### [17 Best Social Media Plugins for WordPress (2026)](https://wpforms.com/social-media-plugins-wordpress/)

**Published:** June 13, 2023
**Author:** Osama Tahir

**Excerpt:** Building a following on social media can accelerate growth and build your reputation. That's why many website owners are connecting their WordPress sites with social media platforms. This integration helps increase traffic and grow your follower base simultaneously.

In this post, I'll recommend some of the best social media plugins I've personally tested and found effective for WordPress sites. These tools make it easier to publish your WordPress posts to social media or display social media posts on your site.

**Content:**

Building a following on social media can accelerate growth and build your reputation. That’s why many website owners are connecting their WordPress sites with social media platforms. This integration helps increase traffic and grow your follower base simultaneously.

In this post, I’ll recommend some of the best social media plugins I’ve personally tested and found effective for WordPress sites. These tools make it easier to publish your WordPress posts to social media or display social media posts on your site.

How I Picked the Best Social Media Plugins

Most WordPress social plugin roundups are sorted by affiliate payout. The plugin that pays the highest commission shows up first. I’ve seen the same five “winners” recycled across blogs that clearly never installed any of them. Here’s how this shortlist actually got built.

- **Job-fit before features**: Every plugin is matched to a single job (feeds, sharing, login, automation, contests, icons). A “social media plugin” isn’t one product category, it’s six. A 100/100 share buttons plugin is useless if you needed a feed embedder.
- **Plugin weight and speed impact**: I look at page weight and request count before and after activation. Plugins that load 80 KB of CSS for a five-icon row got demoted. Plugins that lazy-load assets only on pages where they’re used got bumped up.
- **Active install count and last update**: A plugin that hasn’t been updated in 12 months is a security risk regardless of how nice the UI is. I cross-checked WordPress.org listings and removed anything stale at the time of writing.
- **Compatibility with WPForms and other common stack pieces**: Many of the plugins in this list are tools I’ve installed alongside WPForms on real sites. The ones that play nicely with form layouts, page builders, and caching plugins earned their spot.

## What’s the Best Social Media Plugin for WordPress?

This roundup covers every kind of social plugin you might need on a WordPress site, social feeds you embed on a page, share buttons readers click, social login that replaces a registration form, giveaways that grow your follower count, and auto-posting tools that publish your content to social networks while you sleep.

- [1. Smash Balloon](#1-smash-balloon)
- [2. RafflePress](#2-rafflepress)
- [3. Envira Gallery](#3-envira-gallery)
- [4. Social Warfare](#4-social-warfare)
- [5. AddToAny Share Buttons](#5-addtoany-share-buttons)
- [6. Nextend Social Login and Register](#6-nextend-social-login-and-register)
- [7. Revive Old Posts](#7-revive-old-posts)
- [8. Blog2Social](#8-blog2social)
- [9. Sassy Social Share](#9-sassy-social-share)
- [10. Better Click to Tweet](#10-better-click-to-tweet)
- [11. Feed Them Social](#11-feed-them-social)
- [12. Shareaholic](#12-shareaholic)
- [13. Simple Social Icons](#13-simple-social-icons)
- [14. WordPress to Buffer](#14-wordpress-to-buffer)
- [15. Social Icons Widget](#15-social-icons-widget)
- [16. Ultimately Social](#16-ultimately-social)
- [17. Simple Author Box](#17-simple-author-box)

There are a lot of WordPress plugins out there, so I narrowed down my favorite social media tools in this list. Here’s a table with the job each plugin is best at. Click a plugin name to jump to its full review.

