Social Warfare WordPress Plugin: The Only Social Media Sharing Plugin You’ll Ever Need

social-warfare-wordpress-plugin

Everybody knows that having social media sharing buttons is quintessential for every blog in the Blogosphere.

Why?

Well, social media sharing buttons help us drive more (free) traffic while also working as social proof. In the past, I have tried numerous social media sharing plugins & it was always a challenge to find one that worked well both on desktop & mobile.

A few months back, I purchased a popular social media sharing plugin called Social Warfare.

Before that, I always used the free (and sometimes freemium) plugins. This was the second time after Monarch that I paid for a premium plugin. Since this plugin was endorsed by many known bloggers from the WordPress community, it gave me enough confidence to put my money behind it.

Well, after using this plugin for almost four months, here is my detailed review of the Social Warfare WordPress plugin.

In this review post, I will share & highlight those features that have made me keep using this plugin here on ShoutMeLoud. Keep in mind that this is uncommon considering how much I love trying out new plugins.

This is the first time that I’ve been so impressed with a plugin, I now consider it as an essential plugin for every WordPress blog.

Without further ado, let’s get on & learn more about the Social Warfare plugin.

Social Warfare Review: 5 Remarkable Features You Should Know

Looking at this plugin’s landing page, it just seems like another sharing buttons plugin for WordPress.

However, there are a few listed features that make this plugin remarkable.

socialwarfare-plugin-features

I will talk about common features later. First, let me highlight some of the unique features of this popular plugin. These features are the main deciding factors for purchasing the plugin.

Feature #1- Share Count Recovery

Do you know that when you change your URL you also lose the social media share count? This also holds true for every website which is moving from HTTP to HTTPS. Believe it or not, many of us ignore this factor when migrating our blogs to HTTPS protocol.

Losing a high number of social media shares is a big mistake as you lose the trust factor that is shown by the share count.

Well, the Social Warfare plugin keeps your social share counts intact when you switch your permalink or when you move from HTTP to HTTPS protocol. You can enable this feature in the Advanced Settings tab.

socialsharecount-recovery

Wondering how this works? Here is an excerpt from the official help page:

“To recover your social share counts, Social Warfare will make two requests to the various social networks. One request will use your current URL permalink structure; the other will use your previous URL permalink structure. Once the numbers have been fetched, if they are not an exact match, we will add the numbers together before displaying them on the buttons.”

If you’re afraid of losing your share count due to you changing your permalink structure, now you don’t have to worry.

Also, it’s suggested to grab and start using this plugin before you make the move to HTTPS.

Feature #2- Content Protection

Content protection is another great feature that is underlooked by many existing Social Warfare users.

Do you know there are many services like StartAFire that helps social media users hijack another’s content?

Well, that’s beneficial for those who are using such services for sharing links, but for us “webmasters” this is bad and will cause us to lose traffic.

To understand why a content protection feature is a must have, first let’s understand how services like StartAFire work.

Watch this video to understand:

 

Got a better understanding of how others can easily hijack your traffic?

Well, this is where the Social Warfare Content Protection feature comes in handy.

All you need to do is enable the Frame Buster feature & from now on, it will automatically redirect such links to your actual links.

This will not only help you get accurate metrics, it will also improve your bounce rate.

Feature #3- Recover Your Tweet Share Count

how-to-show-twitter-share-count

A few months back, Twitter stopped showing a share count for its button. Annoying, right?

Well, with this plugin you can again start showing a share count for the Twitter button. This process is pretty easy & I have talked about it in detail over here.

Feature #4- Floating Share Buttons

What’s one of the biggest mistakes newbies make when displaying social media sharing buttons?

Placement.

If you notice, most bloggers place social media sharing buttons either above or below the content. Nothing wrong with that, but there is another place which is generally more effective in getting more social media shares.

floating-social-media-share-button-examples

When you add social media sharing buttons that float with content, users still have the option of sharing even if they don’t read until the end.

With Social Warfare, there is an option to enable and disable these floating social media share buttons.

floating-social-media-share-buttons

If you are not using this feature yet, do try it out & you may be surprised by the increased number of shares.

Feature #5- Show Most Shared Posts in Sidebar Widget

Highlighting your most popular posts in the sidebar helps you in many ways:

  1. It helps you to get more eyeballs & traffic.
  2. It helps you to get more shares.
  3. It helps your first-time readers identify the most popular content from your blog.

When you enable the Social Warfare plugin, it also adds a widget that lets you configure & add the “Most Popular Post” widget in your blog’s sidebar or footer (widgetized area).

The options contained within this feature are highly configurable which turns it from a good feature into an outstanding one.

social-media-popular-post-widget

Here is how this widget looks:

example-of-socialwarfare-popular-post-widget

At the time of writing, this feature is live on ShoutMeLoud’s sidebar (on the desktop site).

Well, these are the five remarkable features of Social Warfare which make it worth every penny.

Of course, there are many other features like:

enable-disable-share-buttons

  • Drag/drop or auto arrange social media buttons.
  • Enable/disable share count.
  • Show share counts only after specific numbers.
  • Show share buttons on WordPress custom post types.
  • Configure how sharing buttons will be shown on specific custom post types.
  • Add an image hover “Pin” button to all of your images.

various-share-button-styles

This plugin is a perfect example of a quality WordPress plugin.

So is there anything I don’t like, or that I feel is missing?

Yes, there is one thing…

They should have a dedicated configuration option for the mobile site. This way we can enable/disable certain buttons from showing on the mobile version of our sites.

But given the other completely amazing features of this plugin, the lack of mobile configuration is hardly a dealbreaker.

 

Pricing & Conclusion: Is Social Warfare worth the hype?

Social Warfare is the ultimate solution for showing social share buttons on a WordPress blog. It offers many great features such as content protection, share recovery, and a popular posts widget.

All of these things combined make it a remarkable WordPress plugin.

socialwarfare-pricing

With the price tag of only $29/site, it’s worth every penny.

If you are looking for a solid social media sharing buttons plugin for your WordPress blog, Social Warfare is a great choice and one which I highly recommend to any serious blogger.

Do let me know: Which sharing buttons plugin are you using for your blog? If you are an existing user of the Social Warfare plugin, I would love to hear your review & feedback in the comments below.

And since this a social media plugin, a little social media love is appreciated. Share this Social Warfare review with your blogger friends on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus!

Here are a few hand-picked WordPress plugins that you should also checkout:

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