Social media and content marketing have a direct relationship in which content creators can utilize steps such as integrating social media widgets on websites to drive traffic, build authority, rent credibility, and boost sales.
Proper social media optimization (SMO) helps in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by optimizing the E-E-A-T profile.
Using relevant social media widgets on your website will help drive extra traffic, improve website quality, and increase sales.
You can use a few social media widget types on your site. They are:
- Social feed widgets
- Social chat widgets
- Social share widgets
- Social follow widgets
- Social testimonials widgets
- Social media giveaway widgets
In this article, you will find services to create social media widgets for websites for free and things to consider when installing them on your site.
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Five Recommendations for website owners
Here are a few tips to consider before embedding social media widgets on a website.
- Customize the widget – Most social media plugins for websites with codes below let you modify the look and feel of the widget by changing the color scheme, fonts, widget size, and more. And most social media widget generators consist of a visual builder where you can preview the widget before installing it on your site. Make use of all the available tools (including custom CSS) to integrate the widget with your site using the right brand color palette, sizes, etc.,
- Concern about the page loading speed – The last thing you want is to increase your site’s loading time because of a social media widget! According to a report, page loading speed directly correlates with the conversion rate. You can load the widget’s script code (JS) asynchronously to load the widget after other contents are loaded on the page. Furthermore, you can use a script manager such as Google Tag Manager or Cloudflare Zaraz and take measures such as using colors instead of animated background images.
- A/B test your landing pages – You will not know if adding an HTML social media widget to a website results in increased conversions if you do not split-test your pages — experiment using different widget types (social media aggregators, reviews, share buttons, etc.), variations (minimalistic view, full-width, etc.) and styles.
- You can use multiple widgets on the same page – For instance, you can create floating social share buttons and inline share button widgets and display them on the same page to optimize for more social shares. Similarly, you can use different social media widgets, such as feeds and content lockers, on the same page.
- Use other conversion boosters – Using HTML social media widgets alone on a site is not guaranteed to boost sales on your site. Utilize other techniques, such as countdown timers, product comparison tables, good pricing tables, number counters, customer reviews sliders, FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) widgets, and website pop-up widgets.
Social Feed Widgets
Social feed widgets are a popular social media widget format content creators use to embed social posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Discord, Pinterest, and YouTube.
By installing them, you can demonstrate how active your business is in website users’ eyes and get clicks to your social accounts to increase followers and engagement.
Mixed Social Feed Widgets
These widgets allow you to place posts from multiple sources in one place.
Elfsight All-in-one Social Feed Widget
Elfsight is an online service that provides free HTML widgets for website owners with 80+ widgets in the apps catalog.
Elfsight’s All-in-One Social Feed Widget is a social media widget for websites that lets you embed social posts from 5+ networks into one place without creating separate social feed widgets for each network.
Key features:
- All social media in one place – Create social media feeds from unlimited combinations of multiple sources: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, VK, Vimeo, and RSS. This allows you to create a better visual environment through your social feed widget by taking Instagram pictures, Youtube videos, and TikTok videos.
- Templates – Use a premade template to get started quickly. Elfsight provides templates such as Carousel, Masonry (white and dark background), Timeline, Grid, Slider, and the Small widget to fit all scenarios. And you can customize each template on the customization panel.
- Customization – Change the widget’s appearance as you want with the no-code widget builder.
Creating a social media mixed feed widget using Elfsight
Use the widget builder below to create your free social feed widget.
CommonNinja’s Mixed Social Feed Widget
CommonNinja is a site like Elfsight with 80+ best free widgets for your websites ranging from user engagement to website components.
Its Social Feed Widget lets you create mixed or separate social feed widgets with its visual widget builder, like Elfsight.
Key features:
- Multiple social feed modes – Mixed, Tabs, and News Ticker social feed modes allow you to customize the widget to show the feeds precisely how you want.
- Auto-refresh – The widget will automatically check for new content on a regular basis and refresh your feed accordingly, ensuring that your website’s visitors always have access to the latest and most relevant information.
- Skins and Layouts – Choose a preferred combination of layouts and skins to make your widget eye-catching when embedding on your site.