PluginBest ForFree VersionStarts At[Smash Balloon](#1-smash-balloon)Embedding social feeds on your siteYes$49/year[RafflePress](#2-rafflepress)Viral giveaways that grow your followersYes$39.50/year[Envira Gallery](#3-envira-gallery)Instagram and YouTube galleries with lightboxYes$39.50/year[Social Warfare](#4-social-warfare)Premium share buttons with click trackingNo$29/year[AddToAny Share Buttons](#5-addtoany-share-buttons)Free, lightweight share buttonsYesFree[Nextend Social Login](#6-nextend-social-login-and-register)Letting visitors log in with Facebook or GoogleYes$49/year[Revive Old Posts](#7-revive-old-posts)Auto-sharing old content to socialYes$75/year[Blog2Social](#8-blog2social)Multi-network scheduling and per-post tweaksYes$89.40/year[Sassy Social Share](#9-sassy-social-share)Free share buttons with design flexibilityYesFree[Better Click to Tweet](#10-better-click-to-tweet)Click-to-tweet quotes inside postsYesFree[Feed Them Social](#11-feed-them-social)Multi-network feed embeds on a budgetYes$50/year[Shareaholic](#12-shareaholic)Floating share buttons with targeting rulesYesFree[Simple Social Icons](#13-simple-social-icons)Clean social icon menu in a sidebar or footerYesFree[WordPress to Buffer](#14-wordpress-to-buffer)Auto-posting to Buffer’s scheduled queueYesFree[Social Icons Widget](#15-social-icons-widget)A widget block for social profile iconsYesFree[Ultimately Social](#16-ultimately-social)Feature-heavy share + follow buttonsYesFree[Simple Author Box](#17-simple-author-box)Author bios with social profile iconsYes$49/year### 1. [Smash Balloon](https://smashballoon.com/)

**Best For:** Anyone who needs to embed Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or TikTok feeds on a WordPress page

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 1,750,000+ across the plugin suite
- Free version: Yes, per platform
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: Combined Social Wall that mixes feeds from multiple networks into one curated grid

![Smash Balloon - best social media plugin for WordPress](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/smash-balloon-1.png)Smash Balloon isn’t one plugin, it’s a suite of feed embedders, one per platform. The Instagram, Facebook, Custom Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok feeds each install independently, which is the right call.

If all you need is an Instagram grid in your footer, you install one plugin instead of bundling code for five networks you don’t use. Not to mention, the free versions are genuinely usable.

I installed the free Instagram Feed plugin on a portfolio site, connected an account in under two minutes, and dropped a 12-photo grid into a page using the block editor.

![grid layout of Instagram feed](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/grid-layout.png)Upgrade to Pro and you get hashtag and public-account feeds, a moderation panel, and the Social Wall addon that combines Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube into one infinite-scroll layout.

The customization controls live in a visual editor, so you change column count, spacing, and color themes without touching CSS.

![Smash Balloon customization](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/smash-balloon-customization.png)What sells me on Smash Balloon over cheaper alternatives is the rendering approach.

It pulls the feed via the official platform APIs and renders the markup server-side, so there are no iframes slowing your page down and the content is indexable by Google.

Most “free” feed plugins iframe an embed from the social network, which is fast for them but bad for your SEO and load times.

![display mixed social media feeds on wordpress](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/display-mixed-social-media-feeds-on-wordpress.png)The oEmbed fallback is the small touch I appreciate most. Paste an Instagram or Facebook post URL into a Gutenberg block and Smash Balloon converts it into a properly styled card.

You can also [embed a YouTube playlist on your website](https://wpforms.com/how-to-embed-youtube-playlist-on-wordpress-site/) using the YouTube Feed plugin, which is handy for course sites and tutorial blogs.

If you want a deeper feature walkthrough, read my full [Smash Balloon review](https://wpforms.com/smash-balloon-review/). For Instagram-specific setup, the [embed your Instagram feed on WordPress](https://wpforms.com/embed-instagram-feed-on-wordpress/) guide walks through every step.

**Pricing:** Free version per platform (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok). Pro starts at $49/year for a single platform. The All Access bundle covers everything at $299/year.

### 2. [RafflePress](https://rafflepress.com/)

**Best For:** Growing your social following with viral giveaways and contests

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 70,000+
- Free version: Yes (RafflePress Lite)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: Refer-a-friend mechanic that turns one entry into many

![RafflePress](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/RafflePressHome-e1691183759747.png)RafflePress is what I reach for when a client wants real follower growth on a specific platform, not just vanity engagement.

 It’s the most polished of the [best WordPress giveaway plugins](https://wpforms.com/wordpress-giveaway-plugins/), with a drag-and-drop builder, prebuilt templates, and entry actions that drive social follows, retweets, Instagram visits, and email signups.

The setup is fast. I built a fully working “follow + tweet to win” giveaway in about 12 minutes from scratch, picking a template, naming the prize, dropping in entry actions, and going live.

![rafflepress free giveaway template](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/rafflepress-free-giveaway-template.jpg)The whole flow is visual, so non-technical site owners can build a contest in one sitting. What separates RafflePress from cheaper giveaway plugins is the viral mechanic.

