5th Plugin to Install - ShareThis - Bookmark, Tell-A-Friend

There are several plugins out there that make it easy for users to connect with friends and social networking sites. My last favorite solution like this was a bookmarking program that allowed you to bookmark to your favorite social network site.

ShareThis is the solution I am going to try for WordPress. It is a clean plugin that shows an icon and the words “ShareThis” under each post. When a user clicks on it, they can select from 3 tabs, Social Web, Post and Send/Emal. The words “ShareThis” sound more like something I would do rather than just bookmark. I like the Sharing word.

Social Web has quick links to the 20 biggest social networks including Digg, del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, Slashdot, Technorati and Newsvine. Users can bookmark from this tab also using Google Bookmarks, Yahoo Bookmarks, Facebook and MySpace. You can change the sites if you need to.

Speaking of Facebook and MySpace, on the Post tab users can post to them and Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, and even Twitter. Yes, you can even post to WordPress from ShareThis.

The Send/Email tab is deceptively simple. It is great having the send email in the same button. This is one reason I like this plugin. The exciting part is when you click the dropdown field “Using:” and it shows that it is all set up to send to AIM, SMS, MySpace, as well as plain email.

With your ShareThis account you have a history window called the ShareBox that will show you who has used your ShareThis. If you use my ShareThis button, it will show up in my ShareBox.

My Steps for Using ShareThis in WordPress

The first step is to go to the ShareThis site and register yourself and your domain(s).

After activating the plugin click on “Settings”

Click “ShareThis”
This control panel has a link to customizing the code, a place to paste in code, and ways to turn on and off the ShareThis in posts or pages. If you turn them both off, you will have to put the code into your theme. If you do this, be sure to use the ShareThis template tag.

Click “sharethis.com/publisher?type=wpplugin” (customization link)

I’ll have to admit that the main reason I change the code is to get the rotating icon. I like it better than the static ShareThis icon. I’ll use the color choices to change the colors for my color blogs.

Make your choices then click the “Get ShareThis Code.”
Copy and paste into WordPress ShareThis Options box.
Click “Update ShareThis Options” and you are done.

You can now see the ShareThis icon right below this text. Help me out, please use my ShareThis button, it will show up in my ShareBox.