The Best Craft CMS Social Media Plugins To Use

Craft CMS Social Media Plugins

Overview of Craft CMS

Craft CMS is an open source, flexible content management system that gives developers and content creators the tools to build custom sites and applications. The platform shines in its versatility - with the ability to create custom fields and field types, Craft allows you to capture and structure content in whatever way fits your needs. This includes field types like matrices, tables and asset uploads for rich media.

Craft also provides robust user management, letting you control access and permissions for different user groups. Teams can manage editors and authors seamlessly. For global sites, Craft offers fantastic localization support out of the box, enabling you to create translated versions of content for multiple languages and regions.

Authors will also appreciate front-end editing capabilities, which allow content creation and updates directly on the front-end site for an intuitive editing experience. Developers have full control over templates and architecture with Twig templating. With strengths in customizability, user management, localization and flexible templating, Craft CMS is a stellar choice for complex, content-heavy websites.

Importance of Social Media Integration

In today's web, having social media integration is crucial for amplifying your reach and engaging your audience. Social sharing should be frictionless for site visitors. By adding social media buttons and seamless sharing capabilities, sites benefit tremendously.

Readers can easily share posts with their own followers, expanding the content's reach. This also leads to increased engagement, as social shares drive more likes, comments and discussions around your content. When users share content they find valuable, it builds trust and credibility which leads to more conversions. On top of this, social signals like shares, links and mentions can positively influence search engine rankings.

With intuitive social integration, sites leverage the power of social media to boost their readership, engagement, conversions and SEO. For modern websites, social media integration is a must for tapping into these benefits.

Popular Plugin Options

The The Craft CMS plugin store offers many options for integrating social media capabilities. Some top plugins include Social Lite, a free lightweight plugin adding social sharing buttons and open graph meta tags to enhance social sharing.

For more advanced capabilities, Social is a paid plugin that offers additional features like social feeds and follow buttons. Shareholic is a robust sharing plugin with analytics, auto-posting and saved shared content capabilities. AddThis taps into a massive social network supporting hundreds of platforms through free and paid plans.

Sprout Social provides deep integration including social listening, engagement and analytics tools. With the multitude of choices, Craft sites can choose the right social media plugin to match their needs and budget. The plugins empower Craft to leverage social platforms for reach, engagement and conversions.

ShareThis Plugin for Craft CMS

Ease of Implementation

The ShareThis plugin makes it a breeze to add social sharing capabilities to Craft CMS websites. The setup process is straightforward - after installation, site admins can get started with the intuitive configuration options in the plugin dashboard. ShareThis offers seamless integration with Craft's flexible templating and requires no changes to existing site markup.

Admins can simply define the placement and styling of sharing buttons across their templates. With a few settings adjustments, ShareThis can be activated across a Craft site, enabling social sharing quickly and easily. The lightweight plugin eliminates the need for custom social sharing code, providing an out-of-the-box solution to integrate sharing. For Craft CMS sites looking to implement social capabilities rapidly, ShareThis delivers simple and fast implementation.

Customizable Sharing Buttons

A key benefit of ShareThis is the ability to add highly customizable sharing buttons tailored to your brand. The plugin allows you to select from over 100 social platforms to share content to, including major networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and many more. You can choose which sharing options are displayed in your ShareThis widget.

The buttons can be styled to match your existing site design through options like color, size and shape. This flexibility means the sharing experience can be adapted to create a native look and feel.

ShareThis makes it easy to promote content sharing to top social networks in a way that aligns with your visual brand identity.

Insightful Analytics

In addition to social sharing functions, ShareThis provides valuable analytics and insights into your social media reach and engagement. Site owners can track metrics like social traffic sources, top sharing platforms, engagement rates and content performance. These insights inform a better understanding of social strategy and which networks to focus on.

ShareThis analytics offer robust reporting on the impact of social sharing efforts, beyond just button clicks. With its combination of seamless social integration and insightful analytics, ShareThis is a powerful plugin for unlocking the benefits of social media sharing and optimizing your approach.

The metrics and reporting provide the data to continually refine strategies for driving engagement. For Craft CMS sites, it’s an invaluable tool for gleaning more from social media.

AddThis Plugin for Craft CMS

Range of Integration Options

The AddThis plugin provides several options for integrating social media and sharing capabilities into Craft CMS websites. Site owners can easily add AddThis Sharing Buttons, allowing visitors to share content to their social networks with one click.

For a more discreet sharing experience, Floating Share Buttons can be displayed as users scroll down the page. AddThis also offers Follow Buttons to help sites build their social followers and promote brand awareness. For even deeper integration, the HTML code for any AddThis tool can be inserted directly into site templates.

With its variety of configuration options, AddThis enables Craft sites to embed social tools that align with their goals, whether that's driving shares or gaining followers.

