How to Add Social Media Platform Button In Your Post
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google + have become extremely popular, allowing individuals to be more connected to the content they like and other websites, as well. WordPress is an extremely versatile platform, which can help individuals share content of any sort easily, so that they can enjoy this activity to the fullest. Whether we talk about WordPress-hosted websites or personal domains with WordPress platform installed to the database, you can successfully activate the sharing functionality of your website by choosing one of the methods below and following all steps accordingly.
Method One: The Easy Way
If you have a WordPress-hosted website and want to add social media platform button to posts, this method will enable you to do so easily. Note that it will not work for personal domains, so be sure to check the second method if you have one.
Step One
Go to your website’s dashboard. Locate “Settings” on the navigation bar on the left side of the screen, hover it with your mouse and click “Sharing”. This will redirect you to a page that includes all sharing settings that you can adjust for your website.
Step Two
Scroll down the page until you see a section labeled “Sharing Buttons”. There will be several other subsections, such as “Available Services”, “Enabled Services”, “Live Preview”, “Button Style” and so on. To enable a service (social media platform sharing button), drag it from “Available Services” to “Enabled Services” in the desired order, which can be also changed by dragging a particular service in the place you want.
In this example, let’s add only Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Email buttons to “Enabled Services”, listing them as follows: Email first, Twitter second, Facebook third and Tumblr last.
Step Three
Scroll down the page until you reach “Button Style”. Select the option you prefer from the drop-down menu. If you are not sure about this, you can preview each option in the “Live Preview” section above. In this example, we are going to select “Icon Only”.
Next, you can successfully modify the sharing label bellow button style as desired, or leave it as is. Write “Find it interesting? Share it!” If you want the links to be opened in the same window or a new one, select “Same Window” or “New Window” respectively. Next you are going to select where you want the sharing buttons to be displayed. Check “Posts”, and proceed with the other three options as desired.
You can also include the WordPress Like button by checking “On for all posts” in that particular category.
Click “Save Changes”.
Method Two: Plugin
This method works only for personal domains that have WordPress platform installed to the database. You can easily add sharing buttons to your posts by installing a plugin to the database. Follow the steps below.
Step One
Go to your dashboard and locate “Plugins” on the navigation bar on the left side of the screen. Access the section. Now locate the search box, type “sharing” and click “Search” or press ENTER.
Step Two
There are several plugins that you can use in order to add sharing buttons to your posts. “Share Buttons by AddToAny” is probably the most popular one, but if you want to make sharing more exciting, you can try “Simple Share Buttons Adder”, which comes with great buttons and an interactive appearance, too. However, there are many other available plugins that you can try, so choose the one you like most.
Step Three
Once you have selected one, click “Install Now”. Once the plugin is installed, you will be able to access its settings via its section on the navigation bar, where you will be able to select the services that you want to include there, as well as where you want the sharing buttons to be displayed.
Important Note: You can install a plugin by searching it on Google or other search engine you prefer, download it to your PC or laptop and extract it from archive if necessary, making sure that it is packed in a folder that contains a PHP file, as well as other files depending on the plugin you have chosen. Access your website’s host via your favorite FTP Manager (like FlashFXP), then go to “public_html” > “wp-content” > “plugins”. Drag (or right click, “Transfer”) the folder there. Access your website’s dashboard, locate “Plugins” section on the navigation bar and search for the plugin that you have installed, then click “Activate” and proceed further as instructed in step three from the same method. This will allow you to adjust the settings as desired to make sharing more efficient.