[Giveaway] Here’s Why Social Share Counters Suck, Plus What I Can Give You That Doesn’t (Hint, It’s Simple, Effective, and Free)

186 Comments

1. so is this available for non wordpress sites?

   • No, just WordPress. But I can send you the PHP script for counting shares by itself, so you can integrate it with anything.

2. I love the plugin, but my numbers would look awesome if Pins were incorporated!

   • Thanks! Stay subscribed, Diane, the Pins are coming in the next update. :)

3. Looks awesome, definitely one of the social sharing plugin to look forward

   • Thanks!

4. Awesome work. Great plugin with a lot of potential.

   • Thanks! And don’t forget to download the latest update. :)

5. Hi! Its possible to change the graph between the total number of shares and the buttons?

   • Not in the settings, but you can easily just switch the graphic file to something else. It’s called a2.png

6. Does anyone know how I would prevent this from loading on certain custom post types?

   • Yes, you just have to take the IDs of those posts and type them in the “excluded IDs” field.

   • Hmm ok. Would be great to have global options to exclude entire custom post types. If you have a post type that gets updated a lot then it really rules out this plugin because it’s not practical to exclude hundreds of post IDs.

   • Thanks for the suggestion, will consider it for future versions.

7. We are going to be using this great plugin on our new site Kajoler.com

   • Looking good!

8. I get this Error: Warning: curl_setopt() [function.curl-setopt]: CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION cannot be activated when safe_mode is enabled or an open_basedir is set

   • Hi Sina, thanks for downloading the plugin!

     The cause of this error is the safe_mode that’s activated on your hosting account. It’s deprecated since PHP 5.3 and is almost impossible to get around for previous PHP versions. To be able to use the plugin, you would have to set safe_mode = Off in your php.ini file. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything I can do from my end.

9. Hi, can you tell me, why the Buttons are not side by side, but like in the screenshot?

   • Can you give me the address of your site, so I can have a look?

10. Hi, Patt Flynn also has a vertical social share bar at SPI. Is that possible with this plugin?

    • No, just the horizontal bar. Quick and simple.

      When it comes to vertical bars, I usually recommend Smart Layers by AddThis.

    • Karol, another question. Does your plugin include Buffer? If not, any plan in the future?

    • Doesn’t include Buffer right now, but that’s a good suggestion! Thanks!

11. Thanks for creating this plugin :).

    • No problem :)

12. Have just read about this on

    http://premium.wpmudev.org/

    This does look very good, and I’m pleased you’ll be adding in Pinterest. Will you also be adding email shares too? I’m surprised that email (and printing for that matter) are still such popular sharing choices.

    Thanks

    • Pinterest is actually already added. Feel free to download the newest version. :)

      When it comes to email, it’s on my list, but I’m not quite sure it would be that useful. Would it?

    • Not as important to most people as FB, G+ and the like, but thought it should be on the wishlist, if there’s sufficient demand.

      Would probably trade that though for adding Buffer – which I’ve seen someone else suggest.

      Thanks once again for a remarkable free tool.

    • Thanks! And yeah, I guess Buffer will have to be included.

13. Hello. Is it an option to add soundcloud or foursquare support for next updates?

    Also, nice comment box here!! Is this a plugin? If so, which one is it? :)

    Thanks!!

    • Sorry, no plans for soundcloud and foursquare. And the comment box is built with the default Disqus plugin.

14. Question… if you were to change would the prior social media shares transfer over?

    • Yep. The plugin doesn’t remember the shares. It gets them dynamically from the individual services.

      Anyway, you can always just test it out for a minute and if it doesn’t work like you need it to, then just switch back to your previous plugin. :)

15. Karol K. I implemented this in my friends blog (http://worldanimeclub.com) :) I did some back-end tweaking to suit my needs. It works good, does the counter gets updated in real time, or is there a lag between share and counter incremental?

    • It mainly depends on the current web conditions, but either way there’s almost no lag (maybe 30 seconds to a minute).