Every entrant gets a unique referral link, so the more they share, the more entries they earn. It turns a single contest entry into 5 or 10 if your prize is good. Real referral tracking, not just a share button that does nothing.

The giveaway can sit on a dedicated [giveaway landing page](https://wpforms.com/giveaway-landing-page/) built with the same plugin, or you can host a giveaway on any existing page using a shortcode. If you’ve never done one before, the [host a giveaway on your WordPress site](https://wpforms.com/how-to-host-a-giveaway-on-your-wordpress-site/) walkthrough covers the full setup.

![Facebook Giveaway Landing Page Example](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Facebook-Giveaway-Landing-Page-Example.png)Entry actions cover Instagram, Twitter/X, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and TikTok, plus newsletter signups. The point isn’t just adding followers, it’s adding the kind who [convert followers into engagement](https://wpforms.com/convert-facebook-followers/) and revenue afterward.

**Pricing:** RafflePress Lite is free. Pro plans start at $39.50/year for unlimited giveaways and viral entry types.

### 3. [Envira Gallery](https://enviragallery.com/)

**Best For:** Instagram, YouTube, and social-media-aware photo galleries

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 100,000+
- Free version: Yes (Envira Gallery Lite)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: Drag-and-drop builder with a real lightbox that supports social sharing inside the gallery view

![Envira Gallery](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/EnviraGallery_homepage-e1689687535550.png)Envira is on this list because galleries are a social-media-adjacent job. If you’re a photographer, an Etsy seller, or a portfolio site, your gallery IS your social presence on your own domain. Envira’s the best of the [WordPress gallery plugins](https://wpforms.com/best-wordpress-gallery-plugins/) for tying galleries to social content.

The Instagram addon is what bumps it into this list. Once you connect an Instagram account, Envira pulls your photos automatically and displays them in a fully customizable gallery layout, not the boxed iframe most free plugins use. The gallery feels native to your site.

![Envira Instagram addon](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/EnviraInstagram-e1691184597538.png)The [lightbox](https://wpforms.com/wordpress-lightbox/) is the polished part. Visitors click any image, get a clean overlay view, and can share that specific photo to Twitter/X, Facebook, or Pinterest from inside the lightbox. Most galleries make sharing a chore. Envira makes it a button click.

The YouTube addon does the same trick for video. Connect a channel, pick which playlists to display, and visitors get a YouTube grid that opens individual videos in a lightbox-style player. I’ve used it on a recipe blog with a 200-video back catalog and the load times stayed reasonable thanks to lazy loading.

![Envira YouTube gallery example](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/youtube-gallery-example-envira.png)**Pricing:** Envira Gallery Lite is free. Pro plans start at $39.50/year and unlock the Instagram, YouTube, social-share, and watermarking addons.

### 4. [Social Warfare](https://wpforms.com/refer/social-warfare-2/)

**Best For:** Premium share buttons with full design control and click tracking

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 60,000+
- Free version: Yes (limited)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: Pinterest-specific image and description overrides that change what gets shared when someone pins your post

![social warefare social media plugin](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/social-warefare-social-media-plugin.png)Social Warfare is the share buttons plugin I recommend when the free options feel too generic. The buttons look sharp out of the box, the share counts pull in via Twitter/X, Facebook, and Pinterest APIs, and the placement controls are granular down to the post type.

The Pinterest feature is the one I keep recommending to bloggers. You can set a hidden Pinterest-only image and description on every post, so the image that gets pinned (and the text that goes with it) is optimized for Pinterest specifically, not the same generic featured image visitors share on Twitter. It’s the kind of detail you’d never get from a free icon-row plugin.

Click tracking is built in andyou can wire it up to [Google Analytics](https://wpforms.com/how-to-add-google-analytics-to-wordpress/) to see exactly which network drives the most engaged visitors. I’ve watched clients realize their entire Twitter strategy was producing fewer sessions than a single Pinterest pin, and Social Warfare’s data was what made that visible.

Performance-wise, Social Warfare loads its assets only on pages where buttons are shown. That sounds like table stakes, but I’ve audited share plugins that load 200 KB of JavaScript on every page of a site, including admin and checkout. Social Warfare’s per-page asset loading keeps your page weight predictable.

