You’ve written a knock-out post. You are super proud of it and hope that people will share it on Twitter, Stumbleupon and Facebook. It’s not hard for them to copy the URL and go to Twitter or Facebook and paste it in there, right?
Wrong.
Every blogger, who wants their content shared online, should add social sharing icons at the top, bottom or side of each and every one of their posts. Period. No arguing with me (please).
Whether you are on WordPress, Blogspot (Blogger), Typepad or Squarespace, you should use some type of plug-in to make it quick and simple for your readers to share it on the social networking platforms that most people use.
Now, there are many, many social sharing plug-ins available so I will just share with you the one that I like the best – Shareaholic (also known as Sexy Bookmarks).
Click on image to be taken to Shareaholic’s home page
One of the reason’s I love Shareaholic so much is how easy it is choose which social platforms I want to use, where to position them and to add my Twitter handle (that is HUGE). I have tried other social sharing plug-ins but they were not easy to customize.
What does that mean? When you read a blog post at AppleTree123 blog and think it’s so wonderful that you just have to share it with your friends on Twitter, so you click on their social sharing icon for Twitter, which then creates a tweet with the post title in it, but then adds nothing else – or the plug-in’s Twitter handle. So the person blogging at AppleTree123 won’t know that you tweeted it.
To customize what tweets look like coming from AmandaPadgett.com or Everyday Elements, I had to go to the “Twitter Options” and then “Configure Custom Tweet Template.”
Option to add your Twitter handle in the Sexy Bookmarks settings
Below is what the Sexy Booksmarks look like at the bottom of my blog post at Everyday Elements.
Social sharing icons at bottom of post at Everyday Elements
When I clicked on the Twitter icon, to share on Twitter, this text shown below is what came up. Notice my @amandapadgett handle is already in there. That means when others use sharing buttons to post to Twitter, I will see it in my “@mentions” stream, and others will see my handle and hopefully follow me.
My @amandapadgett Twitter handle is added to the tweet automatically
There are many great social sharing plug-ins, but I would love to know which one you use and love!
Interested in learning more “savvy blogging” tips? Check out my Savvy Blogging board at Pinterest.
Great post Amanda, I’m going to share! I would love to see more blogs take advantage of this!!
Thank you for the post. I needed this information! I will be implementing this right away.
JUST what I needed! thanks amanda!
I love this feature and have it in the new layout! Thanks for the quick and easy tips!
Ugh. Guess this isn’t quite as seamless a process on blogger. Or I truly am a luddite.
I just learned something new (about customizing the twitter handle) from this post! Thank you