Promoting your content on social media is an integral part of digital marketing and is just as important as creating it. One effective way to increase views and drive more traffic to your website is to share your posts on the relevant social networks. Whenever you post new content on your site, sharing it on social media is ideal. This can be done either manually or automatically using web services or plugins.

Manual sharing is convenient because you can add an individual post description for each social network rather than sending out the same thing. However, it is also a time-consuming process and one day you just might not have time to share your new post manually. That’s why using plugins that help you share WordPress posts automatically is a good solution.

In this article we will describe two of them: NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster and Jetpack.

NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster

The NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster (SNAP) plugin is a great tool that can automatically share your WordPress posts to social networks. It supports over 30 social media platforms, such as Instagram, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube and more.
The plugin can be installed via the WP Dashboard > Plugins > Add New section. Type the name of the plugin in the search field and then click the Install Now button.

After installing and activating the plugin you can start to add your social media accounts by navigating to SNAP AutoPoster > Accounts.

Clicking the Add new account button will reveal the dropdown list of the supported social networks. You can configure as many social media sites as you need.

For example, if you configure a Facebook account, there are two different APIs supported by SNAP: Native Facebook API and NextScripts API for Facebook. Native Facebook API is an official and free built-in API from Facebook, and also it requires review and approval from Facebook.

NextScripts API for Facebook is a premium API from SNAP with extended functionality and an annual fee.

In the plugin section screen you can find the list of detailed instructions on how to configure whichever social network you choose to share your WordPress posts automatically.

Jetpack Publicize

Jetpack is a free plugin that provides many essential features for your WordPress site, and one such great feature is Publicize. Jetpack Publicize allows you to share your latest WordPress posts automatically to all social media networks. When you click the Publish button in the post editor, Jetpack will publish your post automatically to all configured social networks.

The Jetpack plugin is available in the WordPress repository and it also can be installed via the WP Dashboard > Plugins section.

Once the plugin is installed and activated, you will be prompted to set up Jetpack. Click the Set up Jetpack button.

Then log in to your WordPress.com account and click Approve to connect your site with Jetpack.

When the connection is complete, you can navigate to Jetpack > Settings > Sharing and enable the “Automatically share your posts to social networks” option in the Publicize connections block.

After enabling Publicize, click the “Connect your social media accounts” link and you will be redirected to your wordpress.com dashboard in Tools > Marketing > Connections to configure your social network accounts.

Once social network settings are complete, go back to your site’s dashboard and create a new post. You’ll see the Jetpack icon in the top right corner where you can enable/disable automatic post sharing.

If you publish your new post, Jetpack Publicize will share it to the connected social networks automatically.

Conclusion

Sharing your posts on social networks is a great opportunity to drive more traffic to your WordPress site. You can share posts manually with unique descriptions for each social network, but the process is time-consuming, and you may forget or simply not have much time to do it. In contrast to manual sharing, you can use 3rd party plugins to share your WordPress posts automatically. In this article, we described two of the most popular plugins you can use: NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster and Jetpack with its Publicize feature.

In addition to the above plugins, you can also use IFTTT, which provides the ability to share posts automatically and much more.