**Pricing:** A free version exists with limited features. Pro plans start at $29/year for a single site.

### 5. [AddToAny Share Buttons](https://wordpress.org/plugins/add-to-any/)

**Best For:** Free, lightweight share buttons that don’t slow your site down

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 600,000+
- Free version: Yes (full)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: 100+ supported sharing destinations, including obscure regional networks

![addtoany](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/addtoany.png)AddToAny is the free share buttons plugin I install when a client wants the basics handled and doesn’t want to budget for a premium tool. It supports more sharing destinations than any other free plugin I’ve tested, more than 100 including WhatsApp, Telegram, Reddit, Pocket, LinkedIn, and regional networks like VK and Mix.

![AddtoAny buttons](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/addtoany-buttons.png)Setup is two clicks, just activate the plugin, pick which buttons appear, and drag to reorder them. The buttons inherit your theme’s typography and color scheme, so they don’t look bolted on.

I’ve used the floating sidebar version on a long-form blog where it doubled the share rate compared to inline-only buttons.

![AddtoAny placement](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/addtoany-placement.png)Performance is the second reason I keep coming back. The script weight is under 10 KB. There’s no API key configuration, tracking pixel by default, or upsell modal on the settings page.

It’s a free plugin that genuinely respects your page speed budget. The buttons are functional, not beautiful. If you want share counts displayed prominently or fancy hover animations, Social Warfare or Sassy Social Share is a better fit. If you want share buttons that work without thinking, AddToAny is good enough.

**Pricing:** Free. There’s no premium version, the developer makes money through optional account integration with their AddToAny.com URL shortener service.

### 6. [Nextend Social Login and Register](https://wordpress.org/plugins/nextend-facebook-connect/)

**Best For:** Letting visitors log in or register using their existing Google, Facebook, or X accounts

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 300,000+
- Free version: Yes (3 providers)
- Setup difficulty: Intermediate (each provider needs API keys)
- Best feature: One-click registration that auto-creates a WordPress account from a social profile

![Nextend social login](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/nextend-social-login.png)Nextend is what I install when a registration form is killing conversion. People hate creating new accounts. A “Sign in with Google” button cuts registration friction to almost nothing, the visitor clicks once, approves the permission, and they’re logged in.

The free version covers the three providers most sites actually need, Facebook, Google, and Twitter/X. That’s enough for 90% of use cases. The Pro version adds LinkedIn, Apple, Amazon, GitHub, and a dozen others if you’re targeting a specialized audience.

![Nextend social providers](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/nextend-providers.png)Setup is the one part that earns the “intermediate” tag. Each provider requires you to create an OAuth app on their developer console (Google Cloud, Meta for Developers, X Developer Portal) and copy the API keys into Nextend’s settings.

The plugin’s setup wizard walks you through it screen by screen, but you do have to leave WordPress for 10 minutes per provider.

![Nextend social customization](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/nextendsocial-customization.png)The button styling is fully customizable, so the social login row matches whatever design your registration page is using.

I’ve placed Nextend’s buttons next to a WPForms registration form before, and the combination handles both audiences, visitors who want one-click social login, and visitors who prefer email registration.

For a deeper look at other registration options, our [WordPress login page plugins](https://wpforms.com/best-wordpress-login-page-plugins/) roundup covers the full landscape.

**Pricing:** Free for 3 providers. Pro starts at $49/year for unlimited providers and white-label branding.

### 7. [Revive Old Posts](https://wpforms.com/refer/revive-social/)

**Best For:** Automatically resharing your old blog posts to social networks on a schedule

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 60,000+
- Free version: Yes (limited to Twitter/X and Facebook)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: Customizable sharing intervals so your old content keeps circulating without spamming

![revive social](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/revive-social.png)Revive Old Posts is the automation plugin I recommend to bloggers with a back catalog. If you’ve published 200 posts over five years, only your last 10 are getting any organic traffic.

Revive sets up a queue that picks an old post at random (or by category), formats a tweet or Facebook update, and ships it automatically on whatever schedule you set.

The free version handles Twitter/X and Facebook profiles. That’s enough to keep an old blog warm without paying anything.

The Pro version adds LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr, plus features like hashtag insertion, custom image sharing, and the ability to share new posts immediately on publish.

![Sharing queue ROP](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/sharing-queue-rop.png)What I like about Revive’s approach is that the schedule is intelligent. You can set a minimum gap between shares, exclude posts older than a certain date, and skip categories you don’t want recirculated. So your “deals” category from 2019 doesn’t suddenly resurface as a “current deal” today.

