Social sharing buttons have evolved a lot over the past few years. We went from basic text links to images, and now we have interactive buttons. That’s all great except it can be a pain to add them all to your blog and get them to display nicely.
That’s where ShareDaddy comes in. Automattic, WordPress’ parent company, has created a single plugin that integrates all the major sharing buttons. There is no need to install multiple plugins, mess with template code, or worry about the buttons not lining up right in your theme.
ShareDaddy Supports:
- Faecbook
- StumbleUpon
- Digg
It’s configurable to so you can:
- Show only the buttons you want.
- Drag and drop the order of the buttons.
- Conceal some, or all, of the buttons in a ‘Share’ drop down menu.
- Show a basic or interactive button. This setting on a per-button basis.
- Show sharing buttons on the index, posts, pages or all three.
It also comes with a section where you can add in your own buttons. Just drop on some code, choose an icon, and it’ll be added to your blog along with the others.
It is missing some features like showing large buttons, being able to add your Twitter handle, or showing the buttons before the content. However it’s new and only the missing Twitter handle is critical in my mind.
ShareDaddy is also already integrated in WordPress.com blogs. If you have a WordPress.com blog you can configure it by logging into your blog, clicking on the Settings menu and then there is a Sharing option.
I’ve tried many other social buttons & plugins and find ShareDaddy to be the simplest way to add interactive social buttons to your WordPress blog. It’s quick, easy and works well. Can’t ask for much more than that!
Additional Note: Thanks to Smashing Magazine for the social drink buttons!