Advanced Analytics and Tracking

A major benefit of AddThis is its powerful analytics capabilities through the AddThis Pixel tool.

It allows in-depth tracking of content sharing and engagement across social platforms. Site admins gain access to actionable metrics and insights they can use to optimize their social strategy. For example, they can see which social channels drive the most traffic to help focus efforts on the highest ROI networks. The Pixel tracks every social interaction with content - from clicks to shares, retweets and more.

These granular analytics provide the data to understand true content performance across social media. For Craft CMS sites looking to seriously enhance their tracking and analytics capabilities, the AddThis Pixel is an invaluable addition.

Content Recommendations

In addition to marketing tools, AddThis also provides relevant content recommendations for site visitors based on their interests and engagement. Powered by on-site behavioural and profile data, AddThis can recommend related or useful content to users in real-time.

The widget dynamically surfaces relevant content and resources tailored to each visitor, enhancing their experience. For Craft sites, it's a powerful way to increase pages per visit, session duration and loyalty. Recommendations also keep users engaged rather than losing them to external sites. With its combination of sharing tools and smart content recommendations, AddThis provides the complete package for Craft CMS sites to boost their social presence and on-site user experience.

Social Locker Plugin for Craft CMS

Configurable Gating Options

The Social Locker plugin enables Craft CMS sites to easily gate access to content behind social sharing requirements. Admins can configure permissions deciding what actions users must perform to unlock content. For example, they may require visitors to share an article on Twitter or Like it on Facebook before the full content is revealed. Rules can be fine-tuned based on content type, with different settings for blog posts, videos, downloads and more.

The permissions can be tweaked to only show excerpt content until conditions are met. With its conditional logic, Social Locker allows Craft sites to incentivize social engagement in exchange for access. The gating provides a powerful way to increase sharing and visibility.

Driving Social Engagement

By putting social barriers between users and content, Social Locker boosts engagement and sharing across platforms. Visitors are prompted to share, tweet or like pieces they are interested in reading fully. This interactivity results in wider reach as users expose content to their networks in order to view it themselves. Sites also gain valuable social followers in the process.

The plugin taps into user desire for restricted content to multiply organic social activity. Instead of passive consumption, an action is required for access. For Craft sites looking to dramatically amplify engagement, Social Locker gamifies the sharing process leading to tangible social growth.

Social Wall Display

To add transparency around gated content, Social Locker features a live social wall showing recent activity. This wall showcases users who have successfully unlocked content through liking, sharing etc. It provides public proof of engagement, building trust and credibility.

Visitors can see others vouching for the content's value through their actions. The social wall also peer pressures visitors who have not yet shared or engaged. By making activity visible, Social Locker's social wall feature enhances the incentive to participate and gain access. Sites can display their readership's engagement right on their pages.

For Craft CMS sites ready to take their social media participation to the next level, Social Locker applies the principles of gamification and exclusivity to powerfully boost organic reach and engagement.

Facebook Plugin for Craft CMS

Seamless Facebook Integration

The official Facebook plugin for Craft CMS enables seamless integration of Facebook components into your site. After a quick and easy setup, admins can embed Facebook posts, comments and other plugins on their site with just a few lines of code. User login via Facebook is also supported out of the box, allowing seamless social sign-on. The tight integration taps into Facebook's vast reach while maintaining a native experience for site visitors. Unlike resource-heavy custom Facebook integration, the plugin offers an lightweight turnkey solution. For Craft sites looking to tap into Facebook's over 2 billion monthly active users, the official plugin is the easiest path to deep social integration in minutes.

Expanding Audience Reach

Integrating Facebook's tools provides a powerful way for Craft sites to expand their audience reach. By surfacing content across Facebook, sites can expose existing followers to new offerings and draw in new followers from relevant interest groups. Loyal Facebook followers that may not yet be website subscribers can be converted into regular readers. Comments and like functionality allows users to engage right on site pages, increasing awareness. Sites also gain access to Facebook's sophisticated targeting capabilities for ad campaigns and boosted posts. For already-popular Facebook pages with established followings, the Craft CMS integration gives new ways to captivate and grow their audiences. It's an invaluable tool for broadening reach.

Insights on Engagement

The Facebook plugin provides valuable analytics into user engagement on integrated Facebook components. At a glance, site owners can view interactions with comments, posts and other features. These insights help identify the most engaging content to create more of. Facebook metrics like reactions, shares, and comments quantify how users are interacting with content. Sites can even drill down to analyze engagement by demographic factors like age, gender and location. For Craft publishers seeking deeper understanding of audience interests and responses, the Facebook analytics integration delivers the data they need to optimize content and strategy. The level of visibility surpasses typical website analytics.

By tapping into Facebook's unrivaled scale, the official Craft plugin empowers businesses to enlarge their audience, extract key user insights, and create seamless social interactivity across sites.