The dashboard is the part I think could be cleaner. It works fine but it feels older than the rest of the plugin. Functionally though, the sharing queue is rock-solid. I had a personal blog set up with Revive 4 years ago and it’s still posting daily without intervention.

**Pricing:** Free with Twitter/X and Facebook support. Pro starts at $75/year and adds the other networks and advanced scheduling.

### 8. [Blog2Social](https://wordpress.org/plugins/blog2social/)

**Best For:** Multi-network scheduling with per-post tweaks for each platform

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 80,000+
- Free version: Yes (limited networks)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner-Intermediate
- Best feature: Calendar view that shows scheduled posts across every network in one place

![Blog2Social home](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/blog2social-home.png)Blog2Social is the plugin I reach for when a client is publishing to four or more networks and the “same caption everywhere” approach isn’t working.

It lets you customize the headline, image, and call-to-action per network for the same blog post. So your LinkedIn share leads with the data point, the Instagram share leads with the visual hook, and the Twitter share leads with the contrarian take.

The drag-and-drop calendar is the feature that earns it a top-half slot. You see every scheduled post across every network in one timeline. Drag a card to reschedule, click to edit the per-network copy. It’s the closest thing to Buffer or Hootsuite that lives inside WordPress.

![Blog2Social calendar](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/blog2social-calendar.png)The free version connects to 2 social profiles and lets you share manually. The Pro tier (Smart) adds auto-posting, the calendar, image customization, and best-time-to-post scheduling.

![Blog2Social auto-poster](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/blog2social-autoposter.png)What I’d flag is that Blog2Social’s UI takes a beat to learn. There are multiple paths to do the same thing (share now, schedule, auto-post on publish), and the settings page has a lot of options.

Once you’ve set up your defaults, it gets out of the way, but plan on an hour of setup time for the first connection.

**Pricing:** Free for 2 networks with manual sharing. Smart plan starts at $89.40/year for auto-posting, scheduling, and calendar features.

### 9. [Sassy Social Share](https://wordpress.org/plugins/sassy-social-share/)

**Best For:** Free share buttons when you want real design and placement control

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 100,000+
- Free version: Yes (full)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: 100+ supported networks with custom icon styles and a floating sidebar option

![sassy social share best wordpress plugin for social media](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/sassy-social-share-best-wordpress-plugin-for-social-media.png)Sassy Social Share sits in the same free-share-buttons category as AddToAny, but it’s the design-flexibility option. You get more icon shapes (round, square, rectangular with text labels), more placement controls (inline, floating, above/below content, sticky on scroll), and granular per-post-type toggles.

I tested it on a magazine-style site that wanted Pinterest-heavy share buttons on long-form articles and Twitter/X-only buttons on short news posts. Sassy let me set both behaviors by post type without writing a single line of code. AddToAny doesn’t quite handle that out of the box.

The 100+ supported networks list mirrors AddToAny’s reach. Where Sassy edges ahead is the design output. The buttons feel less like default WordPress chrome and more like part of your theme. There’s also a built-in share-count cache, so the counts you display don’t add API calls to every page load.

The one thing to watch is the settings page, it’s dense. You scroll through six tabs of options on first use. Once configured, you rarely touch it again, but the initial setup is more involved than AddToAny’s two-click flow.

**Pricing:** Free. There’s no premium version. The developer monetizes through other plugins in their portfolio.

### 10. [Better Click to Tweet](https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-click-to-tweet/)

**Best For:** Pull-quote tweets embedded inside your blog posts

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 30,000+
- Free version: Yes (full)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: A custom block in Gutenberg that turns any quote into a one-click tweet

![better click to tweet best social media plugin wordpress](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/better-click-to-tweet-best-social-media-plugin-wordpress.png)Better Click to Tweet does one job and does it cleanly. You highlight a sentence inside a blog post that you want readers to tweet, drop in the Click to Tweet block, paste the text, and readers see a styled pull-quote with a “Click to tweet” button. One click opens a pre-populated tweet with the quote and a link back to your post.

It’s the lowest-friction way to get a thoughtful reader to share. Standard share buttons require the reader to compose their own message. Click-to-tweet hands them the text already written. The conversion gap between the two is meaningful for opinion-driven content.

![Better Click to Tweet block](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/better-click-to-tweet-block.png)The Gutenberg block is what makes it usable. Earlier versions used shortcodes that broke in the visual editor. The current block previews exactly how the quote will render and supports custom styling via the block settings sidebar.

