Best Social Sharing plugins for WordPress

If you are on web, then you know how important “Social sharing” is. Think of this, Facebook + Twitter + Google+ + Linkedin + Digg + Stumble upon combined have 800 + 300 + 62 + 100 + 35 + 25 = 1.3 billion accounts,a huge huge number. Think of what can happen if you’re able to drive about 0.01% of this traffic to your site!  Err, well I am not going to tell you that :P. Bottom line, if there are so many people out there on social media, trying to get some traffic on them is worth a shot; interestingly, adding social sharing plugins for wordpress is just a click away. You can get many social sharing plugins on WordPress.

But which one’s the best and why to use it.

Lets get started:

1. AddThis: Best plugin and my personal favorite, why?

   1. Easy to customize and add social sharing tools/buttons: You just have to select where do you want to place social sharing buttons [top of the post or bottom of the post] and which buttons you want to show.
   2. Dashboard Widget: Gives real time status of which posts are being shared and how many times they’ve been shared.
   3. Super Awesome Analytics: You get a dashboard, which tells you how many times this has been shared on various social platforms. What is the audience profile sharing content on your website, what are your audience interests like Movies , Gadgets etc. and how well your site matches these interest expectations. Like My site matches 1.6x times for WordPress interest.
   4. Viral impact due to social sharing: How many people return to your website by clicking on the link shared by your readers. So how viral your content is.
   5. Google Product
   6. Drawback: Different panel for analytics.

2. Sharethis: Most popular social sharing tool.

   1. Cool Analytics:  Dashboard; Post/Page wise analytics; Medium wise analytics; Social platform wise analytics [fb|twitter etc], geography wise analytics.
   2. Easy customization: Select chicklet type to show sharing. Select position where you want to show sharing buttons.
   3. Drawback: Doesn’t record customer profiles and viral impact.

3. Jetpack Social Share: WordPress/Automatic’s plugin.

   1. Easy setup: Click configure in your Jetpack and select position.
   2. Fast: Since this is a cloud-based solution, its fast and doesn’t impact site speed.
   3. Drawback: No analytics

4. Shareaholic: Sharing is Sexy!

   1. Beautiful plugin: Very sleek plugin with cool looks.
   2.  Drawback: No analytics.

5. Digg Digg: The fixed sidebar social sharing plugin for WordPress.

   1. Multiple customizations: You can select chicklets and position to fix it at a particular location specified.
   2. Drawback: Heavy plugin & Slows site down.

Apart from this there are many other Social sharing plugins for WordPress. Do comment below and let us know which one you’re using.