There are many WordPress Social Media plugins that allow you to improve reader engagement. Promoting reader engagement involves keeping them interested and involved in your blog as well as encouraging them to participate in discussions and share your content with others on various social networks. Social engagement is important for improving the quality of your readership and growing traffic to your site. Fostering strong connections and improving customer engagement is vital to the long term success of your blog.

There are many ways to engage your readers, encourage participation and build an active community around your blog. The objectives are to develop a loyal customer base that visit your blog regularly, participate actively in discussions and share your content with others.

There are a wide range of WordPress plugins that promote social engagement and participation among visitors. This is a list of 10 popular Social engagement plugins that allows you to build quality readership and increase traffic to your blog.

1. Social Counters

This plugin combines social sharing with statistics from your key social network profiles.  It displays standard icons that allow users to share your content on various social networks as well as counters displaying the total count of shares on respective sites. It is a good alternative to standard sharing buttons. Counters displaying total shares provide social proof of the content’s popularity which can have a positive impact on user engagement and traffic.

2. Social Discussions

This plugin offers a number of features and integrates with many social networks. It allows you to automatically submit your blog posts on over 30 Social Networks including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious and more. It also provides detailed visitor statistics from these Social Networks without having to access it separately on Google Analytics or stats software. If you want to target many social sites, then this is the right plugin for you.

3. WP Social Toolbar

This is a plugin for adding a customisable toolbar stretchhing across the footer of your blog consisting of various social network icons, recent tweets and share buttons. You have full control over customising toolbar options including colours, social network icons, etc.

It offers an innovative way to display social networks on a toolbar that is fixed to the bottom edge of your browser offering better utilisation of space. This leaves you with valuable space on your blog which you can utilise for other elements.

4. Social Icons Box

It is somewhat similar to Social Toolbar however the toolbar is more compact and displayed on the left edge of the site. This plugin adds an expandable box floating at the left side of the screen. The floating box contains links to your various social network profiles. Over 50 social sites are supported and you can choose which social icons are displayed.

See image on the left.

5. Twitter @ Anywhere

This plugin offers a number of Twitter features on your blog.   One of its great features is the ability to display a Twitter box at the end of your blog posts that can be pre-filled with a default message including your post title and link, making it easy for users to tweet about your post with a single click. Bloggers have reported significant increases in twitter mentions as a result of this feature. Other features include auto-linking of usernames, hover-cards and follow and retweet buttons.

6. Tweet Old Post

Tweet Old Posts is a unique plugin designed to tweet your older posts to get more traffic. It is automated tool that randomly chooses and tweets your old posts in order to generate new interest in your content. It is an excellent way to promote your old content on your blog with minimal effort.

7. Comment Redirect

This is another great way to build your community by specifically targeting readers who comment on your posts. It allows you to provide specific information to your commentators. You can choose any page to redirect users who make their first comment. You can tailor the message on that page to meet your needs or encourage further participation. You can encourage them to register for your newsletter, subscribe to your feed or download your e-book and/or display a simple thank you message. The possibilities are endless.

8. CommentLuv

CommentLuv is a widely used WordPress plugin. It rewards your readers by automatically placing a link to their latest blog post at the end of their comment. It encourages readers to participate in discussions. This in-turn helps build a stronger community and offers an opportunity for readers to discover new content.

9. Show Top Commentators

This plugin lists users with the highest comments on your blog. It displays their names, links (if desired) and number of comments they have made on the sidebar. It is a great way to encourage participation from readers as it offers improved visibility to commentators together with the benefit of a valuable back-link.

10. Sociable

Sociable is a simple plugin that simply provides an option for readers to share content using any of the leading social networks. It does not auto post or retrieve content from social networks. It automatically adds links to your favourite social bookmarking sites on all of your posts, pages as well as your RSS feed.

There are many WordPress plugins to improve reader engagement and drive traffic from social media. These tools can help improve reader participation and build a strong community around your blog.

The author K.Singh is a London based Internet Consultant with over 10 years of experience working with established multi national businesses as well as SME’s.  He is an expert in  Web Design, Internet Marketing and E-Commerce.