    • You should upload this in the WordPress repository soon. Currently there are no plugins/scripts which provides total counter in the repository (there is a plugin called mashare, but it has lots of issues as they are using an external server to store the counts) :)

    • Thanks! That’s my plan, I’m improving the plugin, and once I have version 1.0 I’ll release it in the repository. :)

    • OHH nice, Hey, can I suggest some improvements?

    • Sure! :)

    • Try loading the sharing screen in a pop-up, I implemented it using a small javascript called “popup” and using that class in all the href attributes.

    • I’m eager to try it out, could you send me your version? Feel free to contact me via askaquestion@nio.tips

16. Why I dont get any download link for the plugin, instead just an email for subscribing?

    • Hey, that’s how it works. When you subscribe you’ll get the link automatically.

17. Hi – This really is a great plugin, thank you! Quick question, is there any easy way that I can include/integrate the use of a URL shortener? My site has some quite long blog post slugs (friendly) and they seem to hog the share text.

    Anything you can suggest to help with that?

    Thanks again!

    • I have this feature on my list for the next updates. However, right now long links are not a problem with twitter or Facebook, they shorten them automatically.

18. Any chance of including StumbleUpon in the near future?

    • Hi, it’s a possibility for future versions, but for the nearest update I already have other things in line.

19. Hi Karol,

    The plugin looks great, and I’ve got it installed. Do you know where I can find more info on “The story source parameter for LinkedIn”? I googled that, and I’m still not sure what to put in that box. It was prefilled with my website’s name, but when I tried the LinkedIn button for one of my posts, I got an error at LinkedIn. Any thoughts? Thanks!

    • Sorry about the late reply. Usually, using your website name for this parameter is what you need to do. Are you still experiencing this problem? Can you give me a link to your site?

20. Huh…follow-up: I went to go get the error message so I could be more specific and helpful, and this time, I didn’t get an error. Maybe it was just a momentary glitch on LinkedIn’s end that other time. Never mind!

    BTW, a feature request I thought of: it would be great if we could use a color-picker (or enter a hex code) to choose the color of that arrow graphic you have there. A selection of different graphics and the ability to add our own or not use one at all would be cool too, but on the more simple end, just a way to set the color of that existing arrow manually would be sweet. :-)

    Thanks again for the great plugin. I LOVE the option to have it not show until a relative critical mass has been reached.

    • Thanks for your suggestion, I will think about that. In the meantime, if you want to change the arrow somehow you can just edit the graphics file – a.png :)

21. How do I change the size of the cumulative number of shares displayed. Mine is really large and overlaps my posts text.

    • Hi. Currently there’s no interface to do this through the WP admin. But you can still change this by editing the CSS file for the plugin by hand. In case you want to do this yourself, it’s line no.40. You can change the value from “font-size: 26px; ” to something smaller.

22. Hi great plugin, consider adding alt tags to the images and also if it the images can be a little smaller in size then i think it will be better optimised for viewing.

23. Also, mashable use html5 and have it inside the head tags wrapped around aside tags. I think that would be symantically correct. Can this be achieved?

    • Technically speaking, the tags I’m using aren’t really NOT HTML5. It’s a really simple set of tags so they pretty much work everywhere. I might be experimenting with this in the next version though. Thanks for the suggestion.

24. Hey @carlosinho:disqus There’s a problem with subscription – I suppose. I tried with 3 email addresses (different providers), more than 2 weeks waiting and nothing happened – I have no mail from You. Could You Check it?

    • Just sent you an email @me.com – the address I found in my MailChimp.

    • Thanks for very fast replay.

    • Me too !

    • Sorry, I don’t see you on the newsletter list. Have you confirmed your subscription?

25. How long does it take it to receive the download? I filled out the form and got mail chimp’s email to confirm subscription, but still no email with the link to download?

    • Just sent you an email. Sorry about the inconvenience.

26. I’m not getting the email either.

    • Just sent you the link manually. Sorry about the inconvenience.

27. Please send this code to me. Thank you, sir

28. hello, got the plug in and installed it.. but its not looking right… http://savantportraits.com/villa-duchesne-senior-girls-maypole-dance-st-louis-frontenac-portrait-photographer/ Help!

