Social media has quickly become the lifeblood of the internet, and your website’s social sharing strategy should be a top priority. Placing sharing buttons in your sidebar isn’t enough. Floating social media bars filled with disparate and disorganized badges looks tacky and unprofessional. We want to build something better – a plugin that effectively encourages visitors to share your content without sacrificing your website’s beautiful design. We want to introduce a new set of integration areas and methods, make them easier than ever to configure, and make them look good too! In short, we want to get you more shares and do it in style. That’s where Monarch comes in.
Social Sharing Done Right
Monarch is still in its early stages of development. We have a great list of features planned, but it’s not too late to put in your requests! We would love to hear your suggestions. Let us know what type of features you want in a social sharing plugin in the comments, and stay tuned for more details about Monarch in the near future!
Monarch will be really helpful to our business. We are the Newyork based video production company.
It looks great.
Was about to buy this plugin, but we need to have a Yelp icon 🙁
Is there a way to add our own?
We are redesigning our website and would be suing Divi theme. We loved the Monarch plugin but we are sorely missing the Yelp connection. Can you tell us how we can edit this plugin to add custom social networks (like Yelp)?
Thanks,
Urmila
How do I make the background of the floating social sharing bar transparent? Thanks.
My only wishlist is to have a beautiful, reliable and responsive social media stream of all my networks and the ability to display streams for multiple users, hundreds and thousands of them.
Currently not possible with existing WP social stream plugins.
I would like for the plugin to integrate comments that have been gathered on Social media as well, once shared. For eg: Somebody shares our link of FB…When people comment on FB and not in the blog, those comments, likes and shares should be integrated into the blog and shown as post likes as well.
Also, we should have the option to post on multiple social media accounts. Like 2 accounts on Fb, etc
Hi, when do you guys think that the plugin Monarch will be ready to use? I am looking forward to that date!
when is it expected to be out?
The three main things I would like to see in this plugn involve integration and synchronisation:
1. The ability to have feeds from your social media accounts display on your website in real time
2.secondly I would like the ability to post when logged into my wordpress site so that the post also go straight into say facebook or whichever destination i specify
3. lastly it would be nice to have all the social media access in the one plugin from have loads of different ones for each separate social media platform.
I am looking forward to this developments with great anticipation, thanks, Peter
looking forward to your plugin
postponing to buy foobox as i hope you will have the possibilty of sharing pictures to facebook and twitter like foobox
are you planning this? Popup of picture and then the possibility to share
+ a simple OFF-button for visitors in frontend to match EU-datasecurity/ privacy/ duty of secrecy-laws. germans care about that and lawyers will probably start sending warning bills soon…
otherwise i must say flare was already pretty nice – but 12 bucks/month for social media plugins is insane no matter what fancy tracking option might ever come along with it – since people have to administer their channel anyway they do their tracking right there…
Hi guys, any news from your plugin?
Great job for all your work ( I begin to deploy website with divi and my client appreciate the quality of theme)
Have a nice Day
I’m really looking forward to the floating social media icons. My only concern is that (as others have also said), I don’t see icons for Yelp or Houzz – both are services that my clients use. Please give us a simple way to add or personalize the social media icons!
This is really exciting! Does one need to be using an Elegant Themes theme to use Monarch, or can the plugin be purchased on its own?
I am so ready for this to release!!! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I’ll just leave it in your capable hands as I’m sure you’ll get it right as always!! Getting very excited for the release of Monarch… can’t wait!!
Monarch…. rings the bell, it’s the same company that invented Godzilla.
It would be great if the plugin would fulfill all Google PageSpeed guidelines and the use of the plugin would not have a negative impact on the PageSpeed score.
Most social plugins are really bad in this area.
I’m mostly sure when I say that the majority of social media plugins are just recycled BS. For real.
They are so horrible, presentation wise, utility wise, that I decided to manually add social media, coding through php and html inside your themes.
There is a need for a good and aesthetically pleasing social media plugin and I think yours will be the only one i’m going to use, when it’s out.
I’m definite a lot of people would love the option to set featured images to be shared for fb, twitter cards, rich pins etc 🙂 Keep on the amazing work!
Dear Nick,
At this moment I am using Divi in combination with Sliding Social Icons.
Looks an d works good. But, if you use Blurbs with the icons on the left side, the icons can disappears under the Sliding Social Icons. Especially when you use your iPad or a smaller screen.
See: http://loesschrijver.nl/
Perhaps you can keep this in mind building your Social media plugin.
I’m ready for it now. Is there an expected date of arrival?
Thanks!
Custom colors, shapes and position – I guess that would be already included.
This plugin should not only be for creating social sharing buttons but also include the capability to include your own company icons/links as well. Two-in-One! That would address the issue of having to use shortodes or elegant font for inserting social button on the websites.
Awesome!!!!!! Life Membership subscriber here (for a good reason!)
If would be really awesome if the comments in the blogs synced with all the Social Networks out there. Whatever is written “here” in the comments gets written in Facebook, Twitter, etc. Coolest would be if comments get written “there” (FB, T, etc) gets synced “here” too, but that may be impossible. Yeah, I know, many complexities too even make that happen… If not all social networks, ability to pick one API, say FB, all integrated already.
Would this plug in be able to go into the header next to my page links and logo? I always have clients as for this when they dont want it in the top banner.
SOUNDCLOUD please 🙂 for us musicians and podcasters, it is the lifeblood of connections. Soundcloud is not in divi which is a real bummer. hopefully, that will be addressed with monarch.
Double that!
Super to have an all-in-one solution with options. Can’t wait to see what you develop.
My real concerns with all social media plugins are security and performance. Hoping that function is being taken as seriously as fashion. Would like to hear more about those two elements as you release the plugin for testing too.
I would definitely agree with the request for integration with a URL shortener, preferably bit.ly. I am amazed at the number of twitter sharing plugins that do not include that. Looking forward to seeing it!
