What I really want is a WordPress plugin that will let me choose from a bunch of Social Media type sites like Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and add link to my profiles on such sites in the header or anywhere else on my blog. Plus, links to the RSS feed, a podcast feed, an RSS to eMail subscription or the ability to add my own custom links. It’d be nice if you had many different sets and sizes of icons to choose from and the ability to display them in the order you wish would be awesome. So, I’ve been searching the WordPress plugins directory for such abilities and some have come close, but no cigar. Below are a few thoughts on the ones I tried out.
Social Media Plugins Tested
- Find Me On – Has some things I really like, like being able to order things the way you want them. Could use a set of bigger icons and an eMail subscribe link for or the ability to add in your own links for such a purpose. Also, there was a bug that didn’t allow me to see that I had actually created a link until I refreshed the page to find out that it had been created three times, cause that’s how many times I clicked the button and saw nothing happening.
- RAX – Email Subscription And Social Media Links After Posts – Like the idea, but it seems a little too much at the bottom of a post. Maybe if you could choose smaller icons or if you just used the eMail subscription box, it might be worth using.
- Share and Follow – This one has a lot of options for putting bookmarking/sharing links at the bottom of pages, but I downloaded it for the ability to place a sticky widget at the side of the screen that stays on-screen even when the page scrolls. Wish it had a link for eMail or the ability to add your own links and icons for them.
- Social Buttons – Installed it, but couldn’t find an Options page or anything added to a Post page to be able to use it and nothing at the site attached to the plugin.
- SocialGrid – Installed it, but then the browser reported and error and couldn’t get anything to work on the Options page for the plugin.
- Social Links – By far the easiest to set up, but only super tiny icons. Also, no eMail or RSS links or ability to add your own.
- Social Media Page – Very much like the idea of being able to add a page easily with a bunch of places to find you on the web, but wish it had a selection for larger icons, especially when using them in the Sidebar Widget.
- Social Media Widget – I very much like this one. Allows you to select from many different sizes of icons and has four sets to choose from. Plus, you can add you own custom icon set to use. The main thing I wish I could do with it is select the order in which the icons are displayed. Also, the link to the plugin’s home page doesn’t work. In fact, I couldn’t get to the site at all, not just that page.
- Social Profiles Widget – Very easy to use. A couple different sizes of icons and four sets to choose from. Wish you could order things yourself, although the default order is pretty much what I would use anyway. Also, wish it had an eMail icon so I could link to my eMail RSS subscription link or the ability for you to add in your own custom links and icons.
This is one of those times that I wish I was a programmer, so I could make my own plugin that would work just the way I want it. I went with the Social Media Widget plugin for right now, because it allowed me to come the closest to what I wanted. I have large icons that include links to RSS and eMail and putting them at the top of the right sidebar gets them close to the top of the page. If it would just let me put some type of call in my header and put the icons in the order I would like, it would be right near perfect.
What do you use in WordPress to put Social Media links on your blog? Do you know of a good plugin that I didn’t find? Is there one that isn’t in the WordPress plugin directory? Please let me know in the comments if you do.