Twitter Plugin for Craft CMS

Seamless Twitter Integration

The official Twitter plugin for Craft CMS makes it easy to integrate Twitter components into your site. With just a few settings, tweets, profiles, timelines and other Twitter widgets can be seamlessly embedded using Twig code. User login via Twitter is also supported out of the box, enabling social sign-on. The tight integration allows sites to tap into Twitter's active user base while maintaining a polished look and feel.

Unlike resource-heavy custom integrations, the plugin offers a lightweight way to incorporate Twitter rapidly. For Craft sites seeking to engage Twitter's millions of daily active users, the official plugin delivers turnkey social integration to enhance experiences.

Increased Visibility

Integrating Twitter provides a valuable way for Craft sites to increase visibility and expand reach. By surfacing content across Twitter, sites can leverage existing followers and tap into relevant interest-based networks. Loyal Twitter followers can be converted into engaged site subscribers. Tweets allow real-time user engagement that builds awareness and community.

Sites also gain access to Twitter's powerful audience and targeting capabilities for promoted tweets. For already-popular Twitter accounts with established followings, the Craft integration gives new avenues to captivate and grow their readership. The seamless embedding makes Twitter a great tool for broadening reach.

Analyzing Tweet Performance

In addition to its integration features, the Twitter plugin provides insightful analytics into tweet performance. Site owners can view key metrics like tweet impressions, engagement rate, clicks, and more. These data points quantify how well tweets are resonating to identify winning strategies.

Metrics can be broken down to analyze the impact of variables like timing, messaging, hashtags and images. For publishers seeking to refine their Twitter approach, these analytics offer the visibility needed to double down on what works. The granular data helps continually optimize tweets to maximize reach and engagement. For Craft sites, the analytics integration provides actionable direction for engaging Twitter audiences.

By enabling deep Twitter integration backed by analytical data, the official Craft plugin helps businesses authentically engage audiences, extract key learnings, and create seamless social experiences across sites.

Instagram Plugin for Craft CMS

Seamless Instagram Integration

The official Instagram plugin for Craft CMS provides a turnkey solution to seamlessly embed Instagram content into sites. In just a few clicks, Instagram feeds, photos and videos can be added using a simple Twig code. User login via Instagram is also supported out of the box, enabling streamlined social sign-on.

The tight integration allows sites to incorporate Instagram's engaging visual content while maintaining a polished experience. Unlike resource-heavy custom Instagram integration, the plugin offers an easy way to tap into Instagram's active user base. For Craft sites seeking to utilize Instagram's immersive visual content, the official plugin delivers instant access.

Leveraging Visual Content

Displaying Instagram photos and videos on your site provides a powerful way to incorporate compelling visual content. Instagram's highly engaging image-centric content can keep visitors engaged as they explore visually rich pages. Integrating Instagram feeds also enables tapping into its large active audience by displaying content natively on your site. Existing Instagram followers of a brand can seamlessly access curated content onsite.

The immersive visuals and behind-the-scenes content offer a great way to boost site visits from Instagram users. With more sites competing for visitor attention, Instagram's impactful visuals help Craft CMS sites stand out.

Insights on Content Performance

In addition to its embedding capabilities, the Instagram plugin provides valuable analytics into content performance. Site owners can access metrics on impressions, reach and engagement for Instagram posts and feeds. These insights quantify how well Instagram content resonates with your audience to inform better optimization. You can see which types of visual content drive the most engagement and adjust strategies accordingly.

The data can even reveal ideal posting times and frequencies for maximizing impact. For publishers focused on visual content, these analytics offer the visibility needed to refine Instagram approaches. The granular data helps continually improve Instagram content to achieve reach goals.

By enabling turnkey Instagram integration backed by analytical data, the official Craft plugin helps businesses tap into compelling visual content, gain audience insights, and create immersive social experiences across sites.

YouTube Plugin for Craft CMS

Seamless YouTube Integration

The official YouTube plugin for Craft CMS provides a streamlined way to embed YouTube videos and channels into your site. With just a few lines of code, videos can be added to pages through simple Twig tags. Channel subscriptions, playlists and other YouTube widgets are also supported out of the box. The tight integration allows you to tap into YouTube's immense popularity as a video platform while maintaining a polished on-site experience.

Unlike cumbersome custom YouTube embeds, the plugin offers an easy turnkey solution. For Craft sites seeking to utilize YouTube's powerful video capabilities, the official plugin delivers instant access.

Powerful Video Marketing

Integrating YouTube videos into your site unlocks immense marketing potential through video content. YouTube enjoys over 2 billion logged-in monthly users, and leveraging existing video followings on the platform can help expand your own audience. Popular YouTube videos drive higher on-site engagement when natively embedded. Existing followers of a brand's YouTube channel can also seamlessly access curated video content onsite.