I am all about interface. I think a floating transparent bar that expands when hovered over would be elegant and simple.
Please use a beautiful counter in it which tells the visitor that how many likes or shares are done.
I don’t know if it has been posted, 194 comments so far, but i’d like the social shares to appear only when the users reach some part of the post, mostly like a lot of recommended post plugin do. Otherwise, looking forward to it !
have you guys thought of having a poll created so that we can all vote for all the social media sites we want?
Looks like an interesting approach. Excited about the release.
Hello,
Based on my experience a social sharing plugin needs to handle 3 areas:
1-User Registration and User Profile it includes commenting, naturally.
2-Sharing (Manual by Users and/or Auto-Sharing planned by admins), Analysis and Reporting( Widgets to list most shared posts based on post_type, taxonomies, date and social platforms)
3-MetaTags, OpenGraph, HoverCards & custom APIs etc.
Any approach that’s not addressing the above 3 categories is not really helpful and might create some new implications.
I would love to go through the details and explain my vision, Please let me know if you are interested.
At last I hope adding some trackers to your plugin to collect user data and this kind of operations is not one of your objectives 😉
Id love to see some type of LIKE gate where we could specify a page and before entering, it would have the ability to ask the visitor to LIKE our FB page, or follow us on twitter etc… be able to set this at the page level.
Be able to add our own custom icons or buttons with actions able to be defined – such as going to a URL, a mailto, print page, bookmark page, etc…
thanks!
M. Reed
http://www.shiningstarphotobooth.com
I am eagerly waiting for its release. Hope it’ll be fast and light. Thanks for the share.
It be nice if we can also have a back end social sharing tool where an admin/user can click on which social media it wants to share the post or page, and have the ability to count the characters for the description of the page or post that we are sharing.
The ability to be able to login or register on a wordpress site with a social network would be great – especially if it integrated nicely with the ET login shortcode/divi module.
Integration with ET comments would be good as well – allowing users to comment using their social network use thing ET theme comment interface (which looks nicer than jetpack’s)
Include Yelp and Trip Adviser as social networks since so many businesses want to seamlessly integrate these networks with their sites. if possible, make displaying reviews about a business on a website easy.
Help! Tripadvisor and Yelp are key for us.
I second Yelp and TripAdvisor integration!!! Please please Please
Third. Was shocked to not see it in the list.
I can’t wait to see the final results. Exciting!!!!!
Hi Nick,
How possible would it be to create a feature where one button would enable likes, plus 1s and Tweets – all at the same time.
My apologies if somebody has already suggested it.
Regards!
Please include social subscribe icons for podcasters – Itunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, etc.
(By the way, as podcasting has become very popular, it would be a good idea to create a podcastting theme).
This is a really good point. As well as having a spot for Udemy and Meetup.
This is a really good point. As well as having a spot for Udemy and Meetup.
This is a really good point. As well as having a spot for Udemy and Meetup.
Thanks, guys. Right now, you need to exceed “Social” by MailChimp (should not be too difficult).
As someone who has worked full-time on social media to rack up 100’s of thousands of real followers, here’s my suggestions:
– *Must* include Pinterest(!).
– *Should* include Imgur.
– Must not break on Facebook periodically (as others do).
– Public side should be insertable on posts, pages, and widgets.
– Admin side must include auto-posting.
– Admin side should include auto-posting at a scheduled time.
– Must not have “premium upgrades” limits.
– Should not conflict with Disqus.
– Must be responsive.
– Should have grayscale and colored editions.
– Must work smoothly and beautifully on Divi.
– Should work smoothly with WP Multisite.
– Must not include “Sharing is caring!” scribbles.
Thanks again! Looking forward to Monarch!
i would like to easily be able to add other specialized S
social buttons. I often have clients who need a specific (usually small) social media platform share button.
Having the ability to quickly add another platform in would be a great help.
Thanks as always for staying a step or leap ahead of us to work on new advantages to using ET. Agree with much of the suggestions, especially: social icon click opens in new window so we don’t lose our new visitors. Lightweight code that doesn’t drag down the load time like jetpack and others. And truly mobile-friendly is a huge priority for us that you’ve been emphasizing in new releases. Also looking forward to Divi 2 update. Release date on that? We’ve got 3 sites in the works right now on Divi2. Thanks and cheers to Nick & The ET Team & everyone who’s brilliant and uses ET/Divi. 😀
This is great news, and I appreciate you working on a plugin such as this!
I’m not sure if this is in the scope of the original release, but it would be a great bonus if this plugin could offer ways to pull in content from one’s social media sites like Twitter and Facebook (like a Twitter timeline).
I realize there are plugins for that already (wonderfully discussed at http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/best-twitter-widget-plugins-for-wordpress), but if one could have a single, comprehensive solution for social media needs, like Monarch, this would be a welcome addition!
Cheers, and keep up the great work!
Something like Privacy Policy! (2 Click for Social Media)
like that: http://www.heise.de/extras/socialshareprivacy/
German Description: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Fuer-mehr-Datenschutz-Neue-Version-der-2-Klick-Empfehlungsbuttons-2101045.html
Sorry its german, but Code is international 😉
A count of how many shares for each social network is a must have feature!! eg. number of tweets, pins, facebook likes etc.
This might be a bit different to what your thinking of but what about a back end social sharing tool where an admin user can schedule posts to share their posts. There are premium apps like hootsuite, buffer, pluggio but I would have thought this was an ideal tool to have in your admin area. If we can schedule posts and page publication then surely we can schedule sharing? As well as sharing items at set times I would also find a “filler list” useful. This would contain urls for pages and shares would be made from this list at set intervals when other posts were not specifically scheduled. The list would circulate so when the last post in the list was posted it would start again form the top. Url’s could also be added to this list from external domains.
Would anyone else fond that useful?
Can’t Wait!!!
Being able to share any image on pinterest would be great. I know there are other plugins for it, but keeping plugin bloat to a minimum is always nice.