    • I have a solution for you. Please email me at askaquestion@nio.tips

29. How long does it take it to receive the download ?

    • Hi Gabriel, I don’t see your email on the newsletter list. Did you confirm your subscription?

30. Hi, great plugin! I’ve tried to set a minimal number of shares but nothing appears on the blog posts? Also, in the future, when if I successfully achieve many shares, can I remove the minimal number to leave my posts with the true share count?

    • Hi, thanks for downloading it. The plugin doesn’t display any numbers until they reach the minimal number of shares you’ve set. Also, if you remove this setting later on, the plugin will adjust and start displaying share numbers no matter what they are.

31. Hi Keyrun,

    There’s a shortcode option right now, so you can place the buttons anywhere within posts or pages. I’m am thinking about introducing a fully manual option for the next version of the plugin, though, so thanks a bunch for suggesting it.

32. This is intentional on my part. That way it can’t be blocked by anti pop-up plugins.

33. Thanks a lot for the plugin. Just look marvelous and hopefully works even better :)

34. Hi Karol, this is excellent. Thank you very much. One problem though, if only the buttons could open in a pop-up window rather than a new tab, that would be excellent. Or maybe have the options to choose either of them.

35. Awesome work! well done!

36. Love this plugin, the only suggestion I have for a new version is that I wish I could ‘disable’ it on custom post types. i.e. themes that use “courses” “lessons” “products”, etc. as post types. I installed it on my site, and I don’t want the share buttons on the courses/individual plans because those are private and paid for – I can’t see a way to disable it on certain posts, so either a way to disable it on certain posts or like this plugin ‘WP Author Box Lite’ that allows you to select in settings which post types you don’t wish to display the plugin on. (I’ll get around it in the meantime by using the plugin ‘Plugin Organizer’)

    • Thanks for the suggestion! This is already on my list of features for the next version. :)

37. I received a zip file, but no link or information on the plug in. am I doing something wrong?

    • Hi and thanks for downloading. You need to log in to your wp-admin. Next go to yoursite.com/wp-admin/plugin-install.php?tab=upload and upload the zip there. Then just activate the plugin from the plugins list.

38. Can i change te “share” in _blank for pup up?

    • No, no pop-ups available. I’ve chosen to go with a new window/tab because pop-ups can be easily blocked with a browser plugin.

    • Social media sharing popup is not blocked by browsers generally. Opening Share new window reduces usability because of lots of white space. It would be great if you can provide this option as setting. User who wants to use popup or normal new page.

    • I have this on the list for future updates. Thanks!

    • Thanks for the update. Why not put this excellent plugin in WordPress Plugin Directory?

    • I will be doing this with version 1.0 :)

    • It will be easy to get future update if you put it in WordPress Directory. Right now user will have to update manually, which might cause some issues for user.

    • I do agree. Like I said, the plugin is going to the directory with version 1.0. :)

39. Karol, can I translate “share” into Polish? How to do that?

    • This can only be done manually.

      Line 91 of the PHP file is where you can find the word “SHARES”. It’s the one you can change to its Polish version.

40. Hi Karol, having a problem, the plugin was doing a great job connecting in with Google+ and showing my number of shares and likes in Google+. This morning it changed from 250 to 50 shares. Not sure what is happening. Could you take a look at http://www.drchristopherhall.com/

    • Hi Chris,

      It seems that Google+ got rid of (or archived) the previous shares you’ve had.

      If you go to http://99webtools.com/social-popularity-checker.php and input your site’s URL, you’ll see that there’s around 50.

      So the plugin is working normally.

41. Hi

    Please , send plugin for my email > ——-@sapo.pt ! Thanks

    • Hi, you need to subscribe to the email list to get the plugin

42. The number displayed by the plugin refers to the URL of your website, while the number displayed on your G+ widget refers to your G+ profile (I think).

    • Chris, you didn’t recently change your site from drchristopherlall.com to www.drchristopherlall.com did you (i.e. add the “www” in WordPress? I ask because I did the opposite today (moved from a www to a non-www) and it changed the counts of my shares on many posts. Switching back brought back the original number.

