=== Social Media Share Buttons - Socialized ===
Contributors: tessawatkinsllc
Donate link: https://just1voice.com/donate/
Tags: share, share buttons, social media, analytics, fontawesome
Tested up to: 6.7
Stable tag: 4.1.1
License: GPLv3 or higher
License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

Add social media sharing buttons that automatically tracks acquisitions compatible with Google Analytics, Piwik Pro, and more!

== Description ==

Socialized adds social media sharing buttons to your posts, pages, and custom post types that are automatically integrated with Google Analytics using campaign parameters. When a user shares your post using these buttons, they can share a vanity URL that is either automatically generated or customized by you and is specific to that button. When another user on social media then clicks on that shared link, the vanity URL redirects them to your page with analytics tracking automatically.

By adding campaign parameters to the destination URLs, you can collect information about the overall efficacy of these campaigns, and also understand where the campaigns are more effective. For example, your “Summer Sale” campaign might be generating lots of revenue, but if you’re running the campaign on several social media platforms, you’ll want to know which of them is sending you the customers who generate the most revenue. Or if you’re running different versions of the campaign via email, video ads, and in-app ads, you can compare the results to see where your marketing is most effective.

The campaign parameters that are automatically added are sent to Google Analytics when a user clicks on one of the shared links, and the related data is available in the campaigns reports. Below is a list of the campaign parameters that are added and their possible values:

* `utm_id` - value: `socialized`
* `utm_source` - possible value(s): `facebook` | `twitter` | `linkedin` | `bluesky` | `pinterest` | `email` | `vanity-url`
* `utm_medium` - possible value(s): `social` | `email` | `vanity-url`
* `utm_content` - possible value(s): `socialized-share-link`
* `utm_campaign` - value: `socialized` | or define in *Settings*
* `utm_term` - value:  Defined by typing in the text field in the metabox on the post or page | or the “Focus keyphrase” by Yoast SEO
* `utm_creative_format` - value: `user-share-link`
* `utm_marketing_tactic` - value: `prospecting`

= Shortened URLs =

This plugin can automatically shorten your URLs _without_ using any external URL shortener services or APIs! This makes it so _your_ website's domain is still the one being shared. You can also customize your short URLs.

Your permalink struture will not be affected. The randomly generated vanity URLs are automatically created when you save the post. [Learn more](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033863) about custom campaigns in Google.

= Analytics Ready =

When users click on your shortened URLs that get shared out in the wild, they automatically have customized parameters assigned. Google Analytics 4 automatically picks up on the UTM parameters but other analytics platforms like Piwik, Matomo, and any other home-grown platform!

= Performance Friendly =

All images have been optimized, minified JS and CSS, and you can choose to disable FontAwesome if your site is already loading it. JavaScript loads in the footer either asynchronously or with deferred loading to prevent impacting your site's performance score.

= Simple HTML & CSS =

If you want to customize the look and feel, the HTML and CSS are very simple so that they can be easily overridden by you.

== Installation ==

There are three (3) ways to install my plugin: automatically, upload, or manually.

= Install Method 1: Automatic Installation =

Automatic installation is the easiest option as WordPress handles the file transfers itself and you don't need to leave your web browser.

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
1. Navigate to **Plugins > Add New**.
1. Where it says "Keyword" in a dropdown, change it to "Author"
1. In the search form, type `TessaWatkinsLLC` (results may begin populating as you type but my plugins will only show when the full name is there)
1. Once you've found my plugin in the search results that appear, click the **Install Now** button and wait for the installation process to complete.
1. Once the installation process is completed, click the **Activate** button to activate my plugin.
1. After this plugin is activated, see below for additional instructions for setup.

= Install Method 2: Upload via WordPress Admin =

This method is a little more involved. You don't need to leave your web browser, but you'll need to download and then upload the files yourself.

1. [Download my plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/socialized/) from WordPress.org; it will be in the form of a zip file.
1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
1. Navigate to **Plugins > Add New**.
1. Click the **Upload Plugin** button at the top of the screen.
1. Select the zip file from your local file system that was downloaded in step 1.
1. Click the **Install Now** button and wait for the installation process to complete.
1. Once the installation process is completed, click the **Activate** button to activate it.
1. After this plugin is activated, see below for additional instructions for setup.

= Install Method 3: Manual Installation =

This method is the most involved as it requires you to be familiar with the process of transferring files using an SFTP client.

1. [Download my plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/socialized/) from WordPress.org; it will be in the form of a zip file.
1. Unzip the contents; you should have a single folder named `socialized`.
1. Connect to your WordPress server with your favorite SFTP client.
1. Copy the folder from step 2 to the `/wp-content/plugins/` folder in your WordPress directory. Once the folder and all of its files are there, installation is complete.
1. Now log in to your WordPress dashboard.
1. Navigate to **Plugins > Installed Plugins**. You should now see my plugin in your list.
1. Click the **Activate** button under my plugin to activate it.
1. After this plugin is installed and activated, see below for additional instructions for setup.

= After Plugin Activation =

1. Navigate to **Tools > Socialized** to change any *global settings* to fit your needs.
1. When creating new posts or editing existing ones, use the meta box to configure settings specific to that post.
1. Publish your post to see the buttons on the page.