Powr Social Feed App
Powr is another service that provides various embeddable HTML widgets for websites. Its apps library consists of over 50+ apps, such as an image comparison slider and interactive maps widget.
Powr’s Social Feed App for websites lets you embed mixed social media feeds on your site and customize the widget to match your brand and colors.
Key features:
- Multiple social media sources in one combined feed – Powr’s Social Feed app integrates with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, Pinterest, Dailymotion, Tumblr, and Flickr.
- Social sharing – Enable social sharing buttons to let your website visitors share your social feed posts on their accounts.
- Content moderation – Approve new posts before they’re added to your website or automatically display any recent posts immediately.
YouTube Feed widgets
Being the second most popular search engine behind Google and the most popular video platform for consumers, YouTube is a valuable social media platform content creators can use to drive traffic and boost sales.
YouTube feed widgets allow you to embed a Youtube channel, a playlist, or a set of videos on your site, letting website visitors watch your videos and subscribe to your channel right from your site.
Here are some Youtube feed widget creators:
Elfsight YouTube Gallery
Elfsight’s YouTube Gallery widget lets you embed a channel, a single video, or even a playlist on your site. And you can customize the Youtube widget by grouping videos, translating content, editing titles & descriptions, and showing or hiding any video information, logo, buttons, counters, and comments.
Key features:
- 3 types of video sources are supported – Display any channel, video, or playlist on your site. Use the grouping feature to structure content as you’d like.
- Video preview layouts – Classic, Cinema, and Horizontal layout types let you organize video previews on your site. Also, you can control the after-click video playback. Options are the popup player, new YouTube window, or existing preview.
- Change look and feel – Elfsight’s YouTube Channel widget editor lets you customize the widget by choosing the right skin (to match your website theme), widget dimension, and content grid (by selecting the number of columns and rows, as changing the gutter space), and controlling navigation control, popup mode, and search box.
Creating a YouTube widget using Elfsight
Use the widget builder below to design your free YouTube widget.
CommonNinja YouTube Feed Widget
CommonNinja’s YouTube feed widget lets you embed feeds from different YouTube channels and have a widget aligned with your current website theme.
Key features:
- Multiple sources – Add different feed sources to make a multi-stream Youtube widget.
- Layouts – Use a preferred layout to organize video content on your site.
- Auto-refresh – When enabled, the widget will automatically fetch new content.
Instagram Feed widgets
Instagram feed widgets allow you to embed feeds from an Instagram account or feeds based on hashtag (#). Here are a few widget creators:
- Elfsight Instagram Feed widget
- SnapWidget
- CommonNinja Instagram Feed
- SociableKIT Instagram Feed
- TagEmbed Instagram Feed
- EmbedSocial Instagram Feed widget
- Instagram Feed app for websites by Hoversignal
- Walls.io Instagram Feed
Create an Instagram Feed widget
Use the widget builder below to create your Instagram feed widget.
TikTok Feed widgets
TikTok has become one of the most popular social media platforms, with over 1.6 billion global monthly users. Its Chinese version, Douyin, has over 750 million daily active users and is one of the most popular apps in the country. TikTok Feed widgets allow you to embed posts on TikTok based on profiles and hashtags.
Here are a few TikTok widget creators:
Creating a TikTok feed widget
Use the widget builder below to create your TikTok Feed widget for your website.
Facebook Feed widgets
Using a Facebook feed widget, you can embed posts from Facebook pages and public groups on your website. Here are some services that let you create them:
- Elfsight Facebook Feed widget
- CommonNinja Facebook Feed
- Powr’s Facebook Feed app
- SnapWidget’s Facebook Feed
- TagEmbed Facebook Feed embed widget
Creating a Facebook feed widget
Use the widget builder below to design your Facebook feed widget that allows you to embed photos, videos, and posts on your site.
Twitter Feed widgets
Twitter feeds widgets let you embed tweets on your site as a profile timeline, hashtag feed, testimonials, sidebar widget, and Twitter grid.