Loving that you’re doing this. Click to share and showing # of shares is all well and good. A KILLER feature for me would be a report that shows total number of shares for each post AND lets me sort posts by number of shares for each social network.
There used to be a paid plugin that did that, but it was a giant pain to use and slowed my site down.
One thing that I think would be really great to see is on the admin side, if there is a way to do it, show how many shares, retweets or some other measure of reach for each network that you set up. That way you can somewhat track the results of your social campaigns?
Thanks for the awesome work, I have to say not only have you greatly improved quality and capability of stuff you release this year(it already was good, its just even better now) but the marketing you do for it is much better too.
Not sure if this fits under social plugin wish list items, but many of us these are moving from MailChimp and FeedBurner to FeedBlitz. FeedBlitz is going to be a major player, since it combines RSS management with email list management, etc. Would love to see mail sign-up implementation for FeedBlitz, especially in Divi.
Nick – is this Monarch you’re using here on the site? Or a precursor to it?
Hi, this is great – my list of wants:
– “like” and “share” options in one plugin
– clicking the sharing/liking button opens them in a new tab
– ability to choose locations of buttons & if they come up on every page vs post etc.
– unobtrusive/interactive option like shareaholic “sexy” buttons that pop up from being 1/2 hidden when you scroll over them
– consistent look or something that conforms to the colour scheme on the theme/site
– different “skins” for the buttons – funky look, conservative look, artistic look etc.
Some features I’d like to see:
– fast-loading and light (e.g. ajax loading of scripts)
– uses image sprite instead of individual images
– hooks in place to allow easy customization (links, titles, size, etc.) via plugin or functions.php
– “share to see” hidden content – only displays hidden content once post is shared
– available in image light box for image sharing (e.g. see FooBox)
PS – I would love it if you made all your themes more developer-friendly by:
– adding in hooks to customize as much as possible (e.g. footer information),
– use “if ( ! function_exists( ‘functionname’ ) )” for everything in functions.php,
– allow overwrite of resources by child theme (e.g. use get_stylesheet_directory_uri() instead of get_template_directory_uri())
Thanks!
What I would like is the “load social plugins on hover option”, same as in the Floating social bar plugin (http://www.wpbeginner.com/floating-social-bar/). This decreases the loading time and – in my opinion – isn’t discomforting visitors.
I’ve used the plugin from Jetpack in the past and this was incredibly slowing down the site experience, that’s why I chose Floating social bar instead (that it comes floating is nice but the loading time was the biggest reason of choosing this plugin).
As for social functionality: perhaps it’s a good idea to add a way to launch a modal popup after a scroll or timed event where people are asked to either Like the post or perhaps sign up for the newsletter. There are so many half-baked or better premium plugins out there it’s hard to choose the right one.
Would be awesome if this could be provided in the form of premium Elegant Plugins
You guys keep surprising me more and more. This is terrific! Can’t wait for its release 😀
Hi Nick,
Please make sure you include XING! Don’t focus on only the English or let’s say US-based networks. https://www.xing.com
Thank you!
Tanya
Big to me are:
1) E-mail this page will ability to send to one or more E-mail address and optionally add a message.
2) Print this page generating a “pretty print” page without header/footer/sidebar clutter. This is social sharing the old fashioned way … print a copy and hand or mail it to someone else.
3) Counter displays are a setting’s option.
Yes! I second the automatic inclusion of a print stylesheet that works with Divi out-of-the-box and can be enhanced/overwritten by a print stylesheet in the child theme if desired (i.e. to handle child theme customizations that impact printing). [Something like the Genesis Printstyle Plus Plugin.]
It would be great if this plugin would be also compatible to the social network rules of the data protection officers of german states (2-click-solution = social media buttons first must be deactivated and website users must be able to activate the social media button on their own). There are some WordPress social media plugins that are very often used in german wordpress-sites, but it is not smart and well designed: https://wordpress.org/plugins/2-click-socialmedia-buttons/
I’m sure that this plugin would be very successful if there would be a “german version” that comes first with deactivated buttons that can be switched on.
Great news. Will it work on any other theme as well as your own?
Yes, this plugin will work with any theme 🙂
Yes, there are so many floating social media bars filled with disorganized badges and there looks ugly and unprofessional. Thank you for developing a plugin that would effectively encourages visitors to share our content without sacrificing the webSite’s Design.
I am sure we can create something that looks great and functions well! It’s a challenge, but we are up for it.
For the few millions o fthe french speaking crowd that use more the VIADEO social network than the LINKED IN one, please include a viadeo button on your social media plug in…
As for DIVI? I re doing all my customers sites with it, too easy to work with to do without.
Could you include an easy way to modify the length and width of any modules or sections ?
Great work and keep going, you’re the best !
Thanks for the suggestion. At the moment, the best way to modify a module’s height would be to use the “custom css class” option to assign some custom CSS with a fixed height.
Hi Nick!
This is great news. I have tried and tested a lot of social sharing plugins both free and premium but there is no plugin that works one hundred percent perfectly (my opinion). I am looking forward to check out and see what this plugin can do! Thanks,,
That would keep me finally at your side.
It seems like in usa xing isn’t existing but in central europe it does, and it’s still more used than linkedin, so often plugins don’t support xing.com.
Thats my request or at least the option to add less know platform since the varitiy is getting bigger.
Looking forward to it…
Great idea.
+1 for Xing – really important here in Europe!
Thanks for the suggestion Thomas. We are doing our best to choose the top social networks without going overboard 🙂 We have about 30 selected right now, and I will see about adding xing to that list if possible.
I would like:
– option for different sizes
– “multiple icons / accounts” of the same social media, for example I want to post two facebook fan pages, two twitter accounts (one for main, one for support for example)
Amazing news…waiting for released date and also for writing a review about Monarch plugin.
What would be a great feature is something like the ‘Publicize’ feature in Jetpack, that publishes snippets of posts to designated social media accounts with the purpose of drawing visitor traffic to the website.
