The Complete Social Media Cheat Sheet for WordPress (Updated)

Introduction to Social Media and WordPress: A Perfect Match

WordPress, in its inherent design, is a content management system primed for social sharing. Its ease of use, coupled with a vast ecosystem of plugins, makes it a powerful platform to build a social media strategy around. This cheat sheet is designed to guide you through leveraging WordPress to amplify your social media presence. It covers everything from basic setup to advanced techniques, all geared towards maximizing your reach and engagement.

Setting Up Your WordPress Site for Social Sharing

The first step towards social media success with WordPress involves optimizing your site’s structure and settings for sharing. This includes permalinks, social media profiles, and basic metadata.

• Permalinks: Choose a permalink structure that’s both search engine friendly and readable. Options like “/%postname%/” are generally preferred over date-based or numeric structures. This makes your URLs more descriptive and shareable.
• Social Media Profile Links: Ensure your website prominently displays links to all your active social media profiles. Common locations include the header, footer, or sidebar. This allows visitors to easily connect with you on their preferred platforms.
• Website Metadata: Properly configure your website’s title and description. This information is often used by social media platforms when someone shares a link to your site. Use a plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math to easily manage this metadata.

Essential Social Media Plugins for WordPress

Plugins are the lifeblood of WordPress, and there’s a plethora of them designed to enhance your social media efforts. These plugins can automate posting, add social sharing buttons, track social media metrics, and much more.

Social Sharing Button Plugins

These plugins add prominent social sharing buttons to your website, encouraging visitors to share your content.

• Social Warfare: A lightweight and highly customizable plugin that offers attractive sharing buttons and integrates with various social networks. It also provides in-depth analytics.
• Shared Counts: A simple and effective plugin that displays social share counts for different platforms. It’s known for its speed and reliability.
• AddToAny Share Buttons: A free plugin with a wide range of sharing options, including email and print. It supports a large number of social networks.
• Monarch (Elegant Themes): If you are an Elegant Themes member, Monarch is a solid option. It has several different display styles, and can trigger based on different events.

Social Media Automation Plugins

These plugins allow you to automatically post content to your social media accounts when you publish a new post or page on your WordPress site.

• Buffer: A popular social media management platform that integrates seamlessly with WordPress. You can schedule posts, track analytics, and manage multiple social media accounts.
• Jetpack Social (formerly Publicize): Part of the Jetpack suite, this feature automatically shares your new posts on connected social media accounts. It’s a simple and convenient option for basic automation.
• CoSchedule: A comprehensive marketing calendar and social media management tool that integrates directly with WordPress. It allows you to plan, schedule, and analyze your social media campaigns.
• Revive Old Posts: Keeps your social media feeds active by automatically sharing older posts. It prevents accounts from going stale and drives traffic to older content.

Social Media Feed Plugins

These plugins display your social media feeds directly on your website, keeping your content fresh and engaging.

• Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed: Displays Instagram photos in a customizable feed on your website. It’s a popular choice for showcasing visual content.
• Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed: Embeds your Facebook feed on your website, allowing visitors to see your latest posts, photos, and videos.
• Twitter Feed: Displays your Twitter timeline on your WordPress site. This allows visitors to see your latest tweets without leaving your website.

Crafting Social Media-Friendly Content

Creating content that resonates with your audience and is easily shareable is paramount. Here are some tips for crafting social media-friendly content within your WordPress environment.

• Compelling Headlines: Headlines are the first thing people see, so make them attention-grabbing and relevant to the content. Use numbers, questions, or emotional triggers to pique interest.
• High-Quality Visuals: Use high-resolution images and videos to make your content more visually appealing. Visual content is more likely to be shared on social media.
• Concise and Engaging Writing: Keep your writing clear, concise, and engaging. Use short paragraphs and bullet points to make it easy to read and digest.
• Incorporate Social Sharing Buttons Within Content: Don’t just rely on buttons at the top or bottom of the page. Embed tweetable quotes, shareable images, or calls to action directly within your content.
• Optimize Images for Social Sharing: Use the appropriate image sizes for each social media platform. This ensures your images look their best when shared. Social Media Image Size Helper tools can be helpful.

Leveraging WordPress Features for Social Media

WordPress offers several built-in features that can be leveraged to enhance your social media strategy.

