Social Media Plugins - The Recommended One Was Killing My Site Speed
Social Media Plugins, Features and Site Speed
So, I finally got around to tweaking my sites a bit more and trying to find tune them for speed. In the process I was testing various social sharing plugins and discovered that the one recommended by many here, Social Media and Share Icons (Ultimate Social Media), was tanking my mobile site speed numbers and even putting a decent hit on my desktop speed too. And that's on two separate websites! I'll provide screenshots of my site speed tests for just one of my sites but both experienced similar speed change results.
Plugins and Test Results
Here's my no social plugin site speed screenshot to use as a base:
Here's my Social Media and Share Icons site speed screenshot:Once I discovered this, I started looking for the fastest social sharing plugins. This led me to Social Pug. It's actually pretty nice but I ran into the issue of not having the social media buttons that I wanted (I think Instagram was missing, etc.).
Here's my Social Media and Share Icons site speed Screenshot:
I found another plugin that seems to be pretty fast and had almost everything I wanted. This one is called Sassy Social Share. It has share buttons for all of my needs except for YouTube but, it also has a follow me widget that I can place pretty much anywhere and that does have a YouTube option so people can at least follow my channel and I like that it has a more option to allow people to choose other social media platforms I didn't include already.
Here's my Sassy Social Share site speed screenshot:
The only downside to Sassy Social Share is that it doesn't offer the follow and share options in the same floater or widget....they are separate. That's what I liked about Social Media and Share Icons. When you clicked on Facebook, for example, it popped up an option to like, visit or share, etc. Still, it offers what I need, doesn't slow my site down like Social Media and Share Icons does and has the added benefit of letting your users select other social media platforms, not just the ones you choose to show...
I suppose the feature of clicking and choosing an action may also be off-putting to the visitor, as they'd have to make a selection vs just clicking to share.
One other minor gripe about Sassy Social Share is that it does offer a share button for FlipBoard but doesn't offer a follow button for the same and I actually maintain FlipBoard magazines on my site. That said, Social Media and Share Icons doesn't have FlipBoard at all so...
Conclusion
Now, take these results with a grain of salt... I did very rudimentary testing. I didn't deactivate other plugins or try other themes, both of which may conflict with the Social Media and Share Icons plugin and causing such low speed numbers. And, you'll get different results every time you run a speed test simply because the server may be under a different load at that particular time, etc. Still, the other social sharing plugins fared way better in the speed test overall.
I think Sassy Social Share is my winner in this round but I'd still like your opinion...
Do you use Social Media and Share Icons and, if so, does it slow down your site speed?
Is there a setting I'm missing that would correct this issue in Social Media and Share Icons?
Is there a different social sharing plugin you'd recommend that offers Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube and FlipBoard?
I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Thank you,
Scott
Recent Comments
47
Hi Scott. I use the Ultimate Share plug-in and have no problem with it so far. I wrote a blog about plug-ins and Site Speed last week that reached #3.
I have 25 plug-ins and my Site Speeds are 100 on desktop and mid-'90s on mobile. It just seems to me to always check speed before AND after installing a new plug-in.
I wrote the blog to prove that five plug-ins are a ridiculously low number. No way five is doable.
Here is the link if you want to check it out. You Can Never Have Enough Plug-Ins Hope this helps.
Make a living, make a difference.
Mark
Thanks Mark,
That makes me wonder if there's a conflict of some sort with either, another plugin or my theme.
Just for fun, I turned off all plugins except for the Social Media and Share Icons plugin. The results are in the attached image.
Based on the results, I'm guessing it's my theme...
Looks like it Scott. I hope I never have a problem with my theme.
I took 6 weeks looking for my Personal Trainer Pro theme and no problems so far. Knock on wood.
Hope you get it fixed. You are wiser in this theme business than me.
Mark
Hi Scott,
I wasn't aware that you could make your own magazine using other people's content. Very interesting. How long does it take to fill up a magazine to 10 pages? Can you share a flipboard magazine to facebook?
As for social share plugins, I just found out they could slow a site down through your post. I will disable mine and check the site speed...
Speak to you soon...
Stella
I love Flipboard. In fact, it just auto-populates the articles from the RSS feed on my site. Check this out to see what I'm talking about:
https://flipboard.com/@merlynmac/mavic-maniacs-2s3ghai7z
Very interesting. I really like the layout of Flipboard, however, it reminds me of Pinterest and I spend quite some time on that. I also use Facebook.
Can't spend time on too many Social media platforms as it would impede my focus.
I must add that I have scheduled Pinterest pins all the way til October. Next is Youtube videoing which I need to get my head round. Shouldn't be too hard...
Once I have those nailed down, I just may try Flipboard in the future. It seems to have a very professional audience. Which I like.
Best Regards,
Stella
I actually love the Flipboard app. It's much nicer than the web interface and gives that ebook/emag feeling when reading articles.
Flipboard looks great, I'll look at getting onto that too. So many things for me to do and so little time! Thanks for the tip :-)
I love Flipboard. I have several boards I subscribe to and both of my sites have boards on there for others to subscribe to.
If you're asking about the WA membership you have 3 options. Monthly, 6 Month and Annual. The monthly is $49 per month and the annual is $359 but paid all at once. The 6 month falls in between them. The longer the commitment the higher the savings.
If you're asking about the plugin, Sassy Social Share, I'm using the free version...
Sadly with it or without it my website speed still bad, even though my website in the beta server! I have been trying to solve the problem for 1 week now. The only thing I can think of is my theme. I tried many free themes and still the same problem.
I suggest turning off all plugins temporarily and checking speed. If there's no change then it's not one of your plugins.
Have you turned on the caching? Go to Websites > Site Manager and click on the Details button for your site. Find the Site Speed option and make sure it's enabled. Try it with the Extreme setting first but make sure to test your site and verify everything works as it should. If it doesn't, try the Accelerated option instead.
I just recently added Social Media and Share Icons, and my site speed for mobile has tanked. I've been checking other things, but it looks like this may be the culprit.
I don't have any other plugins to recommend, and can't answer your setting question either. Sorry.
I'm very glad you posted this. I'll be following it to see what others here have to recommend!
I’ll be glad to. I did a little more research and think I may be better off without a social media plugin for the time being.
BTW, I know my mobile speed is terrible and I'm looking into replacing my theme as it appears to be the culprit.
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I also used Ultimate Social Media plugin and uninstalled it awhile back when I realized that it was taking my speed way down.
I'm going to try the Sassy Social Share and see what that does--thanks for letting us know what you found!
Janelle
Let me know what you think of it once you get it installed.