Ask The Web Guy: Adding Social Sharing Tools #savvyblogging
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July 16, 2011 •
There have been a few requests on how to add the sharing tools to your blog posts, so I decided to do a post about it. When adding these buttons to your themes, make sure you only add it to the specific blog post page and not the posts on the home page. If you do that, when people click on the share buttons it will be sharing your home page and not the post, which can cause confusion and less sharing.
Twitter is one of the simpler share buttons to add to a post. Just go to their Tweet Button tool and insert some information. The site will give you some code to paste into your theme. Again, there is a <script> tag involved, so make sure your blog service of choice allows you to use these in your themes. I know self-hosted WordPress does.
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon gives you a quick tool to help you build your StumbleUpon badge for your site. Their easy tool even includes step-by-step instructions for both Blogger and self-hosted WordPress blogs. Unfortunately, it says that WordPress.com hosted blogs do not currently support StumbleUpon badges.
Facebook has their famous Like Button tool which you can add to your posts. According to the tool, if you leave the “URL” box blank it should use your post’s URL. Though, to make sure, with some coding, you can get the URL for the page for the widget when your blog creates the page. For example WordPress themes can use the built-in get_permalink function to get the post’s URL. There are also ways to find it in PHP and Javascript. Blogger may have a built-in option, too.
The one bonus to Facebook’s widget is that they also give you an option to use a non <script> tag version if you blog themes don’t support it. When you’re setting up your widget, make sure you uncheck the “Send Button (XBFML Only)” checkbox. Then, when you hit the “Get Code” button, it will give you an “iframe” version to use instead of the script version.
Google+
Google+ is the new kid in town from the old part of town, so to speak. Adding Google’s +1 button is as simple as any other tool. Would you expect anything less from Google? Just visit their +1 Button Tool and have it step you through making a button. Then, paste the final code into your theme for your posts.
Have a question for “The Web Guy” – leave it in the comments!
Tags: blogging, share tools, social media, social sharing buttons, web guy
Thanks so much! I’ve been needing this loluntraindhairmom
Thanks for the great into. I’m working in blogger. Is there an easy way to get photos to line up side by side (horizontally) in a post?janj4c
I’m not sure if it works the same in blogger, but the posts of mine here on WP that are side by side? I select “none” for alignment or remove the alignment code from HTML, then it just puts them next to each other.Syrana
Yeah, on a “normal” page (without any styles changed in the stylesheet for images) they should just keep lining up next to each other until it’s too wide for the area and then go to the next line, similar to text. Though, some themes may have changed the styling for images which can also change this behavior.brianjz
Thanks. I’ll see if I can change the alignment HTML.janj4c
I’m a complete html novice – where do I put these scripts in Blogger?chascouponmom