Here are a few Twitter widget creators:
- Elfsight Twitter Feed widget
- Powr Twitter Feed app
- SnapWidget
- CommonNinja Twitter feed widget
- TagEmbed Twitter widget
Creating a Twitter Feed widget
Use the following Twitter widget builder.
Pinterest Feed widgets
Being a visual-centric social network, Pinterest lets users embed Pinterest content on their websites with its widget builder. However, it’s limited in certain features. Here are a few services that allow you to create custom Pinterest widgets:
- Elfsight Pinterest feed widget
- CommonNinja’s Pinterest feed widget
- Powr’s Pinterest feed widget
- TagEmbed Pinterest Feed
Creating a Pinterest Feed widget
Use the following widget builder to create a Pinterest feed widget. Choose a template, add content sources to display pins, customize the widget, and get the embed code.
LinkedIn Company Feed widgets
As the prominent social network for professionals, you cannot ignore the importance of LinkedIn as a reputation management, talent recruitment, and sales generation platform, particularly in a B2B business.
40% of B2B marketers surveyed indicated LinkedIn as the most effective channel for driving high-quality leads. Using HTML LinkedIn feed widgets, you can embed your company page’s social feed on a website.
Here are a few solutions:
- Elfsight LinkedIn Feed
- Juicer
- SociableKIT
- TagEmbed LinkedIn widget
- Flockler’s LinkedIn Feed Embedder
- Onstipe’s LinkedIn Widget
Creating a LinkedIn Feed widget
Use the following widget builder to create a LinkedIn page feed widget. Choose a template, add content sources to display pins, customize the widget, and get the embed code.
Social Live Chat Widgets
With social media sites’ popularity in e-commerce and online marketing, you cannot neglect social media as a marketing channel for your business. Case in point, 79% of companies say that implementing live chat has had a positive impact on sales, revenue, and brand loyalty.
All-in-One Social Live Chat widgets
These widgets support multiple social media networks and let you choose which networks to use on your live chat widget.
Here are all-in-one live chat widget creators:
- Elfsight’s All-in-One Live Chat widget
- SocialProofy’s All-in-One Chat
- GetButton
- Seekflow’s Omnichannel Inbox
- MyAlice’s Social DM widget
Elfsight’s All-in-One Live Chat widget
This Live Chat widget from Elfsight supports eight popular social messengers. It provides customization options like widget positioning, chat header, welcome message, and color selector to make the widget more intuitive and align with your brand.
Key features:
- 8 popular channels supported – WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Instagram, WeChat, Line, Viber, and Rumble Talk.
- Change content – Edit the welcome message and profile picture to personalize content to get people to interact with live chat support.
- Settings – Change chat display settings (pages, devices, date & time).
Creating a social live chat widget using Elfsight
Use the widget builder below to create your live chat widget. Choose a template, connect your channels by entering your phone number, social account username, ID, or URL, customize the message, choose when & where to display the widget on your site, and get the embed code.
WhatsApp Chat widgets
Being one of the popular live messenger services out there, WhatsApp offers tremendous opportunities for businesses to spread their business among over 2 billion active users and direct access to customers through WhatsApp messaging.
WhatsApp Chat widgets are popular social media widgets that service-oriented businesses use to provide support directly. Here are solutions you can use:
- Elfsight’s WhatsApp Chat widget
- CommonNinja’s WhatsApp Chat
- DelightChat’s WhatsApp Chat Button
- MyAlice’s WhatsApp Live Chat
Creating a WhatsApp Live Chat widget using Elfsight
Use the widget builder below to create your free WhatsApp chat widget. Choose a template, enter your WhatsApp phone number or WhatsApp business account’s short URL, edit the welcome message, profile picture, etc., and customize the widget’s appearance.
Instagram Live Chat widgets
Like WhatsApp Chat widgets, Instagram Chat widgets allow website owners to reach over 2 billion active users who use Instagram through Instagram live chat widgets. Here is a solution:
Creating an Instagram Chat widget using Elfsight
Use the widget builder below to create your free Instagram Chat widget. Enter your Instagram username, edit the chat bubble and welcome message, etc. Then change the widget’s appearance and specify when and how to display it on your site. Click on “Add to website” to get the unique embed code.
