1 Introduction

When I was browsing some websites recently, I saw that some of them provided buttons for sharing website content to mainstream social software. I thought about it and felt that this was still useful: if someone is willing to share your article, but you still need to ask them to manually copy the address link of the article in the browser address bar, maybe this step will directly discourage them from sharing? After thinking about it, I feel that I should also add sharing buttons for mainstream social media to my blog.

After a rough search, I found that there are many plugins available on WordPress that provide social media sharing buttons. Some plugins integrate social media sharing functions and also include a bunch of other functions, such as Jetpack, although this plugin is feature-rich, it is also bloated and loads a lot of resources, which may affect the loading speed of the website. Other plugins focus on social sharing functions, such as Sassy Social Share, this type of plug-in is more concise and focuses on providing lightweight social sharing buttons.

Since I am reluctant to install plugins in WordPress easily, especially those "heavy" plugins with complicated functions that may slow down the loading speed, I am particularly cautious when choosing social media sharing plugins: on the one hand, I hope that the functions can be used and can provide sharing buttons for mainstream social platforms; on the other hand, I hope that it is as lightweight as possible and does not have a significant impact on the performance of the website.

At first, I also considered some more minimalist plugins, such as Simple Social Icons, but there was less relevant information and limited customization capabilities. In the end, I chose the more well-known and more functional plugin Sassy Social Share Plugins.

2 Why choose Sassy Social Share plugin?

Here is a simple comparison of some common plugins on the market that provide social media button sharing functions:

1. Sassy Social Share

• Function：Focus on providing social media sharing buttons, supporting multiple mainstream platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). Simple and easy to use, without redundant functions.
• Custom button position: Supports flexible button position settings, you can choose top, bottom or sidebar.
• Social platform support: Supports mainstream platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
• Free version features: The free version is rich in features and supports sharing buttons for all major social platforms.
• advantage：Simple, easy to use, and well-optimized. Supports most mainstream social platforms and loads quickly.
• shortcoming: The functions are relatively basic and do not provide as many customization options and fancy effects as some plug-ins.

2. Jetpack by WordPress.com

• Function: In addition to social sharing buttons, it also includes other features such as website statistics, website acceleration, comment system, etc. Social buttons are just part of it.
• Custom button position: Fewer customization options, button styles and placements are not as good as Sassy Social Share flexible.
• Social platform support: Supports common social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
• Free version features: The free version includes basic social sharing features, but some advanced features require payment.
• advantage: It has high integration and multiple functions, and is suitable for webmasters who need multiple functions.
• shortcoming: The large number of functions may have a certain impact on the website performance and cause slow loading speed.

3. Simple Social Icons

• Function: A very simple social sharing plugin that focuses on providing sharing buttons without too many functions and settings.
• Custom button position：Button position setting is relatively simple, but it cannot be like Sassy Social Share So flexible.
• Social platform support: It supports mainstream platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, but the number of social platforms supported is relatively small.
• Free version features: Completely free and provides basic social sharing buttons.
• advantage: Minimalism, small plug-in size and fast loading speed.
• shortcoming: The functionality is very limited, does not support many mainstream platforms, and cannot perform complex customization.

4. AddToAny Share Buttons

• Function: It provides sharing buttons for multiple social platforms and supports multiple customization options, with relatively comprehensive functions.
• Custom button position: You can flexibly set the display position of the button, supporting top, bottom and floating buttons.
• Social platform support: Supports more than 100 social platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, WhatsApp, etc.
• Free version features: The free version provides most social sharing features, and the paid version provides additional analysis and customization features.
• advantage: The platform support is very comprehensive and the functional options are rich.
• shortcoming: The plugin is heavy and may affect the loading speed of your website.

5. ShareThis

• Function: Provides social sharing buttons and traffic analysis functions, and supports custom button styles.
• Custom button position: Provides simple customization options, but not as good as Sassy Social Share So flexible.
• Social platform support: Supports mainstream platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Pinterest, and some regional social platforms.
• Free version features: The free version provides basic social sharing buttons, while the paid version provides more customization features and analytical tools.
• advantage: It supports many social platforms and has comprehensive functions, including traffic analysis.
• shortcoming: May affect website performance, and the interface design is not as good as Sassy Social Share Refreshing.

