WordPress isn’t unique in its ability to integrate with social media and social bookmarking – there are hosted blog platforms that have social features too.  But when you host your own WordPress blog, you have a choice as to the social plugins that you want to add to your site.  A favorite among my clients is Sexy Bookmarks.

Sexy Bookmarks

The Sexy Bookmarks plugin adds a bar at the bottom of your posts that allows visitors to your website or blog to easily submit your content to the most popular social bookmarking sites and social media sites.  As with other social bookmarking plugins, Sexy Bookmarks allows you to choose which social bookmarking and social media sites you want to include.  I believe there are over 90 sites to choose from, though I don’t recommend displaying all of them.

 

How Sexy Bookmarks Works

As your visitor’s mouse rolls over each icon in the Sexy Bookmarks toolbar, it pops-up and readers can click on the icon and post your content to that site.  That’s all there is to it.  Pretty easy, huh?  After all, the easier it is for someone to share your content with the world, the more they will.  No need to complicate things.

How To Add The Sexy Bookmarks Plugin

You can grab a copy of the Sexy Bookmarks plugin by visiting http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sexybookmarks/.

After activating the plugin, go to the Shareaholic >> SexyBookmarks menu which should be visible right below the Settings menu in your dashboard.

The primary area you’ll need to concern yourself with is Enabled Networks.  This allows you to select the number of social bookmarking websites button to show on your blog.  You can place as much as you want, but be aware that adding too many buttons will affect the load time of your site.  I recommend adding between 8 and 16 sites.

Next you’ll see Functionality Settings which allow you to configure a custom tweet template and select the URL shortner service for shorting the URLs for twitter and other websites. There are other options you can configure such as add nofollow to the links and enable or disable “Open links in new window” etc.

The Plugin Aesthetics allows you to customize the look and feel of the buttons that will be displayed on your blog.  You can select from one of eight background images and control the animation of the plugin.

And finally the Menu Placement allows you to select the location on your blog in which to display the Sexy Bookmarks toolbar.  For example you can display the buttons above and / or below any post or select any place manually.  Similarly you can also choose to display the buttons on Posts, Pages and / or your Index page and even display the buttons in RSS Feed.

After you’ve gone through and selected your options, be sure to click on “Save Changes” to save your selections and then visit a blog post to view the plugin in action.

Obviously this also equals more traffic and exposure. If you are even the least bit involved in social media and social bookmarking, you understand the value of utilizing a plug-in that will automatically broadcast your content or make it easy for your visitors to share your most recent posts on social networking sites.

iChat: WordPress Plugin Questions

If you have any questions about installing a plugin, or want to know more about a particular plugin and how it works, just let me know by posting a comment below.