Share buttons let a reader pass your page on without copying the address by hand. The Social Sharing widget adds them anywhere in an Elementor layout.
This page covers the widget end to end: the three layouts, what each button actually opens, and the fields inside the repeater. The two layout-specific walkthroughs are linked at the bottom.
Requirement – This widget is a part of The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro, make sure it’s installed & activated to enjoy all its powers.
Before You Start
- Edition: Pro. The widget ships only in The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro – with Pro switched off, a page holding the widget renders nothing at all, not even a notice.
- Prerequisite: Elementor (free) installed and active.
- Widget to enable: go to The Plus Addons > Widgets, search for Social Sharing and turn its toggle on.
- Where to put it: the buttons share the post or page they sit on, so put them in a single-post template or on the page you want shared.
Steps
- Add the Social Sharing widget to the page or template.
- In the Content tab, open Social Sharing and pick a Layout: Horizontal, Vertical or Toggle.
- Pick a look under Style. It is a row of pictures, not a list of names, and the pictures change with the layout you chose.
- Choose a View Type – what each button shows. This one is not available for the Toggle layout.
- Open the Social Sharing repeater and set up one row per network.
View Type
View Type decides what is drawn inside each button. It ships on Icon Text.
| Option | What the button shows |
|---|---|
| Icon | The network icon only |
| Icon Count | Icon plus the count you typed |
| Text | The Title only |
| Text Count | Title plus the count you typed |
| Icon Text | Icon and Title (the default) |
| Icon Text Count | Icon, Title and the count you typed |
Every count in this widget is a number you type. The widget makes no request to any network, so the figures are decorative – useful for a launch, misleading if you leave them at the defaults.
Layout settings
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Layout | Horizontal, Vertical or Toggle | Horizontal |
| Style | The look, chosen from pictures; a separate control per layout | Style 1 |
| View Type | What each button shows (hidden for Toggle) | Icon Text |
| Column | How many columns the row wraps into; Horizontal only | Auto |
| Alignment | Left, centre or right, per device | Left |
| Content Alignment | How icon and text sit inside each button | Left |
| Display Counter | Shows the single total beside the row | Hide |
| Total Share | The total figure, free text | 1.2K |
| Share Label | The word under the total | Share |
The Social Sharing repeater
Each row is one button. The widget ships with four: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and one whose Title reads Linkedln, with a lower-case L where the i should be – set the Title yourself rather than publishing that.
| Field | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Social Network | Which network this button shares to | |
| Title | The label shown for Text and Icon Text view types | Network |
| Count Number | The per-button figure you type | 7 |
| Count Label | A word after that figure | empty |
| Social Button | Extra text after the counter | empty |
| Custom URL | Send this button somewhere of your choosing | off |
| Custom URL Link | The address it goes to instead | empty |
Each row also has Normal and Hover tabs with Title Color, Count Number Color, Count Label Color, Icon Color and Border Color.
What each button opens
Every button is an ordinary link. The widget builds its address from the post you are looking at – its permalink, its title and its featured image – not from anything you type. These are the addresses we read off a published page:
| Button | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| facebook.com/sharer.php with the page address | |
| twitter.com/intent/tweet with the page title and address | |
| linkedin.com/shareArticle with the page address and title | |
| api.whatsapp.com/send with the title and address as text | |
| pinterest.com/pin/create/button with the page address and the featured image | |
| instagram.com – the home page, with no reference to yours |
The total counter in that shot is the Total Share and Share Label defaults, 1.2K and Share, drawn in capitals by the widget’s own styling.
How It Behaves
- Custom URL overrides everything. Switch it on in a row, give it a Custom URL Link, and that button goes there instead of to the network. We checked this: the row’s link became exactly the address we typed while the other rows kept their share addresses.
- Style is a picture chooser, not a dropdown, and there is a separate one per layout – Style for Horizontal and Vertical, Toggle Style for Toggle. Switching the layout switches which pictures you see.
- Column only exists for the Horizontal layout, with Auto and 1 to 5.
- Alignment is responsive, so you can align the row differently on desktop, tablet and mobile. On Horizontal it is hidden for two of the five styles.
- Display Counter is off by default and is not offered at all for the Toggle layout.
Styling
The Style tab holds Title, Counter, Icon, Toggle, Total Counter and Background. Which of them appear depends on your layout and view type: Toggle only shows for the Toggle layout, and Total Counter only once Display Counter is on.
Limitations
- The Instagram button does not share your page. It opens Instagram’s home page with no link back to you. Instagram has no web share endpoint, so leave it out unless you only want a link to your profile.
- Pinterest needs a featured image. The widget passes the post’s featured image to Pinterest; on a post that has none, it passes nothing and there is no image to pin.
- The counts are not real. Count Number, Count Label, Total Share and Share Label are plain text fields.
- Icons can come out blank on a page that loads nothing else from Font Awesome – we saw dark squares instead of logos until Font Awesome’s stylesheet was present.
- We checked six networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Pinterest and Instagram. The dropdown offers many more, and we did not test them.
- We read the address each button opens; we did not post anything to any network.
Troubleshooting
Nothing renders where the buttons should be
The Pro plugin is not active. Social Sharing is Pro-only and outputs no markup without it.
The buttons are dark squares with no logos
Font Awesome is not loading on that page. Add any element that brings it in, or enqueue it in your theme.
A button shares the wrong page
The widget always shares the post it is rendered on. Inside a single-post template that is the post being viewed; on a static page it is that page. Use Custom URL if you need a fixed address.
The Pinterest button offers no image
Set a featured image on the post.
My buttons show a share count I did not set
Count Number ships at 7 in every row. Clear it, or pick a view type without Count.
