This update has been a long time coming. We’ve been working on some of these updates for more than a year.
We’ve been refining the code base, adding features, and keeping up with sharing platform changes to ensure that this update is the best one yet.
But before we get into it, we wanted to roll this update out by offering a huge 40% discount for new subscribers to celebrate version 4.0.
The discount is active now through April 4. Just use the code FOURPOINTOH at checkout to get 40% off your first-year subscription. After that, you will renew yearly at a 30% discount.
And now it’s time to reveal what we’ve been working on behind the scenes.
Firstly, let’s get some of the more obvious stuff out of the way.
Social Share Platform Styles
In the past year, there have been some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) changes in branding for popular social networks. The most noteworthy changes are from:
- Facebook: new primary logo and icon as well as a brighter shade of their primary blue color
- Twitter: update to a brighter primary blue color
- LinkedIn: update to a brighter primary blue color (noticing a pattern?)
- Pinterest: update to a brighter primary red color
It seems the big social platforms have been brightening their color palettes.
And since we always want to have the most accurate representation of sharing platform brands, we’ve updated all Social Warfare styles accordingly.
You’ll also notice a handful of small UI improvements to the Social Warfare Settings pages.
We’ve also completely removed any/all remaining instances or references to Google+.
As we try to do with most updates, the plugin’s codebase has been improved everywhere possible. This update in particular, however, introduces vastly improved codebase organization and documentation.
And for all you devs and designers out there, we’ve converted all of the plugin’s CSS to neatly organized SCSS/SASS.
Okay, now for the good stuff.
New in Social Warfare – Pro
There are more than a dozen new features added to Social Warfare – Pro with version 4.0. We’ll be going through the most significant ones below so you can start trying them out right away.
Here’s a handy table of contents:
- Follow Widget
- More share options
- Emphasize buttons
- Multiple Pinterest Images
- “Powered by” Affiliate link
- Rebrandly integration
Some of these features you’ve been asking for, and some of them you may not have realized you needed. But here they are, ready for you to play with immediately!
New Social Follow Widget
Have you ever wanted to display a list of your social media profiles so that people can follow them? Say ‘hello’ to the Social Warfare Follow Widget.
This feature has been at the top of our requests for a long time. We wanted to come up with a simple and elegant way of doing it. I think we’ve done precisely that.
Just grab the widget and drop it into one of your theme’s widget areas. Then simply fill out the username field for each network that you want to be displayed.
If you don’t enter anything into the username field, that social network won’t display. Simple, right?
And just like our share buttons, you have several visual themes to choose from.
We have more ideas for expanding on this feature, so if there’s anything you’d like to see added to it, just let us know.
More Share Button Options
The people have spoken. “We want more share buttons,” they said.
Well, with Social Warfare – Pro 4.0, we’ve introduced six new sharing platforms:
- Blogger
- Evernote Clipper
- VK
- Viber
- Print button
With the vast improvements we’ve made to the codebase, adding new networks is going to be much easier from here on out. So if you have any networks or platforms you wanted us to add, please let us know.
But that’s not all. Many of you have voiced that you wanted to have the ability to include more sharing options for your readers without cluttering up the visible buttons.
Say ‘hello’ to the “More” button.
The More button gives your readers the ability to share on any/all of the available sharing platforms included in Social Warfare – Pro.
This is done with an elegant overlay that looks great on every device, no matter the size.
Emphasize Your Most Important Share Button
If there’s one thing we like to geek out about, it’s marketing psychology.
One of our favorite marketing psychology concepts is the Paradox of Choice which shows how limiting choices leads to more action.
For those of you who want to use a bit of psychology to get more people sharing your content, we’ve added the ability to “emphasize” up to two of your social share buttons.
Adding this emphasis expands the share button(s) to their full extent, making them larger than the other buttons. This emphasis draws attention to those share buttons, making it evident to your reader that those are the most important.
You can emphasize just the first button or the first two buttons.
As a refresher, we recommend using only 3-5 share buttons max to ensure your readers aren’t overwhelmed by choices.
And thanks to our new “More” button feature, you can have both the Paradox of choice working for you and give readers all available options in an elegant full-page overlay.
Multiple Custom Pinterest Images
Oh, all you Pinterest lovers are going to appreciate this.
Have you ever wanted to add more than one Custom Pinterest image to a blog post? Maybe you have a great tall featured image and a beautiful infographic, and you want both of them to be available for pinning?
Well we’ve been thinking hard about how to best implement this sort of feature, and here’s what we’ve come up with:
You can now upload as many Custom Pinterest Images as you like. When you do, a brand new overlay interface will be activated for those who click on our Pin buttons.
The new overlay will display all the Pinterest images you’ve selected for that post/page, and readers can pin the one they like best.
If you just want to continue uploading one Custom Pinterest Image for all your blog posts, the plugin will work just as it did previously.
It’s also worth noting that our developer spent a lot of time making sure that the images, no matter what size, will have an attractive layout in the overlay.
Proudly Display Your Support (and Affiliate Link)
Have you ever wished there was a way to display your Social Warfare – Pro affiliate link every time someone shares your content?
Of course you have!
We’ve now added an option to display “Powered by Social Warfare” on both the More share overlay and the multiple Pinterest Image overlays.
Simply turn the setting on and enter your affiliate link in the box. Once you save your changes, this “Powered by” message will show up every time someone activates those share overlays giving.
We’re looking for more ways to allow our affiliates to show their support, so if you have any ideas about how we can do this, we’d love to hear from you.
New Link Shortener: Rebrandly
Bitly has been an excellent link shortening service and is by far the most used.
For those looking for more advanced short URL sharing, Rebrandly offers some of the best advanced link shortening available.
You can now select Rebrandly as a Bitly alternative, and simply enter your Rebrandly API key and your desired short domain. Of course, you’ll need to have a Rebrandly account and a custom domain for this to work.
Another addition to the link shortening features is the ability to select the Minimum Publish Date for when links will be shortened. This was created for those who don’t want Bitly or Rebrandly creating short links for every single article on your site once activated.
Just enter a date, and only posts created on that date or later will have short links generated for them.
That’s All, Folks
That about covers everything. There are, of course, smaller and less exciting changes, updates, and fixes in this particular update that you can find in the official changelog.
Thanks for your continued support! We hope you all are staying safe and thriving.