• Featured Images: Always set a featured image for your posts. This image will often be used by social media platforms when your content is shared.
• Excerpts: Write compelling excerpts for your posts. These excerpts are often used as the description when your content is shared on social media.
• Categories and Tags: Use categories and tags to organize your content. This makes it easier for visitors to find the content they’re looking for, and it also helps social media platforms understand what your content is about.
• Comments: Encourage comments on your posts. Comments can generate discussions and increase engagement. Consider using a comment system that integrates with social media, such as Disqus.
• Trackbacks and Pingbacks: Understand how trackbacks and pingbacks work. These are notifications that are sent when someone links to your post from their website. While not as common as they once were, they can still contribute to your website’s SEO.

Social Media Marketing Strategies for WordPress Users

Having the right tools and content is just the beginning. You also need a solid social media marketing strategy to effectively reach your target audience.

Content Strategy

Develop a content calendar that outlines the types of content you’ll be creating, when you’ll be publishing it, and on which social media platforms you’ll be sharing it.

• Know Your Audience: Tailor your content to the interests and needs of your target audience. Understand their demographics, preferences, and online behavior.
• Variety of Content: Mix up your content types to keep your audience engaged. Use a combination of blog posts, images, videos, infographics, and interactive content.
• Repurpose Content: Don’t just create new content all the time. Repurpose your existing content into different formats. For example, turn a blog post into a video or an infographic.
• Stay Consistent: Post regularly on your social media accounts to keep your audience engaged. Consistency is key to building a loyal following.
• Answer Common Questions: A great source for content is to write down all the questions that customers ask. These can form the basis of blog posts, videos, or FAQs.

Engagement Strategy

Engage with your audience on social media. Respond to comments, answer questions, and participate in relevant conversations.

• Monitor Social Media: Use social media monitoring tools to track mentions of your brand, industry keywords, and competitor activity.
• Respond Promptly: Respond to comments and messages promptly. This shows your audience that you care about their opinions and concerns.
• Participate in Discussions: Join relevant conversations and offer valuable insights. This can help you establish yourself as an expert in your field.
• Run Contests and Giveaways: Run contests and giveaways to generate excitement and increase engagement. These can be a great way to attract new followers and reward existing ones.
• Use Relevant Hashtags: Use relevant hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts. Hashtags help people find content that they’re interested in.

Promotion Strategy

Promote your WordPress content on social media to drive traffic to your website.

• Share New Posts: Share your new WordPress posts on all of your social media accounts.
• Reshare Old Posts: Reshare your older posts periodically to keep them fresh in people’s minds.
• Use Social Media Advertising: Use social media advertising to reach a wider audience. Target your ads to people who are interested in your products or services.
• Collaborate with Influencers: Collaborate with influencers in your industry to promote your content. Influencer marketing can be a very effective way to reach a new audience.
• Link Back to Your Website: Include links back to your website in all of your social media posts. This will help drive traffic to your website and improve your SEO.

Analyzing Social Media Performance

Tracking your social media performance is crucial to understanding what’s working and what’s not. Use analytics tools to monitor your progress and make adjustments to your strategy as needed.

• Google Analytics: Track how much traffic your website is getting from social media. Google Analytics can provide valuable insights into user behavior, such as bounce rate, time on site, and conversion rate.
• Social Media Platform Analytics: Use the built-in analytics tools provided by each social media platform to track your engagement, reach, and follower growth.
• Social Media Management Tools: Use social media management tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to track your social media performance across multiple platforms.
• Identify Key Metrics: Focus on key metrics such as engagement rate, reach, website traffic, and conversions. These metrics will help you understand the impact of your social media efforts.
• Regularly Review Your Data: Regularly review your social media analytics data and make adjustments to your strategy as needed. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different approaches to see what works best for your audience.

Advanced Social Media Techniques for WordPress

Once you’ve mastered the basics, you can explore more advanced techniques to further enhance your social media presence.

• Social Login: Allow users to log in to your website using their social media accounts. This can simplify the registration process and improve user experience.
• Social Proof: Display social proof elements on your website, such as testimonials, reviews, and social media follower counts. This can help build trust and credibility.
• Click to Tweet: Add “Click to Tweet” buttons to your content, making it easy for readers to share key quotes and takeaways on Twitter.
• Schema Markup: Implement schema markup to provide social media platforms with more information about your content. This can improve the appearance of your content when it’s shared on social media.
• A/B Testing: A/B test different social media headlines, images, and copy to see what performs best. This can help you optimize your social media posts for maximum engagement.