Social Media Plug-Ins: Which Do You Need?

If anyone gives a definitive answer to this question, then they are not being objective. What works for one person will be different to someone else. So all I am going to do is share what I have used and why. There are so many social media plugins available that you could write an article about the Top 50 and still have many more to research.

We have got to think about what we want the plugin to accomplish. Do we want a simple link to the usual social media sites, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc., or do we want the plugin to do more than that?

• SumoMe

I currently use SumoMe as my social media plugin since it has a free version and it has a lot more than just media buttons to share content with. SumoMe allows you to set up an email sharing of new content with subscribers to your site. The free version gives some limited templates to set up signup forms for new subscribers. It has a share facility so that your website is featured at the foot of pages on other websites around the world. It has Google Analytics built in (one plugin less needed), and so much more. If you check out my website, (see my WA profile) you will see the way SumoMe fits nicely into the site layout.

• Mashshare

This is a popular plugin developed by the news website, Mashable, which is well-known to many. Here's what it is designed to do: (per plugin blurb)

"This free Social Media Icons Plugin is a professional and highly customizable ecosystem for social media sharing and optimizing of your valuable content.

Stop slow loading times of your website with other sharing buttons and prevent ranking loss. Other social buttons are often using external scripts which are increasing loading times of your entire website. Mashshare is using NO external script dependencies just code is loaded from your website.

It gives you per default a large total share counter beside three large prominent Share Buttons for your Twitter tweets, Facebook share and the option to place a prominent subscribe button for your news feed and mailing list. This services are free per default including great support. There is no need to create an account!"

• AddtoAny

This was the first social sharing plugin I used and it will be one I use on future websites, particularly in the start-up phase. The developers make the following comments about its benefits:

"The AddToAny WordPress sharing plugin helps people share your posts and pages to any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Reddit, and over 100 more sharing and social media sites & apps.

AddToAny is the universal sharing platform, and AddToAny's plugin is the most popular share plugin for WordPress, making sites social media ready since 2006."

These are three that may interest you. But it just goes to show that one could spend days deciding on a plugin. Like many things, trial and error, (hopefully no error) will help you settle on a social sharing plugin that suits your website. Once decided, stick with it and make it work to its level of effectiveness for your niche.

Next, we visit the image optimizing category. Images play such an important role in our blogs and review pages that we need to have all images in tip-top shape.