The plugin name still says “tweet” because that’s the job, but the underlying behavior works fine with X’s current sharing intent URL. Nothing breaks.

**Pricing:** Free. No premium version.

### 11. [Feed Them Social](https://wordpress.org/plugins/feed-them-social/)

**Best For:** Embedding feeds from multiple networks when Smash Balloon is overkill

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 100,000+
- Free version: Yes (Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner-Intermediate
- Best feature: Bundled multi-network support in a single plugin

![Feed them social](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/feed-them-social-home.png)Feed Them Social is the alternative I recommend when Smash Balloon’s per-platform pricing doesn’t fit the budget. One plugin handles Facebook pages, YouTube channels, and Pinterest boards (free), and Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, and a combined social feed (Pro).

The setup is shortcode-driven, which feels slightly older than Smash Balloon’s block-based approach. You generate a shortcode for each feed via the plugin’s settings panel and drop it wherever you want the feed to appear. The flow works, but it lacks the visual finish of newer block-based plugins.

![Feed them Social feed](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/feed-them-social-feed.png)What earns it a spot is the bundled approach. If you need a Facebook feed AND a YouTube feed AND a Pinterest board on the same site, Feed Them Social handles all three in one plugin for one license. The trade-off is design polish, as the default styling looks like 2018 social embeds.

You can override the CSS, and the Pro version adds custom layouts, but out of the box Smash Balloon wins on visual quality. If you care more about feature breadth at one price than visual finish, Feed Them Social is the right pick.

**Pricing:** Free for Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest. Premium starts at $50/year and unlocks Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, and combined feeds.

### 12. [Shareaholic](https://wordpress.org/plugins/shareaholic/)

**Best For:** Floating share buttons with audience-targeting rules

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 30,000+
- Free version: Yes (full)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: Targeting rules that show different share buttons to different visitor segments

![Shareaholic home](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shareaholic-home-1.png)Shareaholic (officially “Professional Social Sharing Buttons”) is one of the older free sharing plugins on the WordPress.org repository. The UI feels older than newer competitors, but the targeting features still give it a niche where it’s the right tool.

You can show different share buttons to different visitor segments. Mobile users get a different button set than desktop visitors. First-time visitors see one configuration, repeat visitors see another. That kind of conditional logic is rare in free share plugins.

![Shareaholic customization](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shareholic-customization-e1686243545109.png)Other features include related-content recommendations (the “you might also like” boxes at the end of articles), follow buttons for your own social profiles, and click tracking via Shareaholic’s hosted analytics dashboard.

![Shareaholic targeting rules](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/shareaholic-targeting-rules.png)The downsides are real. The plugin pulls assets from Shareaholic’s CDN by default, which adds a third-party request to every page.

The dashboard for advanced features lives on Shareaholic’s site, not inside WordPress. If you want everything self-hosted, AddToAny is a tighter fit.

**Pricing:** Free with full features. Shareaholic monetizes through optional ad placements and content recommendations (which you can leave disabled).

### 13. [Simple Social Icons](https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-social-icons/)

**Best For:** A clean icon menu showing your social profile links in a sidebar or footer

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 100,000+
- Free version: Yes (full)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: Built-in widget block with color and size controls, no theme customization required

![simple social icons](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/simple-social-icons.png)Simple Social Icons is exactly what the name says. You add a widget, paste in your social profile URLs, and a row of clean SVG icons appears in your sidebar or footer. No sharing functionality, no feed embeds, just “here’s where to find me on the internet.”

The block-editor support is the upgrade from the older widget-only versions. You can drop the Social Icons block into any page or post, not just sidebars, and the block inherits your block editor’s color settings so the icons look native to the page.

![Simple Social Icons widget](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/simple-social-icons-widget.png)There’s nothing fancy here. The plugin is small, fast, and does one thing well. If all you need is “show my social profile icons in the footer,” this is the lowest-friction option. If you also need share buttons or feed embeds, you’re looking at the wrong plugin.

**Pricing:** Free. No premium version.

### 14. [WordPress to Buffer](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-to-buffer/)

**Best For:** Auto-posting your published WordPress content into Buffer’s scheduling queue

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 10,000+
- Free version: Yes (full for connected networks)
- Setup difficulty: Intermediate (requires a Buffer account)
- Best feature: Status template tags that customize the social post format per network

![wordpress to buffer plugin for social media](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/wordpress-to-buffer-plugin-for-social-media.png)WordPress to Buffer is the bridge plugin between WordPress and Buffer. When you publish a post, the plugin formats a message and drops it into your Buffer queue automatically.