Peter,
I agree and have found this useful on one of my sites were we rely on this feature to push our new posts to FB as they are published.
Thanks for the suggestion Peter. Monarch will focus more on the act of visitors sharing your content, rather than publishing your content to your own social networks. However, perhaps that’s a good idea for a different plugin 🙂
Hi Nick,
My observation is:
There are a lot of social sharing plugins, most of then somewhat limited so you idea of a new, really comprehensive one is very good!
On the other hand, there are not too many auto poster plugins, and most of them are lacking in features. So the suggestion by other members of including this feature has a lot of validity, after all, the main reason for all this is to effectively and effiently drive users back to our page/blog and an auto poster is the first action toward that purpose!
Thanks!
If I may…. I strongly disagree. As you said, “the main reason for all this is to effectively and effiently drive users back to our page/blog”. That is correct! But the best to do it is NOT by auto-posting! I could elaborate on this for hours. Ask any social media manager and you’ll see my point. Each SM platform has its own ‘rules’ on how a post has to be shared to achieve its purpose: drive traffic to your site. And auto-posting a snippet won’t help you much. For someone who’s really focusing on sm campaigns this one is useless feature.
Great news! Thanks for the possibility to share our thoughts with you upfront.
As a designer I’d like to have the flexibility to add various other SM that my customers ask for, e.g. Xing in Germany, Austria, Switzerland; WeChat etc. in China and so on….
+1 for XING
+1 for XING
Thanks for the suggestion, we will do our best to include as many of the top social networks as possible on launch day. We can also add more in the future if they are heavily requested.
Great plan ET team. Looking forward to this one. Some small(!) feature requests…
a. Floating icons with options in…
Look: light/dark/transparent
Shape: round, square, hexagon
Size: small, medium, large
Color: original, custom color picker
Placement: top/bottom/left/right with 3 choices for each
b. On hover above any image or video, show one-click share icons to FB, twitter, G+, Pinterest
c. Auto detect users who signed-in on FB, twitter, G+, Pinterest, Linkedin
d. And the big one – bring in Website Login with FB, twitter, G+, Linkedin – with such logins auto-adding to WP user list
e. Wrap it all up with in-built analytics to highlight most shared content/most sharing users by each social channel – a sort of leaderboard
Hmm, that should be good to keep you busy for some time. All the best 😉
awesome plugin, Nick you and your team just rock. Daily share a valuable informations for WordPress. Such a great job.
if not in the plugin, I have a suggestion.
1. The auto post to social media
2. Discription auto spin. so when on gplus share to 3 times, then the description berubah2, except keword. and is good for seo
sorry ; Discription auto spin. so when on gplus share to 3 times, then the description is changed, except keword.
Custom share messages for each share button on every post. Is that too much to ask? For example now when you click tweet, just the title, link and a general message pops up. It would be so cool to be able to key in custom message for each post instead.
– total share count of all the social media shares shown.
– shortcode to have it appear anywhere within the post.
– a dozen options for all kinds of sizes pls 🙂
Custom share messages are definitely something we want to include, and we will do our best to make this happen for the initial release!
Nick and Elegant Themes,
This is exciting. Thank you so much for stepping the bar up consistently and all the time!
I think the ultimate social media plugin, Monarch, should include the ability to literally pull in your live feed from whichever social media you prefer in that moment.
Live shares, based on what my ‘friends’ and those in my ‘circles’ are doing, saying, being, right then and there. An adjustable window portal into my favorite social media.
I would share and comment a lot more if I could do it without another window or waiting going on.
Elegant Themes — thank you. I look forward to writing for the ‘customer highlight’ soon.
Do Add Behance, it had been missing from Divi Social Media
Lots of people want something that offers smaller social networks. You could make it easy to add your own, but that can end up looking weird. I vote for app.net.
Really eager to try! I do wish:
1) the share buttons would fit responsive design
2) better way to integrate share and follow (e.g. after share on Facebook, would ask the visitor to follow)
3) native integration with elegant themes (i.e. automagically installed with elegant themes)
4) it looks beautiful
You Rock!
I’m excited to use this on my coming site. Hopefully, Monarch will be the best social media plugin.
social media icon are the greatest look ever..
Depending on how advanced you want to take your plugin I would love to see a reward base sharing incentive added. Whereby you can encourage sharing in exchange for things like.. product discounts, free insider info or what ever you want. This would help our shares go viral. a good example of a reward based share can be seen here http://www.traffic-zombie.com/
Any share plugin that encourages viral sharing has to be a good thing.
This is something we are considering. We have talked about adding a “share to unlock” type of functionality. In the form of a shortcode, you could lock just about any content. I am not sure how feasible it is, but we will be looking into it for sure.
I think Share to unlock is a great idea. Or, Like to unlock. Or, Tweet to unlock.
People who can’t imagine why have never done affiliate marketing.
This would be super useful.
Nick,
Mark is not suggesting about ‘share to unlock’ feature, most of users like me call it a shit to share a post first before reading it. Why should I share without knowing what I am sharing? — simple common sense to analyze a requirement will let you understand that ‘share to unlock’ is a crappy feature when building the basic version of such great plugin. However, this may come as an addition at a later stage.
Mark is suggesting about a feature where the user can share and get reward points/credits for doing a share. This means, mark is suggesting two features at a time.
Feature 1: ‘rewards points for sharing’: a user must first login to the site by using some means like buddypress and then share a content; thereby achieving reward points.
Feature 2: ‘there should be an automatic send coupon option where the admin can just type the coupon code and send it to all or to a selective number of reward point winners (users may receive a coupon in their inbox or via buddypress messaging system or via other means)..
I don’t know how you misinterpreted the suggestion with your own. if you are in need of some good requirements analyst, hire me!
That would be great! Can this be said to be content restriction? If this is configured then we can easily have premiums contents, right?
