Tuesday 29 April 2014

Customized Social Share Buttons

Top post on IndiBlogger.in, the community of Indian Bloggers

Last month, I wrote a post - Blog Friendly Share with info about incorporating Social Media Share Buttons in our Blogs for easy sharing of our posts.

I recommended - How to Add social sharing media button below every Blog Post.

However, I found that it wasn't customized as per my Blog & my credentials.

Since the Share Widget belongs to ShareThis, its Twitter Handle is configured in the code rather than our own.  

I didn't want anyone to get a tweet "via @sharethis" rather I wanted everyone to get "via @selftwitterhandle" in the automated tweet. (I wish that if anyone shares my Post through Twitter, the tweet should automatically have "via @anitaexplorer" - my Twitter Handle)

Ensuring that our own Twitter handles also get shared when our Posts are shared through Twitter, would mean that we would get to learn if & when people are sharing our posts...

In case you wish to continue with the above-mentioned Share Widget and if you want to update your Twitter Handle in the code, do read this Support Page in ShareThis

As I didn't wish to make all those changes in the code, I decided to adopt the buttons as explained in detail in the Social Media Examiner

Do take a look and follow all the instructions given in detail with screenshots.

We can optimize the share buttons by customizing them for our purpose.

We can also add other widgets.

Twitter has its own widgets that we can add & ensure "via @ourTwitterHandleName" also gets automatically tweeted with our post.

Then there is the AddThis Free Widget

We can add all our details and it gets automatically installed when we click 'Install Blogger Widget'.

Pretty simple!



Many of our Blogger friends are using Shareaholic Buttons. This is pretty effective. But, 1 point- In order to post our comments for a Blog that uses these buttons, we need to first register with it & thereafter we can comment for subsequent posts (without having to register)

I would like buttons which anyone can access and directly post comments without having to register even once...

I like the default Blogger Share buttons that most of us employ. Such buttons have widespread usage due to the ease or because of our ignorance!

However, I do wish the default Blogger Share buttons could be customized for our own respective accounts. Blogger buttons do have the relevant ones for Social Share... But, they do not reflect our personalized ids or details.

For example, I don't know who are those blessed souls who have shared my post on Google+ as all I see is +N (where N is a number- the total number of people who have shared) & also I can see my pic next to N (as I have shared on G+!)
I would have liked to see all the N faces :)

Blogger & Google folks, hope you are reading this & incorporate our needs & make Blogger Share Buttons more advanced & effective to help us better...

29 comments:

  1. Great post Anita, social share buttons are the need of the time and need to be placed on each and every blog. You never know when someone being inspired from your blog post do share the same on his/her social media profile and might have a chance that it will reach to a huge number of people over there....

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  2. Ensuring that this post is very good for our optimical thinking and it could be consider seriously

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  3. Cool. Lot's of information shared. You have become the queen of sharing. ;)

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    1. Thanks Namrata!
      Queen reminds me of the lovely Hindi movie :) Hope everyone gets to be Queen :)

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  4. Very Useful post. Infact i was looking for all these info. Thanks Anita.

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    1. Thanks Shabab. Glad you found it useful :)

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  5. first of all their is lots of problem in knowing who have shared your post .. lots of backend data is required and second.. with addthis button you don't need to register .. u can share directly .. and add this share plugin you can customize each and every share button + it's can also be made suitable for responsive sites .. directly just adding it won't make it appear below every post !

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    1. Yes, Ankur, that's what I referred to- AddThis is simple & convenient :)
      I wasn't very sure how to customize it further for my interests. More research needed.
      Just want Blogger to make things easier for us! Already Blogging takes up time & would not like to spend additional time researching on Blog Share buttons!

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    2. there is class associated with each add this button like just you need to add css specifying those class to modify its look !

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    3. Gonna take your help for advanced features :)
      My point- why doesn't Blogger have/provide all the buttons & customizations that Bloggers need!

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    4. to provide employment to lots of web developer out there :D

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    5. Point, Ankur! If Blogger had everything, there would be less scope for the others as everyone would go with the default buttons!

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  6. Yes. Good share buttons are important!

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  7. Nice post Anita , I agree with you..share buttons have an important role to play

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  8. Share buttons are truly helpful.
    Very relevant post.

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  9. thank you...am just redoing the look of my blog and was wondering how to use the share buttons. dont have them on my blog yet!! this was such timely information :) have to use them!! :)

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    1. Yes Preethi. Saw that your Blog has a new look :) Go for the Shareaholic Buttons then as the Top Bloggers recommend it...
      My Quest is still on. Will share info if I find something better :)

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  10. Hi Anita,

    Wonderful post. Social Share buttons are very useful for every blog and in my view they are mandatory.
    These Social Share buttons helps and encourages your visitors to share your post which increase your blog traffic, page rank, and Google loves blogs that has more social engagement.
    Finally you did an excellent job, keep the good work Anita :)

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    1. Thanks for reading, Sahith. True, these buttons are very useful.
      Need more info about the buttons that you have used...

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  11. Now that's a great info. that had to be shared and it deserved to be shared in a captivating Anita Style (nd dat reminds me of Gangnam Style :p :p)

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    1. Thanks for the Nikhil-style comment :P
      Delighted always :)

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