screen.
13. Simplified social sharing: After shareaholic, this is the only good looking yet effective social sharing plugin for WP developed by Loginradius. I really like its style and it displays floating bar as well as top and bottom bar. The main thing is it displays cumulative social sharing buttons that helps in psychological effect. Individual shares might not be that good but cumulative social share will add an effect that tells the reader that the post is hugely liked.
14. Social sharing toolkit: Social sharing toolkit is a simple and popular social sharing option for WP blogs. The plugin is supporting social subscription for your social profiles too so that you don’t need to add too many social sharing plugins to your site. This one serves the purpose of both. It supports shortcodes so that you can call the social sharing plugins anywhere between your post to increase share counters using this [social_share/].
15. Evolution social shares: It’s a pretty good looking social share button plugin, including sharing options to various popular social networks. This social bar claims it is faster than digg digg and includes social shares along with Java script that loads at the footer.
16. Wp social share: WP social share includes sharing of your blog post to eight major social channels including evernote. Though it’s downloaded only 25 thousand times. This plugin is a good social sharing contender with its sleek design.
17. Slick social share buttons: Slick social share buttons is really good looking social share plugin and it supporting various URL shorteners for your twitter share options. This is a boon as twitter has character limits and sharing with URL shorteners can increase space for more hashtags and other information while tweeting.
18. Social share motivator: If you want your readers to pay you something for reading your posts, then this plugin enables you getting paid by your readers in order to read. This free social locker plugin enables your readers to read a blog post only upon an exchange for a social share of the post.
Beware: unless you are a popular blogger or your content is as valuable as gold, don’t use this as it may make your readers leave your blog forever with disgust!
19. Less buttons: Less buttons is a beautiful free social sharing plugin for WordPress that displays share counters too. This plugin believes in converting your visitors by giving them less number of options to share. This social share plugin is supporting mobile devices and has asynchronous load effects like Google AdSense that will not hinder in the path of your website load.
20. Social media feather: This is the lightest social sharing plugin for WordPress. It supports disabling of social floating bar and making the icons static. It has retina display support for high end devices like iPad 5 and so on.
Concluding:
These were the ultimate list of top 20 free social share buttons/plugins. These plugins look better on blog and do not interfere with load times. So which is your favourite social sharing plugin? Do let me know through comments.
Very good collection of social share buttons for wordpress blogs. Actually i was in the verge of search for a good social share plugin and this post is a timely help to me
Welcome back to my blog Vino. Long time no see huh?
Glad to know that this post is helpful to you.
Atish this is the first time that I have got to know all type of social sharing buttons available for a WordPress blog in a single blog post. I think that you must have given lot of time for writing this post as listing down so many buttons is a difficult job. I keep trying new type of social sharing buttons regularly.
Yes Mohit,
It takes a lot of time to jot down the things at one place to make a post. I am happy that you liked the post.
Hi Atish,
Wow! What a comprehensive list 🙂
I was looking for something like this a while ago and wish I had found it when I really needed it because of the forums at the ABC, where I wanted to install the apt social sharing buttons, and finally settled for the ones I have, which are working very well – Shareaholic, as you mentioned right on top. Nothing could be better.
Yes, I’ve tried DiggDigg earlier but it takes a while to load, then we started using a few others, hit and trials work best here I would say, till you find what you are looking for. I didn’t know SumoMe had a free version too, though perhaps with a few limited options – need to check that out and a few more to see what goes with the forum too now.
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Harleena,
I am late in publishing this post 🙁
Yes shareholic is simply amazing! I have tried SumoMe once and its cool with its amazing features.
I agree that hit and trial works the best when you have a lot of choices. Keep visiting to my blog Harleena.
Have a good time!
Hi Atish,
Good collection of different social buttons at a place.
Surely, these social buttons will help me to customize my blog.
Thanks for sharing!.
Hey Subodh,
Thank you for coming my!