Yay! Can’t wait!
Responsive and easy to set up! I’d like to know that if someone on a small screen/mobile comes to my site, the floating buttons are not getting in the way of the content! That happens with the ones I’m using now and I’ve had to turn them off as people visiting were finding they couldn’t read the content.
Mobile design is something we will be paying close attention too. Rest assured, the buttons will not be obtrusive on smartphones 🙂
My dream Social plugin?
– Fully Responsive design. It HAS to display/look good on all screen sizes. Too many people surf on phones or tablets now days for this not to be on the top of the list.
– Offer all ‘mainstream’ social services. – Include Reddit.
– Multiple positioning – Floating Bar on top/bottom or sides. Or static.
– Allow for display offsets so people can adjust the float/placement of bars to better align with themes.
– Offer the ability for the buttons to show after the user does a specific action – Example: Sharebar appears after 20% of page has been read (scrolled down) by the visitor.
– Use of Icons instead of Images for Social Media buttons.
– bit.ly or other URL shortening support. Have it set to automatically convert any links being shared from the site.
– Custom fields per post for Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and Google Plus – includes images and text fields for each. (And auto check to see if Yoast WP SEO is being utilized so it disables Facebook – since he already has it.)
– Offsite Analytics – I know some people like seeing them on their website. But I don’t want that kind of overhead taking away performance. So host it on your server for me 🙂
– A Custom “Pin It, Tweet It, GPlus, FB Share” overlay for images or text that I highlight within a page or article. Make it a bar that offers all three or make it user configurable based on their SM preference.
– Offer different theme sets and/or fully customization CSS template so people can get their SM buttons to match their website. Default would be the proper colors for each service.
– This is a big gripe I have… Make it so the Plugin is fully independent of whatever theme is being used. Make sure it isn’t ‘taken over’ by the theme’s CSS/Styling. Too many times I see this happening with plugins.
– Make sure that the JS/CSS is already ‘minified’ and compressed out of the box.
– It isn’t bloated with unnecessary code.
– Have it lazy load/asynch load if it’s going to be very ‘code heavy’.
I know.. this is a pretty heavy list. Good Luck!
You just described the perfect SM sharing plugin! 😉
This is great! often I have problems in putting social icons, I end up putting it on the side (which a lot of social plugin does), if this plugin can allow me to put the social icons anywhere in the header (like beside the logo), and able to change the social icon images (upload own images), plus it’s responsive! Then this is the BEST plugin ever!
We want to make the plugin work with any theme, so adding integration areas such as “next to the logo” wouldn’t be feasible due to the drastically different designs available within the WordPress community. Such an integration area would lead to a lot of problems. However, we ave some other great stuff planned 🙂
This is the major problem with most “plugins”, they try to be all things to all. Why not build social sharing and social connections into a theme from the start for optimal flexibility and performance?
I’d love to register to the site with my fb or linked in account.
This is an absolutely fantastic idea!
I have one suggestion: Give the user the ability to ‘like’ (FB) and +1 (Google+), and share via the same button. This means we can elegantly (pun intended :-P) place our social media buttons in appropriate places, without having to have a set for sharing and a set for liking/+1’ing – that just gets confusing.
A great example of where the same +1 & like buttons will also give the option of sharing is Really simple Facebook Twitter share buttons. Once you click on the +1 (or like) button, a small hover window will appear over, giving them a chance to share.
A working example: http://explosiveaperture.com/end-of-the-world-patagonia/ (bottom of article).
Performance. Too many poorly coded plugins and themes out there dragging us down. Whatever Monarch is or will be, please make sure it’s lightweight and speedy. Thank you!
This usually comes from displaying share counts, which requires connection to the social networks API’s. We will have an option to turn on/off share counts if you want to make sure you buttons load as quickly as possible. The loading speed of external API’s is beyond our control.
It would be great to have an option to show Facebook feeds on WP pages! I tried to add it to my Divi based page but all plugins always look really ugly…
Shut up and take my money!
An option to add sharing buttons to woocommerce product with open graph integration 🙂
please include Chinese social medias such as sina, sohu, qq weibos and wechat
Lovely sudden surprised! Though most have been said, these are the things I want included in the new sm plugin
-Pay with like to unlock content
-the design of sm you have on your site presently-share this floating share
-option to place it anywhere including widget sidebar, single post etc
-option to customize the color probaly via a customizer
-option to choose different shape or upload your own
-Easily integrate into divi 2.0 page builder
-option to share post without leaving your site
-option to have both share button or like
-and others in between
In addition, please release updates for divi 2.0
You’re doing brilliantly knowing some of our desires! Are you a wizard 🙂
Cheers!
Hi… Sounds like a great addition.
My ideas ..
Can there be both social media sharing and social media links ( to the accounts held by the website).
Social media links . Be nice to have options of placement. I particularly like the idea of these being available as vertical and semi transparent in the side of the header.
Obviously responsive plugin
Have ability to define image that goes with the ‘share’
Style and colour match with the website
Size options … Different sizes for different placements.
E-mail sharing option
Newsletter sign up option ( compatible with obvious newsletter providers eg mail chip etc.)
Feed options… With ease of configuration
But maybe I gave gone further than the social sharing you envisage?
You guys continue to lead the way when it comes to design and features…I am grateful to have found you a few years ago 🙂
I am incredibly impressed how one person can produce such great work. I look forward to this plugin and the new Extra theme coming out. Keep up the good work.
It would be nice to have the option to have the counter or not for each icon.
Other than that, all of the people have provided many great suggestions.
I can’t wait until this plugin is complete. I’m really glad to be a member!
Coming from ElegantThemes I can’t wait anymore that a great product, clean code and useful features.
Hi, I would love to have the buttons on a tranparent background, on different areas and in different sizes. I love the shareaholicks minis but they only stand on white. It is the best option I found so far, cant wait to see your plugin soon!