Facebook Messenger Chat widgets
With over 1 billion active users per month, Facebook Messenger (also known as Messenger) provides various solutions for business owners. The Messenger Chat widget for websites is one of them.
Here are a few solutions to add Facebook Messenger to a website:
- Elfsight’s Facebook Messenger Chat
- Powr’s Facebook Messenger
- CommonNinja’s Messenger Chat
- Facebook Chat plugin
Creating a Facebook Chat widget for website
Use the following widget builder to create a widget using Elfsight. Choose a template, integrate your Facebook account, change the widget’s look, and get the embed code.
Telegram Chat widgets
As a direct competitor for WhatsApp and Messenger, Telegram has gained popularity for various reasons, including the app’s flexibility. Using a Telegram Chat widget on your website, you can directly provide live support to over 700 million monthly active users.
Here are a few Telegram chat widget creators:
- Elfsight Telegram Chat
- CommonNinja’s Telegram Chat
- Widg.io’s Telegram Chat
- MyAlice’s Telegram Chat Widget
- SocialProofy’s Telegram Chat
Creating a Telegram Chat widget for website
Use the widget builder below to create your free Telegram Chat widget for your website. Enter your Telegram username, change the widget appearance, and get the embed code.
Social Share Widgets
Social share widgets are among the most popular social media widgets for growing a business. They assist website owners in driving free referral traffic from social networks by allowing visitors to share the link to a page on their social accounts.
Here are several services you can use to create social sharing buttons for your websites.
Elfsight Social Share Buttons
Elfsight’s Social Share Buttons widget consists of many templates and customization options that allow you to select which buttons to primarily show on the widget and change the appearance.
Key features:
- Templates – Elfsight’s Social Media Share app has different templates and layout positions. For example, you can position social share buttons in content or use them as a floating widget.
- 45+ social media sites supported – Elfsight’s Social Media Share buttons support over 45 different networks, including popular ones like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, WeChat, Messenger, Buffer, Digg, and Amazon. You can choose which buttons to show up and which order easily. Also, users can click on the “+” (plus icon) to get the list of all other available social sharing buttons.
- Share Preferences – Specify how to open the Share window (new browser window (usually a popup window), or new tab) and which URL to share. By default, the widget shares the page it was installed.
Creating a social share widget for website
Use the free social share widget creator below to build your widget.
AddToAny
AddToAny is a free social share button widget provider and a close alternative to AddThis, a terminated social media widget provider. It supports 80+ social, email, and content distribution and blogging platforms and provides JavaScript API to customize message add URL parameters to integrate with your current website or app setup.
Key features:
- 60+ social media services supported – Popular social networks and services like Buffer, Pocket, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, and Trello.
- Customization – Choose primary networks to highlight on AddToAny social share buttons, use JavaScript API to customize messages, and more.
- Google Analytics integrations – Like it’s essential to use a quality click-tracking tool when running marketing campaigns to calculate ROI, and so does a website traffic-tracking tool to monitor performance across different channels. The integration with Google Analytics allows you to seamlessly track the life cycle of a lead generated from a social share widget.
- Share Event Handling & Modifying – Track actions on AddToAny widgets with analytics software like Segment, Adobe Analytics (Omniture), Piwik, Webtrends, and more with event logging and modifying messages, and utilize sharing URLs to optimize your social share widget.
- Sharing buttons for emails – Let subscribers share your newsletters by embedding AddToAny social sharing buttons on email campaigns.
Shareaholic
Shareaholic is another free social media widget provider with a wide range of common features. It provides website tools for website owners, such as In-Page Share Buttons, Share Buttons for Images, Floated Share Buttons, and advertising solutions for media buyers.
Key features:
- 90+ social networks are supported – Shareholic social share widget is highly customizable. Choose primary networks out of 90+ options, including share to Buffer, Whatsapp, Blogger, and WordPress blog, and add a ‘more options’ button to access other social network lists.