Hi Atish
A wonderful list where you covered almost every social share option available. It surely is the result of your extensive research on the topic.
It is widely observed that either bloggers have very huge response with regard to social sharing by their readers or their all buttons show a deserted look. It’s one of the main reasons is also absence of the most convenient placement of these buttons.
Multipurpose buttons have their own attraction but one should not over-optimize them which may become counter-productive instead of goading the readers to reshare the post.
Thanks for sharing this very useful list. I observed you are authority in compiling list post.
Thanks Mi Muba for all of your words related to the post. Yes, convenient placement of buttons should be there to make sharing easy.
Yes, I am working on producing more list posts long how to guides!
Thanks for sharing this information , i really need some social share plugin for my website , but now i am confused which one should i use
Thanks for coming by Adriano. Do a hit and trial, and finalize the best fit for your blog.
Hello Atish bro,
This is an amazing list of plugins for social shaing. I am amazed by the plugins and the services they off. I really like the social share plugin called cresta social share plugin which is stupendous in work and design. But I previously have used shareaholic which is really very good. 🙂
Thanks Swadhin! I like shareaholic as well!
Good list of social share buttons, I use Digg Digg for my blog. Thanks for sharing these plugins!
Hi Atish,
Nice collection of social share buttons bro. I use Add me on one of our blog and its nice. Thanks for sharing the great list.
Thanks,
Ashutosh
Hello Atish,
you’ve shared some nice free social sharing buttons. i am eagerly looking for this. social sharing is very important for us.
Thanks for writing this wonderful post.
Wow!! you don’t know what help you just gave me. Thanks a lot for the list that you provided, i think this is the best available list and wisely chosen. Thank’s a lot.
Social share buttons are handy to share the posts with ease. I like to share the posts which has share buttons otherwise I am not able to take that much of hassle to share. Thanks for the list Atish.
Hi Atish,
Thanks for sharing the article about List of Free Social Share Buttons for WordPress Blogs. Very interesting and informative article. I liked it. I hope it will be helped full for every user. Great points included in the post.
Once again thanks for sharing views. Have a great week ahead.
Hello Atish Ranjan!
wow! very nice post…….very good list of social sharing buttons…….
I was searching for a good social share plugin from last few days…….
this post is very important for me……very very thanks for sharing this……
Thanks again!
From-
Amul Sharma
A very comprehensive list this ! Thanks a lot for sharing.
This list is what everyone should follow. As they all are for wordpress so you can choose from it which buttons suits your wordpress blog/website the most. Nice work here Atish!
Social media integration is really an important thing for websites. One should not miss this particular stuff because this has a lot of benefits. As you said in the post that social sharing buttons make the sharing easier for readers, I agree to your words that if I don’t find any sharing button, I won’t be sharing the post because it will be tougher for me.
Nice post Atish.
Good list of sharing buttons Atish. Social buttons are needed as this makes the sharing easier for your readers. readers like me who loves to share things over social media get an advantage when there is social integration done. Nice write up.
Can’t find sharexy in the lists, guys i think you are missing something. Sharexy is more flexible than some am seeing on your list.
Thanks for the add up. We might missed this one.
Wow i was searching in the google for these buttons and surprisingly i have landed here. really awesome post 🙂 thanks for posting 🙂
Good content is undoubtedly the most important factor. However, I feel backlinks are still very important because a site with huge number of quality backlinks tend to rank better if all other aspects are identical. Obviously age is another factor needs to be considered here
Grate work Atish Bro.
HI Atish, Great List. Flare is new for me. I am using Social Share Button for one of my website. That is quite good.
Hello Atish Ranjan !
Thanks for sharing More i want to know, if u have information about it. Please assist me. How to integrate plugin on websites.
Hello Mark,
adding pluings on WordPress is quite easy. Go to your dashboard, then plugin >> add new, and then upload the plugin file, and you are done. you can check for settings afterwards for further setup.