Sharing
Contents
- Customize Your Services
- Customizing Sharing Settings
- Disabling Sharing On Specific Posts
- Like Button
- Adding Your Own Service
- Share Stats
- WordPress.org Plugin
- Troubleshooting
Related
At the bottom of each post and page you can now include sharing buttons for your readers to share your content across a range of social networks/services.
To customize your blog’s sharing options go to the Settings -> Sharing page in your dashboard.
The following services are available to be used:
- Tumblr
- Google+
- Digg
- Stumbleupon
- Press This
Customize Your Services
There are a range of standard sharing services available. By default these are simply links to the sharing service.
However the buttons for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Pocket, and Digg may also be displayed in “Official” mode. Official buttons will display the number of shares in real-time on your blog, as reported by the specific service.
To enable the official buttons, go down to the Button style menu and select Official buttons.
To configure which services you are using, simply drag and drop them from the Available Services to the Enabled Services section.
You also have the option of dragging any of the services into the Hidden Services section.
Any services placed here will be hidden and will only be visible when the reader hovers over a Share button.
Note that some services are not available if your blog is marked as private.
Customizing Sharing Settings
You can customize how the buttons behave and look with the following settings.
- Button style allows you to choose whether you only want the button icon or the text link or both, or if you want the full Official buttons (where available).
- Sharing label allows you to customize the text before the share buttons. You can leave this blank.
- Open links in either the same window or another window.
- Show buttons on the front/archive/search results page, individual posts, pages, and media.
Save your changes and check out your blog to see the results.
Disabling Sharing On Specific Posts
You can disable the sharing option on specific posts or pages by using the checkbox at the bottom of the edit page:
Like Button
You can enable/disable the WordPress.com Like button on the sharing page.
For more information on the Like button please see this support doc.
Adding Your Own Service
If you would like to add a sharing service to your blog that is not available in the standard set, you can add it using the Add a new service link in the Available Services section.
You will need to enter:
- Service name
- Sharing URL
- Icon URL
The Service name is the name you would like to use for the sharing service. It will appear in the link to the service and in the blog sharing stats, i.e. Buzz
The Sharing URL is the URL address to the sharing service. You can use the variables %post_title%, %post_url% (short URL), %post_full_url% and %post_excerpt% in the URL, i.e. http://www.google.com/buzz/post?url=%post_url%
The Icon URL is the URL address to the icon image you wish to use for this service, i.e. http://www.someserver.com/images/buzz.png
Save the service and the new service will appear in the Available Services section.
As you customize the sharing services, you can see how they are ordered in the Live Preview section.
Share Stats
You will now be able to see what your users are sharing and what services they are using to do so in your blog stats. Only the standard share links are counted, so if you are using the smart buttons or the Facebook Share/Like button, then the stats for these shares will not be counted.
In the stats page, you will now see the total shares.
Click on the number to see the share stats.
The share stats will show you the top sharing services on your blog. If you click on the shares numbers here, you can see the number of shares for each of your posts for this service, e.g. If you click on number of shares for Facebook, you will see all the posts that were shared using Facebook.
Share stats also show the top posts and pages in terms of the number of shares they received. If you click on the shares here, you will see all the services used to share that post.
WordPress.org Plugin
Self-hosted/installed WordPress(.org) users can enjoy similar functionality as part of the Jetpack plugin.
Troubleshooting
If you are having trouble showing the sharing buttons on your blog, please check the following:
- I can’t see the buttons on the front page.
Make sure to select “Front Page, Archive Pages, and Search Results” for “Show buttons on” setting. - The Twitter sharing button is using “via @wordpressdotcom” but I want it to use my Twitter username.
To have your Twitter sharing button use your Twitter username you need to set up the Publicize feature. - Many of the Available Services are missing from the selection on the sharing settings page.
If your blog is private, you will see fewer number of services listed.
Still confused?
Help us improve:
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