      Karol, have you seen that before? Any thoughts on how to consolidate the two domains for one view count?

    • Never mind, Karol answered my question above.

43. Hi, I want to use this social share wth PYROCMS is it possible?

    • Nope, only WordPress.

44. I’m using this plugin and it works great. I am *very* happy with it. Thanks for developing it, Karol.

    Quick question: is there a way to consolidate the total share number for www.exampledomain.com and exampledomain.com so that both are included into one rollup number? For example, this page (http://www.the-vital-edge.com/knowledge-and-artificial-intelligence/) has 780 shares, but when you take off the “www”, there’s an additional 180 or so.

    • That’s an interesting point. Right now there’s no such way, but I will put it on the list of new features to include.

    • Thanks Karol. Again, it’s a great tool. Nice job.

45. I sent two emails. Did not get a confirmation email on either. Floyd Taylor.

    • I don’t see your email on the list, Floyd.

46. Excited to have downloaded this for our site. After install on mobile it looks great but when you click to share on twitter it doesn’t use the installed app it opens a new tab and has me log in. Then when you do log in it forgets to share and just goes to my feed. The same is happening for Facebook where it isn’t using the app and just another page with log in. Thoughts?

    • Currently, the sharing all happens inside the browser window, no other apps are launched. So in order to share, the user needs to be logged in first.

    • Karol. Thanks for the heads up on this. It would be great for round two to add this option. Second question if that the historical shares are not showing up. Our site has been up for a couple years and none of the old posts seem to be registering with your plugin. Thoughts?

    • The plugin shows the number of shares of a particular page that it’s displayed on, not a general number for the whole website.

      Please give me an example URL from your site and I’ll check if the numbers are right.

47. Excellent plugin. Just one feedback, it would be great if you add support to open Sharing screen in popup windows instead of new page

48. Hi Leslie

    I visited your site from a couple of browsers and don’t see the problem you’re describing. Are you sure you don’t have any browser plugins installed on your computer or other software that could cause this?

    • Hi Karol,

      I actually figured it out, but couldn’t figure out how to delete/edit my comment – I had added another Pinterest plugin to my website so that I could display a “Follow Me” Pinterest button, and when I added that, it altered the “Pin It” image in your plugin. The WordPress plugin was “Pinterest Widget Plus.” Is there anything that I could do so that I can use other Pinterest widgets/plugins without having your Social Share Plugin altered? If you need me to put the plugin back on my site so that you can see, let me know.

      Thanks for the help!

    • You actually don’t need a plugin at all to have a follow button for Pinterest.

      All you need to do is go to this page https://business.pinterest.com/en/widget-builder#do_follow_me_button

      Fill out the form with your data, and then grab the code and place it inside a text widget and put it in your sidebar. :)

    • Hi Karol,

      Sorry, if you go to my website now, you should be able to see what I’m talking about – I had taken the Pinterest “Follow Me” code off my page because I love your widget so much that I don’t like how it changes your plugin! I’ll leave it as-is, though, so that you can see what it looks like. You’ll see there’s a “Follow I Heart Pets” Pinterest button right under the ad on the right hand side of my page now – that’s what’s affecting your plugin. I’ve added the “follow” button as both a WordPress widget and as just code placed inside a text widget, but it still changes your plugin.

      -Leslie

    • Okay, I see it. It seems that the official Pinterest code looks through any instance of the Pinterest link being called and then changes it to the default button. I will see what I can do about this in the next update of the plugin. I will keep you posted (through my newsletter).

    • Thanks, Karol! I really appreciate it.

49. I tried visiting your site from multiple browsers, but I can’t see the problem showing up on my end. Did you experience it when viewing your site from a different computer?

50. hi any function to just output the total number of shares?

    • There’s no front-end option for this. But if you want to play around with PHP, you can get the number of shares by calling:

      intval(sss_kk_calculate());

    • Thats good, how do i get the plugin? I just subscribed to your mailing list but receive no plugin url yet? :(

    • Hi, I don’t see your email on the newsletter list. Are you sure you confirmed your subscription?