6. Social Warfare

• Function: Provides high-quality social sharing buttons, supporting advanced features such as sharing count display and button style customization.
• Custom button position: Supports rich customization options, button position, style, animation, etc. can be fine-tuned.
• Social platform support: Supports major platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and also supports some other social networks.
• Free version features: The free version provides basic social sharing buttons, while the paid version provides more customization options, share counts, and other features.
• advantage: The button style is beautiful, supports sharing counts, and provides many customization options.
• shortcoming: The free version has limited functions, and the paid version is more expensive, which may not be very friendly to small webmasters.

Why did you choose Sassy Social Share? 

In comprehensive comparison, although ShareThis and AddToAny The plugin is more comprehensive in functionality and supports many platforms, even some niche social platforms, but their There are many functional modules and the scripts are heavy, which may affect the loading speed of the website. For users like me who focus on performance optimization, it is not ideal.

Simple Social Icons Although the plug-in is lightweight and has a simple interface, its functions are relatively basic.Automatic embedding into article content is not supported, it is only suitable for display in the sidebar, and the sharing platforms are very limited, which makes it difficult to meet richer sharing scenarios.

Jetpack Although the plug-in has built-in social media sharing function, it is a "family bucket" plug-in.Contains a lot of features I don't need, which makes it seem too large. If you install Jetpack just to add a share button, it is not cost-effective.

Social Warfare It is a plug-in that focuses on the beauty and data statistics of sharing buttons. It supports advanced features such as flexible location configuration and click counting, but its free version has many restrictions.Many core features are only available in the paid version, the threshold is slightly higher.

After considering these factors, I finally chose Sassy Social Share Plugin. It not only provides rich social platform support, but also has single-focused functions, simple configuration, and controllable performance impact. Lightweight without sacrificing basic functionality For users of , Sassy Social Share is a very balanced and practical choice.

3 Extended knowledge 1: GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

You may often encounter a phenomenon: when you visit some foreign websites for the first time, as soon as you open the page, a cookie consent pop-up window will pop up to remind users and obtain their consent. Many friends do not understand why these websites have such seemingly unnecessary behavior. In fact, this is because with the continuous tightening of global privacy protection regulations, especially the EU's "GDPR" (General Data Protection Regulation) and similar privacy laws, websites must first obtain users' explicit consent when collecting and using user data.

These laws require websites to inform users how they use cookies (a small text file stored in the user's browser, which websites often use to track visitor behavior, provide personalized content or advertising, and even conduct analytics) and to obtain user consent before performing any actions that may affect user privacy.No user consent, these operations may violate privacy laws, especially in the European Union.

Not only GDPR, many other countries and regions have also introduced similar privacy protection regulations, such as California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), Brazil's General Data Protection Law (LGPD), and privacy regulations in some Asia-Pacific countries. In order to comply with these regulations, websites must provide an explicit "cookie consent" mechanism when users enter the website.

So, why does this prompt have to pop up?

The purpose of this pop-up window is to clearly inform users that the website uses cookies and may collect certain information. Users must actively agree to this after understanding this information. Usually, there are two buttons in the pop-up window: "Accept" and "Reject" or "Set". If the user chooses to accept, the website will store the relevant cookies and allow the website to be personalized based on this data; if rejected, the website may limit certain functions or only store very basic cookies (for example, language settings, session ID, etc.).

Although this may seem a bit troublesome, these measures are actually intended to protect user privacy and enhance data transparency. With the frequent occurrence of Internet data leaks, more and more users are beginning to pay attention to their personal information and privacy protection, so such measures are very important for improving the trust and compliance of websites.For website owners, complying with these regulations is not only a legal requirement, but also brings better user experience and trust, and helps avoid fines and legal risks due to compliance issues.(If it is a website only for domestic users, you don’t have to worry about these).

In general,The cookie consent pop-up window is not redundant, but is to ensure that the website complies with legal regulations when collecting user data, protect user privacy, and avoid unnecessary legal risks.While some users may find it disruptive to the browsing experience, this transparency will benefit everyone in the long run.

So why do I mention GDPR and CCPA in an article about how to add social media sharing buttons? This is because the seemingly simple sharing functionThis is often accompanied by the processing of user cookies, such as loading tracking scripts from social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which may collect browsing behavior and even personal information without the user's knowledge.