- Customization – Select a theme (out of four available options), change position (wrapped, box, etc.), layout (horizontal and vertical), size of the widget, color (native colors or custom colors), counter, and alignment to make your social share widget as user-friendly & blended to current theme style as possible.
- Call to action message – Add an encouraging message at the top of social sharing buttons to persuade social shares. You can choose an existing message (ex: Sharing is Caring, Share the Knowledge, Share the Wealth) or add your custom message.
- Targeting rules – Control where Share Buttons show on your site using Show & Hide options under the Targeting rules tab. You can target by URL path, device type (mobile, desktop), page tag, category & type. A perfect option is to hide social share buttons on certain pages, such as privacy policy, and show them on specific types of pages, such as blog post articles.
- Sharing settings – Sharing templates allow you to customize social share messages for specific networks. For example, you can insert a custom message for every tweet and add related Twitter accounts. This custom message can be made dynamic by using ${title}, ${link}, ${short_link}, ${description}, ${notes}, and ${source} placeholder variables. Also, you can use a URL shortener provided by Shareaholic (options: Bitly, TinyURL, Shr.Ic) and let Shareaholic automatically sort Share Buttons based on what is converting the best for a given page further to optimize your social sharing buttons for optimal results.
- Analytics – Enable Google Analytics UTM Campaign Tracking and Social Interactions Tracking services to monitor referral traffic, leads, sales, and ROI right from your Google Analytics account.
Social Media Follow Widgets
One way to increase your social media following for free is by embedding a social media follow widget on your website. So, your loyal readers can follow you and your business pages on their preferred network to get updates.
Here are a few services to use to create social media follow widgets:
- Elfsight Social Media Icons
- Powr Social Media Icons
- CommonNinja’s Social Media Links
- AddToAny
- Shareaholic
- ShareThis
Elfsight Social Media Icons
Social Media Icons widget by Elfsight provides 50+ ready-to-use icons with adjustable sizes, 5 predefined icon styles, 3 icon shape options, and 5 variants of animations.
Use the following widget builder to create a social follow icons widget.
Key features:
- Arrange icons – Choose icons among 50+ options, choose icon shape and style, and adjust the size.
- Floating or inline – Choose a preferred layout for the icon widget.
- Colors – Use native colors or a solid color scheme.
Shareaholic
Shareaholic provides social follow buttons for websites with various customization options.
Key features:
- 60 social media icons supported – Includes Patreon, Meetup, Etsy, Yelp, iTunes, Spotify, and Twitch services.
- Designing tools – Use a preferred theme and other tools to change the layout, size of icons, position, and alignment.
Social Testimonials Widgets
According to many studies like this, online reviews impact consumers’ purchasing behavior. Based on the “How Online Reviews Influence Sales” report by Spiegel Research Center, even five reviews can increase the likelihood of a purchase by up to 270% compared to products without any reviews.
Social review platforms where the public can leave their reviews, such as Facebook and Google Place, let you embed reviews on your site with ratings.
Elfsight All-in-One Reviews widget
Elfsight provides several website review widgets, including the Amazon Reviews widget and Yelp Reviews widget. Its All-in-One Reviews widget supports 30+ review platforms and offers many features.
Key features:
- 30+ business review platforms supported – One of the benefits of using Elfsight’s All-in-One Reviews widget is that you can fetch reviews from platforms such as Apple Appstore, Google Playstore, and Tripadvisor.
- 6 layout variants – Find an optimum position for your reviews on the page with available six layout variants: List, Masonry, Grid, Carousel, Floating Badge, and Embeddable Badge.
- Moderate reviews – Choose which reviews and how they should be displayed on your site. Facebook reviews are displayed with the reviewer’s profile picture and link to the profile on Facebook, making the reviews as authentic as they are.
- Customization – Change the review card style, widget width, color schemes, fonts, and more.
Creating a review widget for your website
Use the All-in-One Reviews widget builder below.
Twitter Testimonials widgets
You can utilize positive tweets about your business to make positive changes for your business. Here are a few Twitter testimonials widgets providers:
Creating a Twitter testimonials widget for website
Choose the “Testimonials” template from the following widget builder, customize the widget, and get the embed code.