    • brilliant, any plans to cache the numbers into db for faster speed?

51. Hi Karol this is nice plugin but on my site it shows more number of share for some post while for some post it show correct result or for some post it shows less shares

    • Please check the numbers with this page: http://99webtools.com/social-popularity-checker.php are they the same for the posts you’re talking about?

52. What an awesome Plugin …. Absolutely awesome……

53. Great plugin! How do I put the counter manually (in the frontpage, for example)? Thanks.

    • Thanks! If you have a custom homepage then you can use the shortcode [sss_counters_here /] within the page’s content.

    • Thanks for replying. The problem is I want the share counter after each article in the homepage (and archives, etc), so some kind of php hook would be great. Is that possible?

    • Right now, there’s no feature like that. Will put it on the list of possible features for the next versions. Thanks for the suggestion.

    • Don’t sweat it, Karol. Thanks again for the plugin.

54. I’ve installed this plugin and it’s working on one post, but not on another. I’m allowing it to work automatically above + below posts, not using the shortcode… Is there anything I can do to fix this? It’s not working here: http://www.weareninetynine.co/slider/interview-mike-le-kinetic-motorcycles/ , but is working here: http://www.weareninetynine.co/builds-parts/michael-hattons-harley-davidson-forty-eight/

    I know it should have results on the broken page too, as the link has 300+ engagements on facebook. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

    • Hi Ryan,

      I’ve checked your links through http://sharetally.co and http://99webtools.com/social-popularity-checker.php

      Both indicate that the first link has 0 shares.

    • Precisely, however as you can see here: https://www.facebook.com/ninetynineco/photos/a.1432068320395485.1073741827.1432049137064070/1515543262047990/?type=1 That isnt the case… Is there something I’m doing wrong when implementing it? I’ve just done another post on the street 500 on the same blog and the counter isnt counting anything again… Strange because my first post with it worked straight away.

    • Here’s what I think is happening. The link you’ve shared here is a link to a photo that’s published on Facebook. And yes, that photo has a lot of interaction. However, uploading a photo to FB and putting the link in the description is something entirely different than sharing this link directly to FB. FB will never attribute the interaction on an individual post to some external URL. In order to make it work you have to share the link directly.

    • That makes total sense. Thanks so much for looking into it and getting back to me. Much appreciated. Ryan.

55. Hi – excellent idea for a plugin – I’m about to use it now. I am also planning on putting ‘share it’ buttons on top of the display images that will go on the homepage. Is it possible to link this to your plugin on the actual article page so that the ‘shares’ add up correctly?

    • I’m not sure if I understand this correctly. In general, the plugin only works on individual pages or posts. So if you want to display share numbers, it needs to be done there. However, you can use different buttons on the homepage. Whenever something gets shared, my plugin will pick up the number on the individual page.

    • Hi – for example, this website: www.hellou.co.uk is able to display the number of shares an article has on the homepage as well as within the article itself. Is this possible at all? Do you know how they have done this?

    • Hi – No, like I mentioned, the plugin displays the numbers on individual pages or posts.

56. Hi, i’ve installed the plugin and having a few issues with its display. Any ideas on how to fix? http://www.thebookofbloke.com/?p=637 is an example. Thanks.

    • I don’t see any display problem there. Screenshot? :)

    • i have problem of showing counter even tho i set initial number of share to show 100

    • You’re using another social media plugin on that page – the one looking like Mashable. There can be problems if you’re using them at the same time.

57. Hi, Just sent you an email with the updated file.

    • Sent it a minute ago.

58. I need this plugin, kindly mail in [—–]@gmail.com

    • Just sent it via email.

    • I have installed the plugin at https://unlock4modem.in/
      but, it does not show any counter, if i change it default to 6 also.

    • Please check your numbers through http://99webtools.com/social-popularity-checker.php

      The couple of posts I’ve checked haven’t reached 6 shares yet.

