Of course, it's not exactly as easy as saying that you want these buttons, not if you're talking about your own website or blog (like Weebly, Wix, Tumblr, Google Blogger, etc).
I wanted social media sharing buttons on my blogs/sites too. I'll focus on Tumblr (microblogging platform and social networking site) in this one since my quest for social icons for my Tumblr blogs was what led me to finding out all this info about these buttons. LOL 😃.
Reasons to Use Third-Party Plugins
Anyway, at first, I thought about going with the third-party social media sharing buttons plugins. Pros for using this include:- Easy installation - just sign up or create an account on the 3rd-party site, get their code then add it to your blog
- Choices - these plugins usually offer different designs of social icons, so you can just choose whatever you want plus you can decide how many buttons you need, like if you only want 3 or 4 or more icons, etc
Reasons NOT to Use Third-Party Plugins
There are lots of plugins out there though, so it's up to you to decide which one to go with. So, how come I didn't go with any one of these plugins?Well, I was reading up on the reviews for many of these plugins to help me decide, and what I've discovered wasn't all that good. The cons include:
- Possible breach of privacy for you and your readers - do you know what kind of data these plugins are mining from you and your readers and whoever else clicks on the share buttons on your blog or site?
- Possible redirect to inappropriate ads - if the share buttons are clicked, where will your visitors be taken? Will they be redirected to ads they don't want to see?
Now, of course, not all plugins do that, but then how do you find out which ones don't? That would take lots of time plus you might have to do trial and error too. Besides, how do you even know which ones will work for your blog or site?
Another thing that made me decide to forget about the third-party plugins was how some of them had such long Terms of Services and Privacy Policies. I always read these stuff before joining sites, but wasn't feeling up to it considering the length of these boring documents.
Reasons to Use Official Social Media Sharing Buttons
So that brings me to the official social media sharing buttons. What are these? Where do you find these? You find these buttons by going to the social media platform whose share icon you want to add to your blog.For example, if you want to add a Twitter share button to your site, all you need to do is go to Twitter and get their official sharing button.
Get the codes then add them to your blog and that's that. Pretty simple, right? Plus, you shouldn't have to worry about privacy or security since, if you and your readers have accounts on these platforms, then it's a given that you've agreed to the terms and policies of these sites.
Reasons NOT to Use Official Social Media Sharing Buttons
- Design - your mileage may vary, but, in my opinion, these buttons don't look all that nice or appealing
- Plus, each of these platforms have their own buttons that look different from the others, so if you add them all to your blog or site, it won't be uniform at all
- Javascript
Did you know that using Javascript can slow down your blog? And did you know that the code for the social media share buttons make use of Javascript, so you end up getting a lot of codes depending on how many buttons you want to add to your site?
Actually, even the third-party share plugins make use of Javascript, so that's another point against them.
Alternative to 3rd-Party Plugins and Official Social Media Sharing Buttons
Yup, there's an alternative and it's to use simple, lightweight sharing icons. These buttons do not use Javascript, so they won't contribute to slowing down your site. They are merely URL links that lead to the social media site so you don't need to worry about your privacy and security either.Simple, Lightweight Social Media Sharing Buttons
In short, it's like adding links to your articles (like when you interlink them) only, instead of adding links to text, you add links to images or icons so that, when someone clicks on them, they'll be taken to the site where they can share your post.For example, they can click on a Pinterest share button, and the link in that icon will take them straight to Pinterest where they can log in and pin the pics in your article.
Some Pros:
Pretty awesome and cool, right? Plus, you can design your own icons or use free ones out there, etc, which means that you can end up with buttons that look uniform and that fit your site.1 Con:
What about cons? Are there cons? There's one that I can think of, but I don't really consider it as a con. Again, your mileage may vary. What is it then?It's the fact that you don't get counters for these links, so you won't be able to easily tell how many people shared your posts.
But, if you're new to blogging or your site or blog is new, then it's likely that you won't have thousands of shares anyway, so even if you use counters in the share buttons, you'll probably just end up seeing 0, and that's not really nice to look at, is it? LOL 😃.
Example:
Anyway, here's an example of what the social media sharing buttons look like on one of my Tumblr blogs. Look at the screenshot below:
The screenshot is from this article: 2 Ways for Harry Potter to Prove He Didn’t Put His Name in the Goblet of Fire.
By the way, it might not be all that noticeable on the pic, but the title or tooltip only shows up when you hover your mouse on the icon, so you'll only see the "share this post on Pinterest" and the opacity change when you hover your mouse on the Pinterest button.
The same goes for the other social media icons.
What do you think?
Oh, and, yes, for the record, the theme I'm using actually already came with social media sharing buttons, so what in the world was I doing looking 'round and trying to add these buttons to my blog, you ask? LOL.
That's a pretty long story actually. For now, I'll just say that I did keep those built-in buttons, but I wanted the share buttons to be more prominent on my blog. I wanted to customize them further, I- eh, I think you get the point 😃.
Edited to add: I've changed the theme on my Harry Potter Plotholes Archives Tumblr blog, but I'm still using simple, lightweight social media sharing buttons. They now look like this:
The Harry Potter blog is now using the Clarent Premium Tumblr Theme. Check out the demo blog or learn more about this theme.
I am also still using simple, lightweight social media sharing buttons on all of my blogs on both Tumblr and Google Blogger. Even the themes I make use these kinds of buttons.
Here are some of the comments from this article, back when it used to be posted elsewhere:
UK_Writer wrote on February 26, 2015, 12:52 PM
There's 1001 things to think about, discover, learn - and more - when you start doing your own thing.... so many things, choices. So hard:)
FreyaYuki replied to UK_Writer on February 27, 2015, 9:41 AM
Yup. There's so much to learn about when it comes to blogging and creating websites, etc. It may not be an easy task, but you can really learn and discover lots of things about this, which makes it easier for you if you decide to use other blogging platforms or website builders.
GemstonePink wrote on February 26, 2015, 5:09 PM
Wow, there seems to be so many concerns when starting a blog and building it. I think a blog is more than I have time for.
FreyaYuki replied to GemstonePink on February 27, 2015, 9:39 AM
Yes, that's right if you want to add things like social media follow and sharing buttons, popular posts and recent posts widgets, ads, tags, etc, etc.
But if you're just looking to write, then you don't have to pay attention to all these other things, not if you don't want to. A blog does require a lot of time though especially if you want to publish posts on your blogs at least once a day.
nbaquero wrote on March 1, 2015, 8:02 AM
FreyaYuki Great info, this definitely needs to be taken into account for our own sites/blogs. Need to reread and bookmark for future reference.
FreyaYuki replied to nbaquero on March 1, 2015, 12:00 PM
Thanks. I've also been implementing this on the other platforms that I'm working on. If you have any questions, feel free to ask 😃.
crowntower wrote on March 13, 2015, 5:17 AM
I think this will help if we have other personal site, but for us Philippines and India, this is not gonna work for us here in Persona for the changes that we understand. But thanks for the whole thing. I hate plugins because it always make my computer to crash.
FreyaYuki replied to crowntower on March 13, 2015, 12:31 PM
Yes, this is for those who have blogs or sites so they can also add social media sharing buttons to their posts, similar to how there are also sharing buttons here on Persona Paper.
*Notes:
- This was previously published on Persona Paper on February 26, 2015, 12:46 PM
- First image is by GraphBerry (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt
- The rest of the images are screenshots from my Potter Archives Tumblr blog
