After many long hours of toiling, testing and tweaking of code we’re happy to announce version 1.4 of Social Warfare has arrived.
This update includes a number of highly requested additions as well as some minor bug fixes as usual. The most significant additions are something that foodie bloggers and mobile-minded people will absolutely love.
We have now included Yummly and WhatsApp buttons inside your Social Warfare options! In addition to that, we’ve reintroduced the Email share button which we previously had to pull due to a number of issues.
And all the foodie bloggers said…
Now, let’s get into the finer details of this release. And then at the end, we’ll give you a bit of a tease about the next big release. #TweetCounts
Compatibility and Bug Fixes
As with most updates come a number of fixes for bugs that have been discovered. Not all of them are worth going into detail, so here’s a brief list of those bugs squashed in the 1.4 update.
- Subtitles plugin compatibility issue – There were some compatibility issues one of our users found. If you use this plugin, you’re welcome. 😉
- Click-to-Tweet HTML output – Click-to-tweets should now handle special characters properly.
- UTM parameter double question mark – In case your site already outputs a “?” in the URL, we’ve made sure it doesn’t break the UTM parameters being added by Social Warfare.
- Button alignment before cache build – The buttons would sometimes misalign before the cache had a chance to build. No longer.
- Hide body padding when floaters aren’t visible – No more unnecessary white space created when the floating buttons aren’t visible.
You’ll notice each item above is linked to its public Github issue in our repository. This is how we’re now handling all of our known issues and feature requests in an effort towards transparency and efficiency in supporting our many users needs.
Feature Additions
What do we want? MOAR FEATURES! When do we want them? NAO!
While we are dedicated to keeping Social Warfare a lean, mean, highly effective social sharing machine, we do occasionally make the decision to add a thing or two behind the scenes.
Here’s the major features we’ve introduced with the latest version:
Legacy caching
If you have a lower-volume site or just don’t want to wait for the cache rebuild trigger for the next page load to update shares on posts/pages, you’ll now have the option to go back to the legacy caching system.
If you don’t know what this means and want the best load time, stick with the new cache system.
Facebook Author tag
For those of you who love the Facebook, you now have the option to have your Author tag displayed when someone shares a post that you’ve authored.
All you need to do is go into your WordPress profile and under the Social Warfare section add your Facebook profile URL. This will then allow your name to appear at the bottom of Facebook shares like you see below.
Sort Posts by Shares in WordPress Admin
For a while now, users have had the ability to see a post’s total shares from within the posts/pages list in their WordPress dashboard. Unfortunately, though, the sorting function has not worked. Until now!
If you want a quick way to find your most shared posts and pages inside WordPress, just navigate to the posts or pages section and click on the Shares column to sort.
If you don’t see the Shares column, you will need to activate it by clicking on the Screen Options tab at the top of your page and checking the Social Shares box.
We Added a WhatsApp Button!
One of our most requested additions to the Social Warfare share buttons is WhatsApp. This mobile messaging app is hugely popular amongst smart phone users.
How popular? Well, popular enough that Facebook bought the company for $22 billion. That’s a lot of pocket change.
It’s also been requested by many of our users to be added as a sharing option. This was a significant addition because since WhatsApp is a mobile-only app, it required a level of device awareness so that the option was only shown on mobile devices.
So now, if you activate the WhatsApp option inside of Social Warfare, only those viewing your site on a mobile device will see the button. Desktop users will have it hidden from sight.
We Added a Yummly Button!
We’ve had many food bloggers come to us asking for the addition of a Yummly button. For those who don’t know, Yummly is basically like a StumbleUpon for foodies… on steroids.
In a short amount of time it’s grown into a thriving community and destination for discovering and sharing recipes. For savvy food bloggers, it’s also become a critical source of referral traffic and social proof.
To all our faithful food bloggers out there who have been patiently waiting for this addition— your wait is over!
We Re-Added the Email Button
A while back when we introduced a Reddit, StumbleUpon and Tumblr share button, we also introduced an Email button. Unfortunately, it ended up causing more problems than it solved and we had to pull it out.
After testing, and testing, and testing… it was finally time to bring it back! We think we’ve gotten all the bugs worked out, but do let us know if you see any issues.