I love rounded corners, and it would be great to use them in one color only (but chooseable which one)
Great stuff, keep on going!
http://www.jyotimaflak.com
The best one will be one that can focus on a single call to action. So a cookie based plugin that only displays the sm sites they use and then make the promotion of sharing bigger, stronger and focused would be very effective in my opinion.
Social media wish-list
Share buttons
1. lots of control on look-feel
2. short code’s like BOX that wrap content with border or shading and connects to share this button with options for color and what social to connect
Posting content – in dashboard have option for each social network activated
1. select what new content auto post on social networks
a. Page – Publish option that allows you to broadcast the new page to social OR to just publish on site
b. Post – Publish option that allows you to broadcast the new post to social OR to just publish on site
c. Dashboard – able to set what post’s automatic and what does not
2. post – tie it to a category – tag or both (if post is put in a certain category PUBLISH social)
a. have an option to make a pop up warning for auto post content, you can of course select no post warning
3. make wordpress the one stop blog or post to WP and it posts throughout your social connections auto
4. make sure there is always a way to keep it “local” to site. not all items published on site make sense to Publish social
COMMENTS!!!
1. Build in comment sync with selected social’s
a. comments posted on site sync with social networks
b. comments posted on social networks sync with site
c. comments on a comment posted deep in the social chain link back
2. OPTION – replace wp comments completely make user select a social network they are members of to link to and use WP comments – give user a list to choose from
a. Let the social networks handle the spam – they spend millions on this issue
b. by using face book or similar to handle comments saves site owner lots of grief.
c. admin should be able to moderate if they want to, or even decide what socials comments can integrate
Page & Post templates
1. get creative with sharing build page or post templates that have unique sharing attributes that can be selected while building pages/post
Widgets & Menus
1. would like to see some new uses of WP menu system
2. widgets that show up only on certain conditions
a. posts with a certain tag or category
b. if a comment has been made
c. depending on what social the user connected to the site
d. etc.
These are just what came to the top of my head… I hope it helps and I look forward to BETA testing!!
Steve
All excellent suggestions!
Publicize on JetPack is good but not perfect, I would add to Steve’s suggestions by asking for:
– Ability to select where posts are publicised based on category or tag
– Ability to handle WPML, publicise only one post not each language
As mentioned it needs to go from desktop / laptop to mobile device with ease. Too much of the mobile reading experience is ruined with a sharing plugin obscuring the text.
I would *LOVE* is to be able to share a different URL than the current page.
I’m not aware of any plugin that does that, and it would be INCREDIBLY helpful.
Use case: if someone has just purchased a product and been sent to the thank you page, I want them to be able to share the sales page, not the thank-you page.
(It should be clear to the user what they’re sharing, of course.)
Definitely one thing that would be really helpful and make a difference!
A must have innovation – “Pay with a tweet” concept. Allow us to give something away, or to unlock something for the visitor’s share/tweet/social media ripple.
Fantastic news! I would like the ability to:
1. have the standard icons, or be able to upload custom icons.
2. have a floating set of icons, like what you have on the ET website.
3. have the icons display the total shares/likes/ etc.
4. have the capability to customize the size of the icons, make buttons. I like the feature that someone mentioned about having a large FB or Twitter button.
5. Have the standard social media outlets, but be able to add new ones on the fly.
cannot wait until this is released!
Me too all above. I wanted to have the option to load the scripts after the page loads, not making the page slow.
One that doesn’t override settings on mobile themes easily – with the popups and sidebar shares they sometimes interfere with the mobile plugin.
I like what I see so far though! Good job, can’t wait.
The option to include fb like, etc. on pictures would be VERY COOL. This may help to increase the virulence of the articles. But it should only appear on mouseover and be discreete to not obstruct the image itself. Boredpanda uses it and it seems to work for them.
Floating bar and counting is important too. Option to include code on the template to place the way we like tool
Option to choose the networks (some work better than the others depending on the country, niche, etc.)
MArcelo you said the magic word! I’ve been searching for weeks to find a nice plugin for sharing images! –Still haven’t found one that I like… 🙁
How did we miss that? You are so right!
If you could build your author/subscription box into it, it would be incredible.
Email subscription option are a must for any site. I cannot wait for this plugin to be launched
DEFINITELY =) More chances to get engagement on our page without appearing too spammy with requests for engagement. Having the like button appear on hover will keep the page look nice and clean. GREAT Suggestion!
I find that getting LinkedIn feeds is hard to do and not many good plugins for it. My main gripe with most social media plugins is they are hideous but I’m guessing you guys will make a great one.
Integration with shopping cart discounts – to allow discounts for follows, likes, comments, ect…
Looking forward! Especially looking forward for a sofisticated design. Not all these different formats and colors. I can give you a perfect example if I can communicate you the URL in private.
The ability to arrange the icons in any order we want!!! It’s a small thing, but it has a big impact on strategy.
I like the social media bar you’ve got on the left-hand side of this site, in fact – I presume it’s probably based on a preliminary Monarch framework? It’s got some elegant features (numbers, animated pops – nice!).
No Bill, this one is from Share This. I think they call it ‘layers’ or something like that.
Excellent idea. Hopefully meets the best needs to share in networks. Current plugins offer some advantages and some other other. It will be excellent plugin that allows to do everything you want without being heavy.
I’d like a composite feed widget, too. But mainly, I just want the plugin to not conflict with all the others. Socializer and others have caused me hours of work in their conflict.
It would be great if it includes a library of Social Media Icons already built into the plugin, with the option to upload your own variations. I like the clean look of having a few Social media Icons in place (like the top bar in divi on our site.) but maybe when you mouseover the Facebook or twitter icon, a feed drops down with a “like” option. It’s important that visitors can like or follow us without leaving our website.
Excellent recommendation! I would love that too!!! Eliminating the options we give to visitors to leave our sites is always a good thing.
Here here. I want something that allows for both Facebook Liking and Sharing…very few plugins do that and the one I’ve found doesn’t look that great. Lots of button design options so we have choices in what looks best with out sites. Thanks!