== Screenshots ==

1. An example of the social media sharing buttons being displayed vertically along the left side of the post content.
2. An example of the social media sharing buttons being displayed veritcally along the right side of the post content.
3. An example of the social media sharing buttons being displayed horizontally across the top of the post content.
4. An example of the social media sharing buttons being displayed horizontally across the bottom of the post content.
5. The default appearance of the social media sharing buttons using images. There is no hover state.
6. The default appearance of the social media sharing buttons using FontAwesome icons. When active, focused, or hovering over a button, the icon animates to be rounded. E.g. the Bluesky button. Title attributes offer accessibility.
7. The default appearance of the social media sharing buttons as text links. When active, focused, or hovering over a button, the button animates the background and text colors to swap.
8. The Socialized plugin metabox when creating/editing a post. This screenshot shows it with [Gutenberg] Blocks enabled but it is also compatible with Classic WordPress.
9. The display settings allows you to control where you want the buttons to display in regards to the content, what type of button to use, and whether or not you want to load FontAwesome.
10. The Sharing Platforms settings allows you to individually disable or enable the sharing buttons.
11. The Link Tracking settings allows you to customize the `utm_campaign` parameter and other related settings.
12. The Advanced Settings allows you to address a known bug with sticky elements, whether to use the shortlinks, and define which post types to apply this functionality to.
13. The backend also features a list of all sharable items and their current analytics if you don't have an external one being used.
14. The about page in the backend.
15. If adding the plugin to an existing site, this button will generate shortlinks for all of those posts. Also useful if modifying which post types to apply this to.
16. Acquisition report in Google Analytics identifies sources of traffic from the people that arrived by clicking on links shared by users on their respective platforms. Traditionally, when people share the default URL or permalink, this traffic goes untracked.

== Frequently Asked Questions ==

= What platforms are supported? =

Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Bluesky, Pinterest, email, and copying to clipboard (for sites with SSL enabled) are supported.

= Can I change the name of the campaign? =

Yes! You can change the name of the campaign, or the value of `utm_campaign`, from the plugin settings page.

= Can I change the vanity URL? =

Yes! When a new post is created, a random string will be generated for that post, but you can edit it to be whatever you want. However, it will be suffixed with a dash and a character to recognize the platform and map it to the correct campaign parameters.

= Does this affect my page's URL, permalink, or canonical URL? =

No. This won't have any effect on your page's URL, permalink, permalink settings, or canonical URL. The vanity URL is simply another way of getting to your page but with the added Google campaign parameters automatically added. This plugin does not create any new pages, only redirects, so there won't be any duplicate content issues.

= Does this affect my page's SEO or “page rank”? =

It will not harm your page's SEO. Since the vanity URLs redirect using 301 permanent redirects, the “page rank” is transferred to your original page, preserving your SEO value.

= Does this affect my domain authority? =

Yes, but in a good way! Using a URL shortener service like bit.ly or TinyURL gets a miniscule amount of “domain authority” when pages are redirected through their domains since it is ultimately their URL that gets shared on other websites. You actually gain this bonus back when it is your domain that gets shared instead.

= How does it choose an image to share on Pinterest? =

If there is an image in the content of your article, it will find the first one and use that. Otherwise, it will fall back to using the featured image. If no image is associated with the article, then Pinterest will display all of the images found on the page, allowing the user to select which they want to use.

= What icons do you have? =

You can choose between lossless PNG images, [Font Awesome](https://fontawesome.com/?ref=socialized-wordpress-plugin) icons, or text. The HTML is simple so you can easily change the appearance with CSS.

= Is this compatible with the Yoast SEO plugin? =

Yes! If you leave the "Campaign Term" blank in the metabox on your page, the `utm_term` value will default to your page's "focus keyphrase" in Yoast SEO's metabox.

== Upgrade Notice ==

= 4.1.1 =
Nothing big, just some bug fixes. See [the changelog](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/socialized/trunk/changelog.txt) for more details.

== Changelog ==

= 4.1.1 =

**Release Date: April 9, 2025**

* Fixed a bug for email sharing that double-encrypted the shared URL (ticket WP-1019).
* Updated the FontAwesome handle to remove the extra hyphen so it reads "socialized_fontawesome" instead of "socialized_-fontawesome"

= 4.1.0 =

**Release Date: March 5, 2025**

* Updated FontAwesome assets to version 6.7.1
* Added Bluesky sharing button
* Fixed a bug for Pinterest sharing that would sometimes try to send the text "No image available" instead of an empty string.

= 4.0.0 =

**Release Date: September 27, 2023**

* Updated FontAwesome assets to version 6.4.2
* Updated Twitter icon to X
* Updated backend admin logo and UI to match other AuRise Creative plugins
* Overhauled plugin code to be more consistent with other AuRise Creative plugins
* Values for the checkbox/switch plugin options are now stored as `1` or `0` instead of the strings `true` and `false`. DB will update automatically when updating to this version or later.
* Option to individually show or hide the different platforms are now available in the settings
* Filter added to `get_the_excerpt` to remove the text generated by Socialized from appearing
* Using aria-hidden attribute on the "Copied!" tooltip for the vanity URL to improve accessibility
* added `utm_id` paramter with the value of `socialized` to all redirecting URLs for Google Analytics 4
* added `utm_creative_format` paramter with the value of `user-share-link` to all redirecting URLs for Google Analytics 4
* added `utm_marketing_tactic` parameter with the value of `prospecting` to all redirecting URLs for Google Analytics 4
* Displays the query in the backend
* Removed /languages folder in plugin to use WordPress Translate instead

= 3.0.4 =

**Release Date: July 21, 2023**

* Update: marked the plugin ready for WordPress core version 6.3
* Update: updated the `wp_register_script()` and `wp_enqueue_script()` functions to load assets with `async` and `defer` attributes

= 3.0.3 =

**Release Date: October 27, 2022**

* Fix: Added the `nofollow` value to the `rel` attribute for frontend sharing links to help reduce unnecessary crawling by search engines.

= Older Releases =

Please see our [additional changelog.txt file](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/socialized/trunk/changelog.txt)