Social Media Share Buttons from MashShare

If you’ve ever read the Mashable website, you know that it’s a hub for shareable content. The social media buttons are an essential part of that system, so the Social Media Share Buttons | MashShare plugin tries to mimic what’s being done on Mashable. The MashShare plugin has a freemium model, so the majority of the basic features are free, but you can pay for additional add-ons to improve your own toolset. Sometimes this is a good thing, since you don’t have to fork over any cash for features you don’t need. But occasionally the developers keep all of the good features out of the free version, requiring you to buy several add-ons.

As for MashShare, it provides sharing buttons for the most popular social networks. It’s also pretty dynamic and fast loading, so it’s not going to slow down your site. I like the freemium model for this plugin, since you might end up not having to pay for anything.

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If you do need an add-on, they start at around $25. Some of the add-ons include the following:

• Mashshare Social Networks Add-on
• Sticky ShareBar
• Floating Sidebar
• Mashshare Responsive Add-on
• Google Analytics Integration
• Mashshare PageViews
• Mashshare Open Graph
• Mashshare LikeAfterShare
• ShortURLs Integration
• VideoPost Popup
• Click To Tweet

Why You Should Consider This WordPress Social Media Plugin

• It’s one of the only WordPress social media plugins with add-ons. Therefore, you can choose the features you want instead of paying full price for a batch of features you may not end up using.
• The plugin has caching built-in for fast delivery of the buttons.
• Filters and actions are available for more advanced development.
• The shortcodes allow you to place the social media buttons anywhere on your website.

Possible Downsides

• The common sharing buttons are somewhat limited, so you may have to pay for an add-on if you want more.
• The backend is somewhat confusing. There are lots of settings to configure, so beginners might get intimidated.
• There’s a fake share count feature. So you can basically lie to your users. I guess this might be seen as an advantage for some, but it seems dirty to me.