Didn’t know this was possible! If you can like & follow or like & share with one button, that would be awesome! Combine these functions with being lightweight, keep users on page, and highly customizable in appearance and locations, then we’re off to a very good start =)
I agree with Rick at PoetrySuperHighway.com. Having Facebook sharing and liking together is so important, yet it’s very hard to find in one plugin. We use two plugins that are styled differently and it looks ridiculous. I would be thrilled to have these two functions integrated with Twitter, Pinterest and Google+, with the option to add any other social media platforms we want.
Also, our social media plugin doesn’t display counts for Google+. I don’t know if that’s caused by issues that hail from Google, but needless to say it would be great to have that actually work.
I can’t wait to see what you’re going to come up with. Thanks for taking the initiative to do this!
I would love the ability to schedule the sharing, or at least to have the time(s) optimized for me, over the various platforms. E. g. Twitter during the evening commute, etc.
Thank you for this. It looks really interesting.
Sounds great!
That plugin sounds great but what about putting a few resources to fixing the bugs in Divi 2 first.
We are almost finished with a big maintenance release for Divi. Just a few more bugs to check off the list.
I hope the accordion module is fixed in the next update. I raised the issue in the support forum as well that the content within the accordions is not searchable and visible when the terms inside accordions are searched for. Search finds the page where the term within the accordion is but once the page is opened one sees the closed accordions – thus defeating the purpose of search. Searched content even when in accordion should show up as open toggle. There is a big flaw in this module otherwise.
That’s great Nick. The bug fixes are much needed. Why was I told repeatedly by your tech and developers that there were NO bugs in Divi 2. I was told repeatedly that the problem was in my installation and my plugins. Many hours of wasted time and frustration on my part could have been saved with just some honesty from ET. Your overall themes are great. ET’s defensive response to problems is not.
There are *always* bugs, in every app. A company that waits until its product is “bug free” will never ship, and won’t be in business very long.
I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.
One of my biggest complaints with some social media plugins is they can really slow the load speed of a web page…
Keeping it light weight as possible would be my number one ‘ask for’ feature.
Yes, definitely keep it lightweight! =)
I second that
Third that!!!! I was JUST talking with a client and trying to ‘convince’ her that the plugins she was using for SM sharing (she used a mix of them) were responsible for her site’s low performance. As soon as I de-activated them, we had a 70% difference in load speed!!
Sounds great. I also would like it to have a social media feed. I have a lot of clients that want to show their feeds for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. all in one widget.
Definitely please keep it lightweight! =)
whoops, comment on wrong post lol
I’m excited to see how this will integrate with the page builder.
I can’t wait to check this out. Divi, Divi2, now this. You guys are really raising your game. (Now, just need to beef up your support staff.)
Please include an option for “LinkedIn.” I have yet to find a simple way to install that for the newbie such as myself…..Thanks, looking forward to it!
I would love for your new social media plugin to have the ability to put a BIG wide Facebook share button, a BIG wide Twitter button, and an email subscribe box (and just those 3 things)
at the top and bottom of the content.
Please check out how Upworthy.com is doing it these days…
they are pretty much the most-tested pages on the internet these days.
That would be my dream plugin for social sharing optimization….
Could you share the anticipated feature set Nick?
Feature request: I love how the buttons on Mashable stay top-of-mind.
Fast to load, puts the buttons anywhere, and features different set of icons – that’s a sale right there.
I like the way these align perfectly with no white space around them. It would be nice to have the option to keep them all one color to match our designs and also change the colors accordingly. Not sure you need the numbers there.
Oh yes please! That’s exactly what I need for my Divi site. So I would definitely want a social media plugin that lets me pick the shape (I prefer circles), the color, and where I can set it on a post or page.
Particularly when it comes to posts, I like having the option of being able to place it just above or below the title. And ideally, would love the ability to repeat the sharing after the post.
Otherwise, I like the social media sharing function you’re using for your site. I love the way it doesn’t bounce around, following you as you scroll down the page but remains fixed. And it’s large enough to not get lost.
Second the motion – choice of shape, size and especially color are very important.
Agree with that! Forgot to mention it myself. Customization of the buttons is important, if we want them to much with our designs.
The plugin could have some ‘button types’ to choose from, or even let us use our own! 😉
Great to read. Could use this right now. When is the projected release date?
I love being an Elegant Themes member! This is awesome news. My input is: the floating sidebar should include number of shares per social media channel (counter). Also would like the ability to add my sites social media follow buttons on the sidebar (or by inserting code elsewhere on the site). It would be great to customize the size and colour of the buttons to match our colour schemes on our websites (sorry I’m a matchy matchy designer). Also the look and feel should be modern and clean like the AddThis share buttons you are using now.
Great news. Please add the social network VKontakte
Hi Aleksander, Nick already mentioned this social network will be included.
Some, or any, of the enterprise-quality functionality that Tint offers.
Although, seeing their high-price, I could understand how this would be entirely separate from Monarch.. But, just a thought.
https://www.tintup.com/
This would be awesome, I’ve seen a similar plugin on codecanyon
Awesome! Looking forward to it.
If this plugin can integrate China social media, it will expand our territory. Such as http://www.weibo.com (twitter), http://www.wechat.com (whatsapp).
Add buttons Russian social network Vkontakte. In Russia, many customers uses your themes, but there is no button sotsknopkah vkontakte and classmates! They populyanye social networks in Russia and no buttons! Add buttons vkontakte!
I join Alex’s request. Please include Vkontakte button as well.
Vkontakte will be included 🙂
Please, add spanish buttons too!!!
Yes! The ability to localize the text strings and .mo/.po files to translate the plugin are, today, and after WP 4.0, mandatory. 🙂
The initial list of social networks will be?
I second this as well. Please add the Russian social network buttons, at least Vkontakte.
