How to Add Social Share Buttons to WordPress Image Galleries

Last updated on Aug 12, 2024 by Southie Williamson Reader Disclosure

Are you looking to add social share buttons to your WordPress site? Including social sharing buttons in your image galleries is a powerful way to extend your reach and showcase your work to a broader audience.

Social sharing on images not only amplifies your photos’ visibility across various platforms but also drives more traffic to your site, which can boost your search engine rankings.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps to easily add social share buttons to your WordPress image galleries.

What Are Social Share Buttons?

Social share buttons are interactive icons displayed on websites that allow visitors to easily share content, such as images, blog posts, or videos, directly to their social media platforms. These buttons typically feature the logos of popular social platforms.

When a visitor clicks on a social share button, they can quickly post the content to their social media profile, along with a link back to the original website. This can increase your content’s visibility and reach while driving more traffic to your site. For website owners, social sharing is a powerful tool for boosting engagement, promoting brand awareness, and enhancing search engine optimization (SEO).

How to Add Social Share Buttons to WordPress Galleries

Envira Gallery is the best premium WordPress gallery plugin, allowing you to create beautiful image and video displays using a drag-and-drop builder and multiple layouts. It includes social media sharing buttons for galleries, albums, and lightbox images.

Visitors can easily share your photos or galleries on popular social networks such as Facebook, X (Twitter), Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Plus, Envira Gallery offers tons of advanced gallery features such as:

• Filterable galleries and albums using tags
• Built-in image compression
• Dynamic galleries to display content from other sources like blog posts, testimonials, Instagram posts, and more
• Deeplinking for SEO
• Watermarking, image protection, and password-protected galleries
• Client image proofing
• Integration with Adobe Lightroom, WooCommerce, and popular page builders like Elementor and Beaver Builder
• And lots more!

To get started, head to the pricing page and grab a license. You’ll need a Pro license to access the social share features.

Step 1: Install Envira Gallery

Once you’ve purchased a Pro license, download the plugin’s ZIP file from your account area. Then head to your WordPress site and Install and Activate it on your site.

Need help with installing the plugin? You can see our step-by-step instructions here.

Once the plugin is activated, you’ll need to verify your license. You can find your license key in your purchase confirmation email or your Account area on the Envira Gallery website.

Then, go to Envira Gallery » Settings from your WordPress admin menu, paste your Envira License Key, and click Verify Key.

Step 2: Activate and Configure the Social Sharing Addon

Next, you’ll need to install and activate the required addon for social media sharing.

Go to Envira Gallery » Addons and look for the Social Addon. Click the Install button. After the button changes, click Activate.

Once the addon is activated, you’ll need to configure your settings for Facebook and Twitter.

Navigate to Envira Gallery » Settings and click the Social tab at the top. Enter your Facebook Application ID and Twitter Username in the given fields. You can click the documentation links for detailed instructions.

Make sure to press Save when you’re done! Now, you can create image galleries to add social share buttons to your photos.

Step 3: Create a New Image Gallery

To create your gallery, you’ll need to go to Envira Gallery » Add New. Simply add a title and choose your photos for the image gallery.

To learn more about creating your first gallery, check out our guide on How to Create a WordPress Photo Gallery.

Step 4: Enable Social Share Image Buttons

Now scroll down to the gallery settings panel and go to the Social tab.

Here, check the box next to Display social sharing buttons. You can enable social share icons for gallery thumbnails and lightbox images separately. Once enabled, you’ll see multiple social channels to choose from. You can also set the Position and Orientation of your social share buttons.

Additionally you can scroll down to the Advanced Settings section to further customize sharing options for Facebook, Pinterest, (X) Twitter, and Email.

Pro Tip: You can turn on WhatsApp social sharing in the Mobile tab of the settings panel.

Step 5: Publish Your Gallery with Social Sharing Icons

Now that you’ve added the social share buttons to your gallery images, simply hit the Publish button. Envira allows you to create standalone gallery URLs or embed the gallery anywhere on your site using Envira’s native Gutenberg block or a shortcode.

To add your gallery with social share buttons in the block editor, go to the post or page where you want to embed it. Click the + sign to add a new block and search for/select Envira Gallery. After adding the block, use the dropdown menu that appears to select your gallery.

Make sure to Update or Publish the post/page. Now go to your site to see the social share buttons added to your images.

If enabled, you’ll also see social share buttons on images in the lightbox view.

We hope this tutorial helped you to learn how to add social share buttons in WordPress image galleries!

Not using Envira Gallery? Get started today!

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out:

• Ultimate Guide to the Best WordPress Social Media Plugins
• Top Tools to Create Better Images for Blog Posts & Social Media
• How to Track Social Sharing of Your WordPress Gallery Images
• How to Market Your Photos on Social Media

Don’t forget to check out our blog and follow us on X (Twitter) for the best photography tips, resources, and WordPress tutorials.