One Last Thing
So, yea, you remember that whole Twitter fiasco? You know, the one where they decided to kill off your share counts? That was lame of them.
But we found a fix. And it will be available to all Social Warfare users very soon.
How soon? Subscribe to our list, and you’ll be the first to know.
Hey, I told you it was going to be a tease, didn’t I? 😉
Just downloaded the Social Warfare plugin today. Very happy with the overall speed of it. It was also very easy to setup!!
From this article, it mentions that there is the option for the Whatsapp button, I however do not see that option in the basic version. Additionally, on the website, even the pro version is not showing it… Will it be added again?
Hi Phillip! The WhatsApp button is only in the Pro version and only shows on mobile (hidden on desktop). Hope that answers your questions!
I’ve been reading your suggestions about limiting the number of sharing options to encourage more sharing. With this in mind, I was wondering if you could create a way to limit the Yummly option to only show for a certain category or tag… something like that? I’d love to only show it on recipe posts instead of all of my posts.
Yes. I’ve been thinking about this as well. I think that’s a great idea. I’ll definitely be adding an option like that in the near future!
Excellent! Thank you. I look forward to it!
I, too, was thinking this exact same thing and planting the bug in Nick’s ear recently! lol – thanks for the backup!
Hello,
I’m interested in Social Warfare for a few of my websites, but as of now I’ve only used Easy Social Share as SW doesn’t come with an image sharing option.
My website average 500,000 unique hits a month mostly from social media thanks to the effort I put into finding images to upload. Will SW ever have an image sharing option? Or would I have to use it in tandem with something like Sumome (which I’d rather now as more plugins = more load)?
Thank you.
Hi Mateo! We do have an image sharing function on our roadmap, but no definite date just yet. It will likely come after the introduction of version 2.0.
Thanks for the awesome additions! As a food blogger, I’m excited to have Yummly!! Yay!
Also, a quick question. You said, “All you need to do is go into your WordPress profile and under the Social Warfare section add your Facebook profile URL.” Are you referring to our personal profile URL, or our business page’s profile URL? Or will either one work?
Thanks!
Whichever one you want to link to as the author. They will both work, so it’s a matter of preference– where you want to point people to.
Chris,
Use your business page URL for the Publisher link, and your personal profile URL for the Author link.
The Publisher link is located on the Social Identity tab of the Social Warfare options page and is labeled: Facebook Page URL.
The Author link is located on your personal profile.
Then when shared, it will show (using this post as an example) that the publisher is Warfare Plugins and the Author is Dustin Stout. Does that help?
Hey there Dustin,
Nice breakdown of features, as usual, cheers sir! Couple of quick questions:
1. Do you need to create a FB app to use the Profile setting?
2. When will we get a Pocket option? 😉
Cheers, mate, and solid plugin!
Hey Danny! Thanks!
1. No– just ignore the Facebook app ID option (for now)
2. If I have my way, soon. 😀
I know you directed your comment at Dustin, but if you don’t mind, I’ll try to field that first question for you.
There are three types of attribution on a Facebook share. All of these attributions can be added to the exact same share if I understand them correctly.
1. APP ID – This identifies the App used to create that post. We’re working on setting up an APP ID for Social Warfare. This would then reflect that the post/share was created from Social Warfare.
2. Publisher – This identifies the Facebook Page associated with the content being shared.
3. Author – This identifies a personal profile on Facebook of the person who authored a specific piece of content.
So, for some context, if you were to share this post, it should, ideally, say that the Publisher is Warfare Plugins and the author is Dustin Stout. And eventually, when we add the APP ID stuff, it would say that it was shared via the Social Warfare plugin/app.
But none of these fields rely on any of the others. You can use as many or as few of them as you want. They’re simply a nice tool for branding and for adding a little extra context to the shares that users make of your content.
Does that make sense?
Hey there Nicholas,
Yep, it does, mate. I know with some other plugins I’ve used previously (including SEO ones), I needed to create the app before the author ID would show.
SW seems to bypass that, as my name is showing on posts from my blog, and the different authors over at Pure Blogging have their names attached, even though the site name is Pure Blogging.
So I think we’re good to go. 🙂
Great job guys. I’m curious to see if the Whatsapp button will help but my favorite addition is probably the admin sorting by share counts.