One of the smartest things you can do for your blog is to make it easy for readers to share your content.
After all, social shares bring free traffic, right?
This is why you should take your time and invest in a good social sharing plugin.
I have tried a lot of free social media sharing plugins in the past. I always end up getting frustrated with the appearance, lack of options and slow speed.
Today, I’m going to review Social Warfare, which offers a lot of sharing features that free stuff doesn’t offer.
It’s the social sharing plugin that I use on this site, and I recommend it to any bloggers looking to improve their site.
What is Social Warfare?
Social Warfare is one of the earliest social sharing plugins that
let you customize how your content is shared.
This WordPress plugin adds beautiful, lightning-fast social share buttons to your site.
Click here to check out Social Warfare!
What are some of my favorite features of Social Warfare?
When I first started a blog, I’ve tried tons of free social media plugins.
But as much as I love free stuff, I settled down with Social Warfare plugin.
Here’s why:
1. Light Weight
Social Warfare takes a split second to load. It’s different from the free social sharing plugins that I have used in the past.
Most of them either have ads or other tools included that slows down my blog.
2. Very customizable
With Social Warfare, you can customize how your buttons look and where they show up.
You can even use your own branding colors and create your own style via your theme’s CSS.
3. Share Recovery
A few years back, Twitter decided to stop displaying share count for its button. I was so devastated when this happened because most of my shares come from Twitter.
Social Warfare is one of the few plugins that offered share recovery at that time.
This is the biggest reason why I decided to switch.
PS. You can also keep all the shares from your old URL in case you decided to change your links (e.g switch from Http to https). Awesome right?
4. Minimum Social Proof
You can choose to hide or set a minimum number of shares before it displays the total share count.
This is particularly useful for a new blog post that hasn’t accumulated shares yet. You don’t want people to see “0 total shares” displaying on your site.
5. Powerful Share Customization
We don’t have control over how people share our content but we can cut the errors by customizing it in advance for them.
In the past, my readers would pin whatever image they see on my site. I tend to get a lot of horizontal pins that don’t get traction on Pinterest.
With Social Warfare, I can control what they can pin and what they can’t pin.
I can also choose exactly which image, title, and description appear when my content is shared. I have complete control over what people are sharing on my blog.
Tip: A lot of readers tend to share stuff without adding descriptions so make sure to add one in advance.
Btw, did I mention that you can also write a custom tweet for when someone clicks on the Twitter button? Yep! You can.
A Look Inside Social Warfare
Display Tab
This section will let you customize how your social sharing icons and where they show up.
Social Networks – you can drag & drop the social networks that you like to display. In my case, I only like to show Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Share Count – this option lets you choose whether to display your total share count or not. There is a minimum shares option that lets you decided how many shares before Social Warfare displays the total share count on your site. For my blog, I only show my total share count, when it is more than a hundred.
Position Share Button – this option lets you choose where your buttons will show up. I only display share counts on my blog posts.
Image Hover Button – this option lets you add a “pin” button on your images when users hover on them. I set this on then I turn it off on specific images that I don’t want people to share.
Styles Tab
This section lets you customize the look of your share buttons.
Visual Options
There are 6 different button shapes, 8 different color themes that you can choose from. You can also choose custom colors for your buttons. The design combinations are unlimited.
Floating Share Buttons – this allows you to choose if you like the social icons to float to the top, bottom or the left side of your page. I choose to show my sharing options at the bottom.
Click to Tweet Styles – if you are like me who loves to share quotes and tweetable on their post, this option is for you. There are 6 available styles but you can also create your own using CSS.
Here’s an example:
Social Identity Tab
This section is where you add your username and URLs.
Tweet Count Registration – this option lets you display tweet counts. Social Warfare partnered with a couple of third-party share counting tools to track tweet counts. Follow their instructions.
Advance Tab
This section shows some of the advanced features of Social Warfare.
Frame Buster – this option will stop content pirates from framing your content. Turn this on.
Bitly Link Shortening – if you like to have all your links shortened, turn this on.
Share Recovery – this option lets you recover your share counts. If at any point you have changed permalink structures or have gone from HTTP to https (SSL).
We work hard to write and promote our content. The last thing we want to happen is to lose those shares.
Registration Tab
This is where you add the license key you received when you purchased the Social Warfare plugin.
Social Warfare Pricing
You might be wondering, how much does Social Warfare Pro cost?
There are 4 license options with Social Warfare:
Single Site | $29 / year |
Up to 5 sites | $89 / year |
Up to 10 sites | $139 / year |
Unlimited | $349 / year |
A solid social media sharing plugin for only $2 a month? Not bad!
PS. According to their website, you will get an automatic 30% renewal discount if you buy after Aug 1, 2019.
Final Thoughts
I have tried different social media sharing plugins in the past. I always end up frustrated with the appearance, lack of options and chunky codes that slows down my website.
It took me a while to ditch free stuff and invest in Social Warfare. Social warfare is a solid social sharing plugin.
For only $2 a month, I have complete control over what people are sharing on my blog.
Click here to check out Social Warfare!
I’ve been using this social media sharing plugin for 2+ years now and I don’t see myself switching at all.