Buffer then publishes it on your scheduled time slots across whatever networks you’ve connected (Twitter/X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Mastodon).

This is the right tool if you already use Buffer for the rest of your social posting and want WordPress publishes to flow into the same queue. If you don’t use Buffer, you’d install Blog2Social or Revive Old Posts instead.

The status template tags are where the plugin earns its place. You can write a different message format for each network using variables like `{title}`, `{excerpt}`, `{permalink}`, and `{author}`.

So your LinkedIn share is professional, your Twitter share is punchy, and your Pinterest share leads with the image.

The setup involves creating a Buffer access token and pasting it into the plugin’s settings. Once connected, it sits in the background until you publish.

There’s a Pro version with extra features like custom field support and per-post overrides, but the free version covers the core job.

**Pricing:** Free. Pro adds advanced field mapping and starts at $50/year. You also need a Buffer account, which has its own pricing.

### 15. [Social Icons Widget](https://wordpress.org/plugins/social-icons-widget-by-wpzoom/)

**Best For:** A flexible social icons widget block with extensive customization

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 80,000+
- Free version: Yes (full)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: 200+ icon shape and color combinations from the visual customizer

![social icons for wordpress](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/social-icons-for-wordpress.png)Social Icons Widget by WPZOOM is the more customizable alternative to Simple Social Icons. Where Simple Social Icons gives you basic color and size controls, this plugin offers 200+ pre-configured icon styles, hover effects, alignment options, and the ability to set custom icon URLs (for networks not in the default list).

It supports all the major networks (Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Threads, Mastodon, BlueSky), plus newer ones as they get added. If you’ve ever needed to add a Discord or Telegram icon to your social row, this plugin makes that easy.

The icon shapes go beyond circles and squares. You get hexagons, badges with shadows, gradient fills, and animated hover states. For a portfolio site where the social icons are part of the visual identity, the design depth matters.

The plugin is widget and block based, so you can place icons in a sidebar, footer, or directly inside a page. Setup takes about three minutes from install to first icon row published.

**Pricing:** Free. WPZOOM offers premium themes and other plugins but this one is fully free with no upsells inside the plugin.

### 16. [Ultimately Social](https://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/)

**Best For:** Feature-heavy share and follow buttons when you want every option toggleable

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 100,000+
- Free version: Yes (full of the core features)
- Setup difficulty: Intermediate (lots of options)
- Best feature: One plugin combines share buttons, follow buttons, and animated counters

![UltimatelySocial](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ultimately-home.png)Ultimately Social (officially “Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons”) is the maximalist option. It bundles share buttons, follow buttons, share counters, animated icons, popup share menus, sticky bars, and floating widgets into one plugin. If you want every imaginable social button on your site, this is the one to install.

The trade-off is the settings page. There are dozens of toggles, color pickers, and animation options. You will spend an hour configuring it the first time. Once set, it works, but the initial setup is more involved than Sassy Social Share or AddToAny.

![Ultimately social actions](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ultimately-social-actions.png)What I appreciate is that everything can be turned off. Don’t want animated icons? Turn off animations. Don’t want counters? Turn off counters. You can dial it down to a minimal share row if that’s all you need, then enable extras later. Most kitchen-sink plugins lock you into their style.

Performance is mixed because as you start enabling every feature, the plugin loads more JavaScript than AddToAny or Simple Social Icons. If you keep it minimal, the impact is closer to the lightweight options. Audit your page weight after configuring it.

**Pricing:** Free for core features. The Pro version adds extras like share-on-image, custom themes, and starts at around $40 one-time.

### 17. [Simple Author Box](https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-author-box/)

**Best For:** Author bio boxes at the bottom of posts with social profile icons

**My Real-World Test Results:**

- Active installs: 70,000+
- Free version: Yes (full)
- Setup difficulty: Beginner
- Best feature: Auto-detects each author’s social profiles from their user profile and displays them in the box

![Simple Author Box](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/simple-author-box-e1686243856251.png)Simple Author Box is the social-adjacent plugin in this list. It’s primarily an author bio box plugin, the kind that shows up at the end of a blog post with the author’s photo, name, bio, and a row of social icons linking to their profiles.

