Design your way

Since our time is short, most of us choose to stay in touch using virtual venues, and social networks thrive on this necessity. The century we live in is so digitalized, that distance and tight schedules have lost their alienating power over friends, family, and colleagues. For the most part, not a day goes by that we don’t reach out for each other over the internet, whether by e-mails, live conversations, or something as simple as sharing links on our favorite social networks.

On average, website visitors do not hesitate to share the content that they deem to be interesting. Especially if they are provided with handy social sharing buttons to speed things up. However, if those buttons are not to be found on the page, or if they are improperly displayed, readers might just decline the occasion to share altogether.

For website creators and owners, the effects would be negative, to say the least. If word spreads about a certain website, then it will witness loads of incoming traffic. So, the opposite of that would equal less traffic. It is common knowledge that the traffic facilitated by social sharing is actually very powerful, only coming in second after that which is generated by search engines.

What makes a social sharing plugin adequate

When you’re building WordPress websites on a regular basis, you should never lose sight of social sharing. As such, you can enlist a plugin that helps you take care of that aspect. Ideally, it would enable you to easily design, configure, and place social sharing buttons somewhere on the page. Besides, your buttons ought to look stunning across all known devices.

Promising social sharing plugins for WP: Monarch

We could gain some insight into the current state of the market. What if we picked a last-generation plugin and turned it on all sides, so we can understand the things it can do? Like Monarch, for instance. This plugin was developed by our friends at Elegant Themes, and it appears to be every bit as efficient as we might have imagined.

A welcoming dashboard

You can open the Monarch dashboard straight from the WordPress Admin Panel, which I assume you’re more than accustomed with. You will find yourself face to face with a friendly user interface that helps you set up, manage, and keep track of your website’s social sharing. Taking into consideration the predefined colors and icons attached to each social network, Monarch is special because it enables you to design your social sharing buttons however you want.

Hence, the buttons themselves are highly malleable. Yet, you also need to decide on the social media websites that should be suggested on your website. With Monarch, 40 social networks are available by now, and more are coming. It wouldn’t make sense to organize a stuffy social sharing experience, so just focus on integrating those platforms with the largest user potential.

After you’ve settled on a few choice network buttons, there is another matter that you have to consider: user engagement. How much social involvement does your website register with each passing day? Monarch lets you monitor your follow and share counts, easily. The first option would be to input those stats independently. The second is, admittedly, more dynamic: you can connect your website to the API of your network.

Monarchic features

I would like to shed some light on the automatic capabilities that come with this premium plugin. For example, I was happy to find that it offers users the choice of triggering automatic pop-ups and fly-ins in any way they want to. These two effects are proven to aptly persuade visitors into following or sharing website content.

Fly-ins can be set to ‘invade’ the screen from the bottom-right or bottom-left corner, and pop-ups are easy enough to customize with a specific title and message. In addition, either of them could be introduced with a timed delay, and even appear at the very last moment before visitors show signs of preparing to leave your page.

Furthermore, Monarch has another surprise in terms of automatic features. Specifically, if you allow it, the plugin is going to detect precisely where the content starts and ends, and take measures to display social sharing buttons at either end. Another pleasing alternative would be to simply move forward with a social floating sidebar, which basically guarantees that no one ever has to seek out your social sharing and following buttons – they hover on one side of the screen at all times.

All in all, there are 8 possible locations for your social network buttons, so deciding on one of them instead of another is a simple matter of taste.

Forging a social sharing experience for your website audience

Do you want to make your readers an offer they can’t refuse, so that they feel compelled to click on your social network buttons? Then, I don’t think you’ll be able to find a better plugin than Monarch, which loads at lightning speed due to the fact that it caches your follow and share counts, and you get to control how often those counts are updated.

In addition, you can bet that your enticing social sharing buttons will be displayed beautifully on every single device, because Monarch is responsive and Retina-ready. Finally, the added perk of working with this plugin is that it enables an automatic detection of images in your website content, and generates shortcodes to render them easily ‘share-able’ by visitors.

Watch the video below in order to get a better sense of the social sharing plugin Monarch:

Conclusion

I can’t express in words how much traffic a handful of well-done social network buttons can bring in. Those who know this piece of information, use it to their advantage. So, the next time you set out to launch a WordPress website for one of your clients, make sure that she/he comprehends the infinite benefits of adding a social sharing plugin in the mixture. Monarch from Elegant Themes is perfectly able to support you while devising a social sharing invitation that your readers will definitely accept.