The ability to target multiple facebook pages, multiple twitter pages, etc. all in one option on the post page. The ability to customize each output separately.
What I mean by that is something similar to the (SNAP) plugin for wordpress, the $50 version lets you add as many accounts as you want to wordpress. Once you go to make your post you can toggle on and off which networks you want to send your message to.
I am a third on this as well.
I second this, as I have a personal twitter account and business one often I would like to show both on my site
Awesome! I can’t wait.
Good luck for a new plugin. We hope to get soon
Looking good.. I can’t wait. I love plugins! 🙂
I would ask for full control over where the social media buttons are to be displayed. Not just “posts” and/or “pages”, and not even just “not on this post” or “not on this page”. For some particular sites I´ve been missing a social media plugin that could be more easily integrated with custom page templates.
I was always a big fan of Flare, but stopped using them because they forced you to include Filament and you had to tweak the code to change Flares to Shares. If you created something like Flare, minus the annoyances and more flexibility, I’d be very happy.
Either way, I’m excited to see what you come up with.
Have you looked at the latest build? Ability to change to Share inside the dashboard, much more design options, and probably one of the best mobile solutions for sharing I’ve seen.
This would be great if it could auto publish to social pages when we first publish.
I completely agree. This is something that i really wish i could do for sites like pinterest, linkedin and instagram (facebook and twitter are only slightly easier. It is so time consuming to load the latest post onto all of my social media sites. Having something that is done for me would help me stay consistent on all my platforms and let me focus on other things.
social media sites that we should be able to use for monarch:
instagram, pinterest,Facebook, twitter, tumbler, linked in, google +
I completely agree. This is something that i really wish i could do for sites like pinterest, linkedin and instagram (facebook and twitter are only slightly easier. It is so time consuming to load the latest post onto all of my social media sites. Having something that is done for me would help me stay consistent on all my platforms and let me focus on other things.
social media sites that we should be able to use for monarch:
instagram, pinterest,Facebook, twitter, tumbler, linked in, google +
Looking forward for it’s release.
Hello Nick,
Social media feed is a must. I would like the ability to allow the feed to pop up and then hide. Be able to place it in pages anywhere without compromising design. Like and follow buttons to compliment design with little Css work. The ability to make us work faster when designing. I am sure you guys thought about this already, so just amaze us.
Very excited. I like the share buttons on Fable. Maybe something similar? Except on Fable they disappear on mobile which is the worst time to disappear. It would be nice to not have to add it to every single post. Maybe set it up in the plugin how you want it to look and tell it to auto insert on all posts in Category 1. Option to add to more than one location. Different profiles for different categories. Just suggestions. Can’t wait to get my hands on it!
It would be nice if when the social media icons where clicked, if they opened in a new window instead of navigating away from our sites.
Please, no. New windows are way to unpredictable — they behave in a dozen different ways on different browsers and platforms.
A modal dialog that overlays the present screen? Sure! But a new window, no thanks.
Options, options, options. The ability to allow us to decide if a new window opens or not should be an easy line of code.
I second Michael, the most options available to customize it, the better.
Good point. +1
I agree with Trista. Very good point!
I would love for it to include a live feed widget for twitter and such. So if someone wants to have an updated feed at x intervals it will automatically refresh and place the most recent messages on top.
That’s great nes Nick
I was wondering when you guys would get involved with a “Social Media Plugin”
My only problem… I have to wait for it.
I am very optimistic, thank you
Wow, this is long overdue and if your previous work is any indicator I’m sure Monarch is going to be great, great looking form and killer functionality.
Goog luck, looking forward to the day it goes live.
Nice!!! That’s the second best news after the launch of Divi 2 🙂
Since you’re asking for inputs:
– Being able to decide the locations with the ability to have the icons in more than one locations (eg both floating on the side and below the post)
– Working properly on mobiles/tablets too
– Ability to have a predefined message in place when ppl share our posts (e.g for twitter it could be the ‘via @twitter_handle’ at the end)
– Analytics!!!! With the ability to ‘recognize’ both shares via the share buttons AND by coping the url.
I’m sure you’ve already thought some or all of these… If I come up with anything else I’ll be back 🙂
I agree with Natalia above. I personally like a floating one that stays visible but we need as much freedom as possible in placing it exactly where we want it to be.
I like the social share buttons on this page for example, but I like the ones that float more, also I think it’s important that they move in some way from time to time or otherwise make themselves more noticeable as opposed to “just sitting there”. Maybe if you could time a little pop out to happen at least once that says “Please Share This Page” or *words of our choice*. And how about if you could have an Exit behavior of your choice such as when someone goes to close the tab, it could trigger another page that says “Share to Get Free Report” or something…?
The Flare app from Filament offers this already, with a great mobile option. Analytics and branding features come with the Pro version – well worth checking out.
http://filament.io/flare
I agree Danny – a lot of these features will be in Flare Pro. The screenshot that was included even looks like the Flare interface.
Will be interesting to see what sets them apart.
Yep, looking forward to the Pro version, Christian – put my pre-order in when it was announced, and love the new mobile option they just implemented, very slick. 🙂
Danny, my problem with Flare in the past is that it wouldn’t run due to the optimizations I set in place. Or it would never display properly.
Hopefully they addressed these issues with their pro offering now. I really did like the plugin though!
I third Natalie’s list!
I second Natilia’s request list. Looking forward to plugin!
This is much needed and hearing this is music to my ears. Can’t wait to learn more as development progresses!
Looks fantastic, looking forward to it :).
Excited to see the final results! =]
A comprehensive, all in one social sharing plug in is much needed in WordPress in my opinion. Sure, we have several plug ins, but none that do the job perfectly. They all have their flaws and services they lack. By the looks of your screenshots, it looks like you’re on the right track. If nothing else, I’m sure the design of everything will be perfect. Looking forward to seeing it released!
I totally agree with Geoffrey. I have looked far and wide for the perfect solution and not found it. Hopefully this will be it