    • Sir, i have changed the setting in the plugin area, and put default 6 shares. It it does shows the default 6 too, it just shows blank.

    • The 6 shares number will only appear if the given post actually has at least 6 shares. If there’s less than that, nothing appears (that’s the main idea of the plugin).

    • Thanks, i got it.

59. I would like to get this plugin. My email address is ——-(@)gmail.com

    Thanks in advance…..

    • You should receive an automated email with the plugin in it. Please let me know in case it doesn’t get to you.

    • Already received……..

      Thanks…………….

60. i am interest this plugin can you send to me —-@gmail.com

    • You need to subscribe to the email list in order to get the plugin.

61. Subscribed to the email list. Awesome work Karol!

    • Thanks!

62. I have been looking for the best way to integrate social buttons into my new website. This article helped me to understand better what and how I should do. Thank you.

63. I have subscribed to the list but didn’t receive it. Please send it to my email at: ______

    Thank you.

    • Just sent it a minute ago. :)

64. Kindly send me the plugin , i just registered for the mailinlist. Thanks in advance

    • Hi, I don’t see your email on the list. Did you confirm your subscription?

65. Thank you for the plugin. It’s great. I just installed it on my blog and yes I linked back to you :) http://mimmofischetti.com/large-social-share-buttons-for-wordpress-plugin/

    • Thanks for that, I really appreciate it! :)

    • Any time :)

66. Hi Karol,

    I love your plugin.

    But i found a mistake.

    If the post’s title has a ‘#’ or some other symbols, the tweet and the Pinterest´s description are truncated at the symbol.

    You just have to change lines 70 and 83, where it says

    str_replace(array(‘& ‘, ‘ ‘), array(”, ‘%20’), the_title_attribute(‘echo=0’))

    Should be

    htmlspecialchars(urlencode(html_entity_decode(get_the_title(), ENT_COMPAT, ‘UTF-8’)), ENT_COMPAT, ‘UTF-8’)

    • Thanks a lot for this feedback. I am testing this version with other possible post titles right now. It will probably make its way into the next version!

67. Any chance of adding Stumbleupon as an option and count contributor? That’s a huge social source for some folks.

    • I did think about that, but Stumble Upon tends to skew the results quite a bit. For instance, there isn’t something like “mildly popular” on SU. You either have 0 shares or something like 2000+

      Anyway, still a possibility.

68. I subscribed but I didn’t get the plugin

    • I don’t see your email on the list.

69. When is the plugin going to be put into the WP.org plugin repository? I’d like to make sure I have the latest version and update it quickly when needed. Having to check here is daunting and I haven’t gotten any email updates. If it’s going to be in repository soon, I will be more inclined not to switch to something else because I really like this plugin. Thanks :D

    • Thanks for commenting! I’m working on this right now :)

      In the meantime, whenever there’s an update I share it through the email newsletter. Sorry for the inconvenience.

70. I posted a comment yesterday. Did you delete it or was it never sent?

    • Hi, this is your only comment I got.

    • Oh sorry I don’t know why it didn’t send through. I was posting about how awesome your plugin was but for people using woocommerce like myself, the share buttons automatically posts into every bottom product description. So if I had, let’s say 100, products it would be a nightmare trying to get every share button off each product page because the only option to do this is by ids. It would be nice to have some type of option to turn it off in woocommerce product pages and only on on blog posts, and/or have the option to have the share buttons under the top product description. (maybe you know woocommerce product pages typically come with a top and bottom product description) That’s alll!!!! Yipee! ^^

    • Thanks. That’s a good suggestion. I will put the option to filter according to post type in the next version.

71. I received the plugin…..Thank U very much….

72. just curious on your social plugin since you are actually using the one for SumoMe on the side of your site

    • I am. I don’t see anything wrong here. :)

73. Been using this for a while, and loving it. Came back to find out about a shortcode for custom LPs, so glad to see it’s here!

    Cheers mate.

    • I’m glad you like it!

74. I’m not sure what you mean exactly. Basically, the plugin recognizes the current post’s ID and goes with that. Please clarify what you mean.

Comments are closed.