This behavior is considered illegal in EU countries or California, USA.Personal data processing that requires explicit consent from the userIf the website loads these scripts in advance without user authorization, there may be compliance risks. And features such as Google Analytics 4, advertising scripts or Facebook Like Box,Essentially, this is a typical example of "collecting data without authorization"., so they are strictly regulated by laws and regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.

In terms of website compliance,Sassy Social Share The plugin provides good support for GDPR: it will not automatically load third-party social media tracking scripts without the user's consent, and will only trigger interaction with the social platform when the user clicks the share button. This approach effectively avoids data collection without user authorization and complies with the requirements of the EU GDPR.

In addition, the Sassy Social Share plugin will also remind webmasters to update their privacy policies (add the following sentence to the privacy policy: "This website uses the Sassy Social Share plugin to provide social media sharing functions. This plugin allows users to share content to social platforms, which may trigger social platforms to collect certain user data. For specific data processing details, please refer to the privacy policy of the corresponding social platform."), and clearly state that social sharing buttons may involve the transfer of user data to third-party platforms. For webmasters who value compliance,This "passive compliance" approach provides greater flexibility while ensuring transparency in data processing on the website..

Note: For personal blogs, these are not important, but if you have one, don’t you feel more advanced? For some foreign trade sites, GDPR and CCPA regulations must be followed.

4 Extended knowledge 2:Cookie Consent plugin

Next, if you want to further enforce privacy compliance on your site, especially when it comes to cookies and tracking scripts,Cookie Consent pluginIt is undoubtedly a powerful tool: it not only helps you manage the use of all cookies on your website, but also pops up a consent window when users visit the website to ensure that users explicitly agree before data is collected.

There are many such plug-ins. Common plug-ins on the market can be roughly divided into two categories: one is a more complex plug-in that integrates more comprehensive compliance management functions; the other is a plug-in with relatively simple functions that directly provides cookie prompts.

For some webmasters who want a higher level of compliance, or those who target visitors in regions such as the EU (GDPR) or California (CCPA), more powerful plugins may be needed, such as Complianz or Cookiebot. These plugins not only provide cookie prompts, but also help webmasters automatically scan all cookies on the website and generate corresponding compliance reports to ensure that each cookie complies with the privacy policy and can record the user's consent history. These plugins also have some advanced features, such as automatically displaying different privacy statements based on the visitor's geographic location, supporting multi-language translation, and providing detailed consent logs, which are especially suitable for sites that need to handle large traffic or involve more legal compliance requirements.

For personal blogs with less traffic, there is no need to keep the compliance evidence of the website's visitor cookie operations like those commercial websites, so you only need to use some simpler and lighter plug-ins to implement basic Cookie Consent NoticeThat is, for example Simple Cookie Notice or Cookie Notice for GDPR & CCPAThese plugins can be easily integrated into the website, provide clear cookie prompts, and support basic privacy statement settings, ensuring that your blog complies with the basic requirements of privacy laws and regulations when users visit it.

Based on the above considerations, I finally chose "Simple Cookie NoticeThis plugin, because it not only Easy to set up:

and Simple and intuitive interface:

Compared to some overly complex plug-ins, such as Complianz or Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPAThis plugin does not require additional registration accounts, monthly visit limits or reporting functions. It can run smoothly after installation without affecting the loading speed and user experience of the website. Website Performance and Ease of operation For bloggers with higher requirements,Simple Cookie Notice The features provided are sufficient and lightweight, which fully meets my needs.

5. Installation and configuration of Sassy Social Share plugin

5.1 Plugin Installation

Simply search for "Sassy Social Share" in the plugin market in the WordPress backend, then install and enable it:

5.2 Theme Selection

This section is to set the style of the share button icon (divided into standard interface and floating interface). The settings of the standard interface icon and the floating interface icon are separate in the Theme Selection section. The following are the settings for the standard interface icon:

5.3 Standard Interface

This part is to set the placement of the standard interface sharing bar on the page, the number of sharing media social icons, the placement order, etc.