The social-icon side is what earns its slot. Most author box plugins force you to manually enter social profile URLs in a custom field. Simple Author Box pulls them automatically from each user’s WordPress profile page, so once a user fills in their Twitter/X and LinkedIn URLs in their account settings, the box shows the icons everywhere.

![Simple author box settings](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/simple-author-box-settings-1.png)It supports 30+ networks, including newer ones like Mastodon, BlueSky, and Threads, and the icon styling can be customized to match your theme. For multi-author blogs where each writer has a different social presence, this is the cleanest way to show that without giving each author homework.

If your site has a single author, this plugin is probably overkill. A simple HTML block at the bottom of your posts does the same job. For sites with 3+ authors, it’s genuinely useful.

**Pricing:** Free with full features. Pro adds extras like multiple author support and tabs, starting at $49/year.

### FAQs About the Best Social Media Plugins for WordPress

Choosing the best social media plugin for WordPress depends entirely on the job you need done. Here are answers to the questions I get most often when helping site owners pick the right tool.

#### Which is the best free social media plugin for WordPress?

For embedding social feeds, the free version of Smash Balloon (any single platform plugin) is the best free option. For share buttons, AddToAny is the lightest weight free choice with 100+ supported networks. For auto-posting old content, Revive Old Posts handles Twitter/X and Facebook on its free tier. There isn’t one “best free social media plugin,” there’s a best free option per job.

#### How do I automatically share my WordPress posts to social media for free?

Use [Revive Old Posts](https://wpforms.com/refer/revive-social/). The free version connects to Twitter/X and Facebook and auto-shares your new posts when they publish, plus recirculates older posts on a schedule. If you already use Buffer, the WordPress to Buffer plugin pipes new posts into your existing Buffer queue automatically.

#### How do I embed Instagram in WordPress for free?

The free [Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed](https://wordpress.org/plugins/instagram-feed/) plugin handles this. Connect your Instagram account through the plugin’s setup wizard, then drop the Instagram Feed block into any page. The free version supports your own profile feed with auto-updating, basic layout controls, and lightbox viewing. Hashtag feeds and Stories require the Pro upgrade.

#### How do I add floating social media buttons to WordPress?

AddToAny and Sassy Social Share both offer floating sidebar buttons in their free versions. AddToAny is faster to set up (two clicks). Sassy Social Share offers more customization on button shapes and per-post-type rules. Shareaholic also has a floating option with audience-targeting rules if you need different button sets for different visitor segments.

#### Do social media plugins slow down WordPress?

They can, but it depends entirely on which plugin and how it’s configured. Plugins that lazy-load their assets only on pages where they’re needed (Social Warfare, AddToAny, Simple Social Icons) have minimal impact. Plugins that load everything everywhere (older or kitchen-sink style plugins) can add 100-300 KB to every page. Audit page weight before and after installing any social plugin, especially feature-heavy options like Ultimately Social or older versions of Shareaholic.

#### Which social media plugin is best for displaying feeds from multiple networks?

Smash Balloon’s Social Wall addon (Pro feature) is the most polished option, it combines Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and YouTube feeds into one infinite-scroll layout. Feed Them Social bundles multiple networks into a single plugin at a lower price point if budget is the priority, but the design output is less refined.

### Next, Build Your Following With the Right WordPress Plugins

The social plugin you install matters less than the publishing rhythm behind it. Pick the one that fits the single job you need done (feeds, sharing, login, automation, contests, icons), then put the rest of your energy into the content people actually want to follow. If you publish on a specific network heavily, look at the platform-specific plugin guides:

- [Best Free WordPress Plugins](https://wpforms.com/best-free-wordpress-plugins-for-your-website/) covers the broader plugin landscape
- [Best TikTok Plugins for WordPress](https://wpforms.com/best-tiktok-plugins-for-wordpress/) for short-form video sites
- [Best WhatsApp Plugins for WordPress](https://wpforms.com/best-whatsapp-plugins-for-wordpress/) for messaging-first audiences
- [Best Instagram Plugins for WordPress](https://wpforms.com/instagram-plugins-wordpress/) for photo and reels embedding

[Build Your WordPress Form Now](https://wpforms.com/pricing/)

Ready to build your form? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. [WPForms Pro](https://wpforms.com/pricing) includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.

If this article helped you out, please follow us on [Facebook](https://facebook.com/wpforms) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/easywpforms) for more free WordPress tutorials and guides.

**Categories:** Showcases

**Tags:** free plugins, smash balloon, social media, WordPress plugins

---