Many blogs have a Popular Posts widget in their sidebar. It usually pulls the posts that have had the most visitors and displays a list of links so that new readers can find other interesting posts to read. I have one over there to the right that is from the WordPress Jetpack.
But there is another way to measure “popularity”: by how many times that post has been shared on social media. I was interested to find that there is a WordPress plugin that will show a list of posts that have been shared the most.
So I thought I’d test it. You can find it right down the bottom of my blog page and it looks something like the picture above. You can choose to show posts that have been shared on Facebook, Twitter or Google+. You can also choose whether you show the buttons and numbers or not. Once you download the plugin, you drag the widget into your sidebar and configure it.. You could actually use the same widget twice and show popular Facebook shares on one and popular Twitter shares on another.
To download to your WordPress blog, search for “Most Shared Posts” on the Plugin/ Add New page, or read more at the developer’s website.
This post was prompted by Deb from Home Life Simplified. Help it helps, Deb!
Do you have a WordPress or blogging question? Ask and I’ll see what I can do
Ohhh that’s a good way of checking the sucess of a post. Probably one of the better ways because visitors would only share it if it’s pretty good. Thanks for the heads uo.
You’re welcome, Penny.
I have applied that method on my blog checking the progress of my blog just got a lot way easier. It is the best.
Excellent, thanks for sharing. Rachel x
I looked for one of these ages ago, but couldn’t find what I wanted. Does it start counting from when you add it, or from all time?
Some of the popular post plugins counted spam visits, which is why I don’t use them cause they don’t give a true reading.
It says it goes back over all your posts and collects the share data from them. So it can take a little while but should eventually be accurate. So far mine looks pretty accurate.
Hello! Why do you give me new ideas?? I love coming here..but it’s like shopping for me now. I go “oh I like that idea” Seriously, thank you sooo much for sharing. I will upload this and am glad for your help and expertise.
Denyse who’s a visitor from #TeamIbot, and loves your colourful home page. *sigh*
Should I say “sorry”, Denyse? Maybe. But I’m glad to hear you find things you like here!
Awesome idea! I’m restraining from adding more plugins to my site at the moment because of conflicts and server usage but will keep this one under my belt!
I try to be selective too, Nikki. There are so many plugins out there but they do slow things down
This is a seriously great plugin. I’ve been using a modified version of ‘Popular Posts’ for a while but this looks way better!
Happy to help, Jon!