Welcome!
- NOTE: These instructions are for WordPress.com users with a 2-column theme
This page has two sections:
- How to add social media icons to your sidebar that visitors can use to share your site with friends and contacts
- How to add (and remove) a fixed image to your page
How to add social media icons to your sidebar
If your site is like mine and you have to scroll to the bottom of each page to find a social media share button that visitors can use to share your site with friends and contacts, here’s a way to put them in your right-hand sidebar as well:
- First, make sure you have active social media buttons somewhere on your site (usually at the bottom of each page) If not, skip to the bottom of this page to see directions on how to add them.
- Go to WP Admin
- Create a new page on your site (don’t worry — it won’t appear because you’re going to save it as a Draft Only)
- Copy each of the Buttons shown here (right-click, copy). then Paste them onto your new page
- Click Save Draft
- Click Preview (Leave this window open)
- In a separate window, go to your WordPress site
- Click WP Admin
- Go to Appearance in your left hand bar and open Widgets
- Scroll down and select Image (You’ll do this for each icon) Highlight Primary Widget Area (if it isn’t already), then click Add Widget. This will open a dialog box over on the right.
- Go back to your Preview page with the icons on it. Right-click one (Facebook, for example) and left-click Copy Image Location
- Find the Image URL box in the open dialogue and right-click Paste
- Now, open another window, bring up any page on your site and find the existing social media icons (probably at the bottom of the page)
- Find the icon you just chose (in this example, Facebook) and left-click it. At the top of the Share window that opens, you should see a URL. Highlight that URL, and copy it.
- Find the Link URL box in the dialogue box and paste the address into it
- Click Save at the bottom of the Image dialogue box.
- Refresh the window with your website in it and Presto, an icon should appear, with a share function enabled. It will choose a random image from your page unless you elect to set a Featured Image. More on that in a second.
- Repeat this process with each button. (Sorry it doesn’t line the icons up in a neat row. Couldn’t figure out how to do that.) The widget that adds them automatically in a straight line wants my personal addresses for each one, and I didn’t want that. If you DO, then by all means, skip this process and add that widget
- Finally, add a Text Box above all your icons with this wording:<B>Use these buttons to share this site with friends and contacts:. Scroll to the bottom of this page to share by email.</B>
- Helpful Note: The LinkedIn button will choose a random image to display, and will keep it for seven days — you can’t change it. Sorry, but it’s apparently the way LinkedIn has decided to do things
- Helpful Note 2: To get the Link URL for Google+, go to this website and use the link generator for Google+. Just paste in the URL of the page you want to share and this site will give you the custom URL to paste into the Link URL box in Widgets.
- Helpful Note 3: In some cases, from day to day, you may need to replace the URLs for Pinterest. Just go to the icons on your Preview page (on the Draft page you created, remember?) and right-click the Pinterest icon, then left-click Copy Image Location. Paste this into the Image URL box in the open dialogue, as you did previously. Then, find the Pinterest icon at the bottom of your site’s page, left-click on it, and copy the URL at the top. Paste this into the Link URL box in the dialogue box, just as before. This should re-set the desired Featured Image when you refresh your site’s page and click the Pinterest icon again.
How to add a Featured Image to your page
- Click on WP Admin
- Scroll down to Page
- Open the page of your choice
- On the right hand side scroll down to Featured Image
- Click on Set Featured Image
- This opens your Media Library. Choose the image you want to feature in your Share Button windows when someone on that page clicks them. (This will replace the random one chosen by the social media sites). Click Set Featured Image again.
- Test the icons to see if it they are pulling up the desired image. If not, Paste your page’s URL into the box and click Fetch New Scrape Information. You might need to click this a few times for it to do the job.
- Scroll down, and you should see your Featured Image
- Refresh your site’s page
- Check the icons again. They should all show the image you want (except LinkedIn, which chooses its own random image and sticks with it for seven days).
- If either Google+ or Pinterest is showing the wrong image, see Helpful Notes 2 and 3 above.
To replace the Featured Image with a new one
- Open the desired page
- Scroll down to Featured Image
- Click on the “X” in the right hand corner of the image
- Repeat the steps to Add a Featured Image
- NOTE: You might need to use the Facebook Debugger or reinstall some of the buttons to make them display the new image. Just repeat the steps above by opening the image box in Widgets that correspond to the button you’re having trouble with. Cut and paste as before. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes. Then, refresh the page your Featured Image is on and click on the buttons to show (hopefully) the new Featured Image,
How to add social media buttons to the bottom of your page
- Click on WP Admin
- Scroll down to Settings and click Sharing
- Scroll down until you see the small Social Media icons, then put your mouse on the ones you want and drag them to the area marked Enabled Services
- Scroll to the bottom and click Save Changes
- Refresh your open web pages and you should now see them.
Good luck! 😁