The engaging motion graphics and behind-the-scenes footage provide a compelling way to boost site visits and subscriptions. As video marketing grows ever more essential, YouTube's immense influence makes it a vital integration.

Analytics on Video Performance

In addition to its embedding features, the YouTube plugin provides valuable analytics into video performance. Site owners can access key metrics like views, traffic sources, audience retention and more. These data points deliver insight to inform better optimization of video strategy.

You can see which videos drive the most engagement and adjust production accordingly. Metrics can even reveal ideal video lengths, formats and subjects to maximize impact. For publishers focused on video content, these analytics offer the visibility needed to refine YouTube approaches. The granular data helps continually improve video content to achieve viewership goals.

By enabling turnkey YouTube integration backed by analytical data, the official Craft plugin helps businesses tap into powerful video capabilities, gain audience insights, and create engaging video experiences across sites.

Pinterest Plugin for Craft CMS

Seamless Pinterest Integration

The official Pinterest plugin for Craft CMS enables seamlessly showcasing Pinterest profiles and boards through your site. In just a few clicks, Pinterest feeds can be added to any page using simple Twig code. User login via Pinterest is also supported, allowing social sign-on.

The tight integration allows sites to tap into Pinterest's highly engaged community while maintaining a polished look. Unlike cumbersome custom solutions, the plugin offers an easy way to display Pinterest content. For Craft sites seeking to tap into Pinterest's visual discovery appeal, the official plugin delivers instant access.

Leveraging Visual Discovery

Integrating Pinterest content provides a compelling way for sites to tap into its highly visual discovery behavior. Pinterest is built around exploration of imaginative ideas and inspiration.

Curating top Pinterest boards and profiles on your site allows leveraging this immerse user experience. Pinterest enjoys over 400 million monthly active users eager to engage with captivating visuals and ideas. Displaying Pinterest content enables tapping into these large existing audiences by surfacing content natively on your site. With users increasingly drawn to visual appeal, Pinterest integration helps Craft CMS sites provide engaging discovery pathways tailored to niche interests.

Analytics on Pin Performance

In addition to its display features, the Pinterest plugin provides valuable analytics into pin performance. Site owners can access metrics on repins, clicks, impressions and more. These data points deliver insights to better optimize and tailor Pinterest approaches. You can identify which types of pins resonate best with your audiences to refine strategies. Metrics can reveal patterns around optimal posting times, descriptions, and subjects to boost engagement.

For publishers focused on leveraging visual content, these analytics offer an invaluable way to continually improve Pinterest performance. The granular data helps unlock Pinterest's potential for driving discovery and traffic.

By enabling turnkey Pinterest integration backed by analytical data, the official Craft plugin helps businesses tap into compelling visual discovery experiences, gain audience insights, and boost engagement across sites.

LinkedIn Plugin for Craft CMS

Seamless LinkedIn Integration

The official LinkedIn plugin for Craft CMS provides a streamlined way to showcase LinkedIn company pages, profiles, and content natively on your site. With just a few lines of code, LinkedIn components can be added to any page using simple Twig tags.

User login via LinkedIn is also supported out of the box, enabling social sign-on. The tight integration allows sites to tap into LinkedIn's professional reach while maintaining a polished experience. Unlike cumbersome custom solutions, the plugin offers an easy turnkey way to integrate LinkedIn. For Craft sites seeking to leverage LinkedIn's professional targeting, the official plugin delivers instant access.

Reaching Professional Audiences

Displaying curated LinkedIn content on your site provides a powerful way to engage relevant professional audiences. With over 740 million members, LinkedIn offers access to specialized B2B users like no other platform. Integrating company pages and content surfaces your brand directly to ideal professional targets already active on LinkedIn.

Followers of your LinkedIn company page can also seamlessly access curated content onsite while staying in the LinkedIn ecosystem. The natively embedded content offers an organic way to increase site traffic by tapping into LinkedIn's expansive member base of industry professionals. For B2B companies, it's an invaluable built-in audience.

Analytics on Content Performance

In addition to its display capabilities, the LinkedIn plugin provides valuable analytics into content performance. Site owners can access metrics on impressions, engagement rates, clicks and more. These data points offer a quantified view of how LinkedIn content resonates with your audience to inform better optimization. You can identify the types of content that generate the most engagement and shares. Metrics can also reveal ideal posting times and strategies tailored to LinkedIn users. For B2B companies focused on professional content, these insights help continually refine LinkedIn approaches to maximize reach and engagement. The granular analytics help unlock the platform's potential.

By enabling streamlined LinkedIn integration backed by analytical data, the official Craft plugin helps businesses tap into targeted professional audiences, gain data-driven insights, and boost engagement across sites.