I don't want to overcrowd the site, but social icons are becoming the norm. How important are they? How easy is it to place them on your website? Thanks.
How easy is it to place social icons your website?
(15 posts) (5 voices)
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If you are using Wordpress, there are a few plugins out there that you can install. Once you install them, the only thing you need to do is add a bit of code and you are good to go!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hi Sarah
Are you referring to the social networking icons you might have (and many blog do) in the sidebar so that people can follow you on Twitter or connect with you on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. - or are you referring to the social bookmarking icons that many blogs have at the end of their posts to share those posts via other sites?
Either way, Bryan is right - there are a few Wordpress plugins that will make either task very easy for you - so that others can follow/connect with you, or share your posts.
As to your question about how important are they, in my opinion they are very important, because they make it easy for others to help you grow your audience.
For example, often I want to recommend a blog post I've read to other people whom I think may also like the post. If the author has some icons at the bottom of the post that make it easy for me to post it to Twitter or Facebook, then I do. If they don't provide those icons, then most of the time I don't share it - it's rare that I have the time to take the extra steps necessary to share it manually. Occasionally I do, and on even more rare occasions when I do, I will sometimes email the post author to suggest that they add the icons to make it easier. But that's extremely rare.
The bottom line is that if you make it easy for your readers to share your posts, then many of them will.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I never thought of putting icons at the bottom of my posts, but it sounds like an important thing to do.
What's the WP plugin you use for that?My WP theme 'Suffusion' actually included a widget for putting social icons in the sidebar. Very handy.
Maria
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hi Maria
The one I hear the best reviews of is this one:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-bookmarks/
I don't use it because I added the icons manually to my theme (I'm a bit of a geek), but I know a lot of people use it and really like it.
You can use the built-in function in WP to add Plugins when you go to Plugins > Add New and search for the plugin you want - in this case, search for social bookmarking and it should come up first in the list, or very high up....then just click on the link on the right that says "Install"....
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hey Trisha,
I tried to download the plugin, but I got the message that I needed to purchase a licence for WinRAR and that what I was downloading was on a 40-day trial period.
Do you know what WinRAR is? Should I purchase a licence?
Maria
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hi Maria
I'm pretty sure that WinRAR is a program that unzips files that are zipped up - so the 40 day trial period should be fine for unzipping this particular file - it's unlikely that you'd need it again after that....
But you might try the automatic installation first before you do that - most of the time the automatic installation feature in WP works great - there are only a few rare occasions when I've had it not work, and had to install plugins manually by downloading them and then uploading them to my /wp-content/plugins folder using http://FTP.....
To install a plugin automatically, all you do is go to Plugins, then click on "Add New" and search for the plugin that you want - in this case if you search for social bookmarks, this plugin should come up #1 in the search results, then way over on the right is a link that says "Install".....if you click on that then WP will install the plugin for you, but you still have to Activate it.
Let me know if this works for you!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hey,
I managed to download it automatically and activate it. It still doesn't seem to do anything, though. I thought maybe an extra 'choice' would appear on the left of my dashboard, but it hasn't.
Also when I wrote a post there wasn't something at the bottom I could click/fill in to make the icons appear on my site.
I can't really imagine I have to start fiddling with the code via edit.Anyway, I think I will have to muddle along with this for a little while longer...
Maria
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hi Maria
Since I don't use it, I'm not sure where it puts it's configuration menu, but it does have one. Try expanding Plugins and see if it's under that menu.....plugins can put their config menus wherever they want to, so sometimes you have to poke around to find them.....it could be under Plugins, or under Settings, or way down at the bottom all by itself as a menu item.....
When you find the config menu, there should be checkboxes so you can select if you want the icons added to just posts, just pages, or both, and which icons to display.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I'm not familiar with the plugin either; however, there is a good chance that in the 'installation instructions' that you might need to add some code to your blog (probably within the single.php right before the file is calling upon the comments.php, if you are using Wordpress). That is probably way to technical for you but if you need any help trying to install the plugin, just head on over to Tourfolio.com and use the contact me page. We can try to set up a method to get the social icons to work on your website.
Like Trisha, I'm one of the techie ones when it comes to coding and have installed the social icons manually.
Posted 1 year ago #
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