Related: Best Facebook Reviews widgets for websites
Social Media Giveaway Widgets
These widgets are one of underused social media widgets by marketers and business owners. Using social media giveaway widgets, you can accomplish many positives:
- Drive free referral traffic to your website
- Generate free leads for your business
- Boost followers across your social media pages
- Increase brand awareness for your business
- Make a positive picture of your business among people
You can use many social media giveaway platforms to create giveaways, contests, hashtag competitions, etc. Here are some:
SweepWidget
SweepWidget is a social media giveaway platform and a cost-effective alternative to Gleam. It integrates with popular social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat and lets you create contests to increase followers and engagement on your social accounts.
Key features:
- 30+ social media platforms integrated – Grow your followers by setting up entry methods with social media platforms. Potential participants must follow your guideline (i.e., follow you on the specified social platform) in order to join the sweepstake. And with the refer-a-friend feature, participants can share their unique link among their followers and friends on social networks and get free social media followers.
- Custom actions – Rescue your dull social media pages by encouraging sweepstake participants to share your posts and comment on them with custom actions.
- Social-media-specific contests – From Instagram Hashtag competitions and Twitch stream giveaways to Pin-to-Win contests, you can create many campaigns to increase your social media pages’ visibility.
- Embed widget on your website – Sweepwidget’s giveaway widget is compatible with all page builders, and you can install it by copying and pasting the HTML code on your site.
Alternatively, you can use other services like UpViral to hold social media contests.
Other Social Media Widgets
Facebook comments widget
Facebook comments let your site visitors drop comments on your site using their Facebook account and even share the comment on their accounts. Since it’s required to have a Facebook account to drop a comment and search engine bots can crawl the content, the Facebook Comments widget is a good social media add-on for your website.
Previously, we covered how to add a custom Facebook comments box for Blogger with notifications enabled. The process involves custom coding. However, you can generate embed code for the Facebook comments plugin for your website using the following visual widget builder:
Social content locker widgets
These widgets let you offer premium content or content upgrades for free for your site visitors. Website users can download those digital products by unlocking the content by sharing the current page or a specific URL on their social accounts.
Here are a few social content locker widgets for websites:
- Convertful (read our case study here)
- Social Share & Locker Pro WordPress Plugin
- Super Social Content Locker WordPress Plugin
Social Media Plugins for WordPress
If you are using WordPress to manage your website, there are a few WordPress social media plugins you can use to add different social-media-based actions. Here are some:
- RankMath – Optimize your WordPress for social media. Add Open Graph data and create unique blog post featured images for each network and more.
- SocialSnap – Provide social share & follow buttons and tools like social content lockers for WordPress sites.
- Super Socializer – The free social plugin to lets you integrate Social Login, Social Share, Social Comments (Facebook), and Social media follow widgets on your WordPress website.
- Novashare – A lightweight social media plugin for WordPress.
- Nextend Social Login and Register – Plugin lets website visitors register and log in to your site using their social profiles (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
- WPSocialNinja – It is a WordPress social tool that fetches social feeds, user reviews, and social chat widgets to your website.
- Better Click To Tweet – Create tweetable content for your readers using a shortcode or Gutenberg block.
- Social Warfare – Another social sharing WordPress plugin with features such as click-to-tweet quotes.
- Feed Them Social – Create and display customizable social feeds for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.
- Blog2Social – Auto-post, re-share, cross-post, and auto-schedule your content across multiple social platforms with the Blog2Social social media automation plugin.
Related: Best HTML Widgets for WordPress to Use without Plugins
Final words on best social media widgets for websites
Social media plays a crucial role in diversifying your website traffic and managing brand recognization & reputation. You can use social media marketing tools such as ContentStudio and Awario to manage your business’s digital social presence.
For instance, ContentStudio lets you automatically share articles posted on your site, schedule posts on social media pages, analyze the performance of your pages, and find social media influencers.
But, if you want to optimize your site for social media and make it easy to share your pages and find you on social networks, you should use social media widgets.
In this article, you found different types of top social media widgets for your site.
So, which social media website components do you currently use and recommend for others?