The standard sharing bar is located at the top (can be located on the left, center, or right) or bottom (can be located on the left, center, or right) of the actual displayed content. For example, for a typical blog post, it is located at the top:

The standard sharing bar at the bottom is the method I currently use, because I think this method does not affect the overall style of the website and the browsing experience of visitors. As for why it is placed at the bottom, it is because it is convenient for visitors toRead before sharing：After reading the article, users will naturally be more motivated to click and share it; if it is placed at the top, others will share it without even reading it? That is unreasonable.

The specific settings are as follows:

5.4 Floating Interface

As for the floating sharing bar, there are two positions to choose from, on the left or right side of the entire page:

I feel that they are all ugly, and they also affect the overall display style of the entire blog, so I gave up. Friends who need them can consider it by themselves. What is not suitable for me may not be unsuitable for you. In fact, there are still many options:

Both the standard interface sharing bar and the floating interface sharing bar provide the option of sharing counters, but I did not enable this feature: on the one hand, such counters usually rely on real-time data updates from third-party platforms and are dynamic content. It is not ruled out that some implementations will render the number of shares directly into the HTML page, thereby affecting the hit rate of page caching mechanisms such as APO (Automatic Platform Optimization); on the other hand, I personally don’t care too much about how many times each article has been shared, so I simply turned off this feature to keep the page as concise and cacheable as possible.

5.5 Miscellaneous

In the Sassy Social Share plugin Miscellaneous Settings Section, you can find many additional options for optimizing appearance, functional performance and loading methods, such as whether to display buttons on mobile devices, whether to enable thumbnail capture, whether to load style scripts asynchronously, whether to display the share count of the share button, etc. Although these settings do not affect the core sharing function of the plug-in, they are very useful for users who want to fine-tune the display effect and improve loading efficiency.

However, it should be noted that some functions in this section will be marked as requiring "unlocking" before use. The so-called "unlocking" does not require paying for the Pro version, but rather obtaining full functionality for free by supporting the plugin author (such as rating the plugin, sending a recommendation email, etc.). After completing these operations, most restricted functions will be open for use, which is a relatively friendly authorization method. For personal bloggers like me, the default functions are actually sufficient, but if you have requirements for detailed control, you can also consider unlocking to enable more customization capabilities.

Since there are too many options, I won’t take screenshots one by one, I’ll just take a screenshot to show you the meaning:

6 Conclusion

I originally thought that adding a social media sharing button to a blog would be as simple as installing a plug-in, clicking a few settings, and calling it a day. But when I actually started using it, I found that things were much more complicated than I had imagined. There were so many types of plug-ins, and the functions were so varied that some plug-ins had so many functions that they looked like a full banquet, with the sharing button becoming a side dish. Some were as light as a leaf but had no functions at all. Some were just like a "super portal" to a social platform, requiring you to open a developer account, bind an API, and fill in a key, which left me with a lot of questions.

It was not easy to choose Sassy Social ShareI thought I could finally save some trouble, but when I looked at the settings interface, there were quite a few options, and some functions had to be "unlocked". Although the unlocking method was not complicated, at first glance it really looked a bit like the "please pay for the next step" routine in mobile games (of course it is free, it just requires you to install the matching plug-in).

What was even more surprising was that I had only intended to allow visitors to share on Facebook or Twitter, but during my research, I ended up diving into GDPR Compliance I started to think: What if there are visitors in the EU? Do I need to pop up a cookie reminder? Should I record the visitor's consent? Should I set up a compliance account? Although the traffic of my blog is pitifully small, from the perspective of "looking very formal", it seems that adding a cookie reminder is not a bad idea~.

But on the other hand, it is precisely because personal blogs rarely involve these things (generally, independent websites with foreign trade or business company websites have these needs), I should record the pitfalls I have stepped on. This article is not written for those website owners with thousands of daily IP addresses, but for ordinary website owners like me who build their own blogs, carefully consider the configuration of each plug-in, and hope that the website is not bloated but also has enough functions.

So this time, I spent a lot of time to sort out a solution suitable for those who "focus on practicality but don't want to mess around too much", from plugin comparison, function selection, compliance consideration to lightweight deployment. I hope that friends with the same needs can save some trial and error time after reading this, and understand why I finally chose the combination of Sassy Social Share + Simple Cookie Notice - not for showmanship, not for extreme performance optimization, but just for:Easy to use, safe and moderate, that is enough.