Whether it is for fun or for your business, blog, or website, sharing great online content on social media is made easier by adding extensions to Chrome and Safari. They are free!
Throughout this course I have looked at several different web services that enable you to automate posting to social networks. Here I look at some helpful tools that will make the job even easier!
Sharing great articles, images and links you discover while browsing the web is a great way to build up your profile on social networks. People love discovering great content and when you share it with others, you help them to discover it too.
Sharing topics of interest is a good way to build the number of followers of your social accounts like Twitter, Facebook pages and groups, LinkedIn and so on. A large following makes you an important influencer and this is good if you run an online business, blog or website. It helps to drive traffic to your site, services or affiliate links.
If you have a site, it can be tempting to share just your own content, but you should also share other peoples too. If you see a fantastic article on the web, something that would be useful to your social followers, then share it with them.
Don’t worry about promoting other people’s content and don’t think you might lose people because you are sending them elsewhere. Share as many posts from other people as you share from your own site and oddly, it increases your visitors. People like people that share.
I have covered automating social shares and updates. Here are the tools you need to go with the services covered earlier – extensions for Google Chrome and Apple Safari that enable you to share web finds more easily on social networks.
You can share articles with a couple of clicks of the mouse and it can be scheduled to be shared across multiple social networks at a time and day of your choosing.
Add extensions to Chrome on a PC or Mac
Open Chrome on a PC or Mac. You can go through the menu to More tools, Extensions or use this geeky shortcut – type chrome://extensions into the address box. Click Get more extensions at the bottom of the page.
Use the search box to find the extensions below. Click them in the search results and click Add to Chrome to install them. They add a button to the right of the address box. Click the button to use the extension and share a link on social networks.
Add extensions to Safari on a Mac
To find the extensions covered here, open Safari on the Mac, go to the Safari menu and click Safari Extensions. They are all in the Social Networking category of Apple’s Extensions Gallery.
Click the Install link and a new button is added to the Safari toolbar. Click the button to use the extension and share a link on social networks.
Dlvr.it browser extension
Dlvr.it is one of the social media automation services covered earlier in the course and before the Safari extension can be used, you must sign up for an account at the website. Free accounts are available and it allows you to add up to three social accounts and post 10 times a day to each one.
Once you have joined, the Dlvr.it button can be clicked whenever you are browsing the web and want to share a link to the current page. A window opens that contains a ready-made social share. There is the page title, link and image preview.
You can choose the social networks to share to and the text can be edited if you want to change it. There are separate text boxes for Twitter, Facebook and so on because you can have longer descriptions on Facebook.
Social shares can be queued by clicking the button or three alternative options are available by clicking the arrow on the button. You can share the post now, share it next (using a schedule set up in your account on the site), or schedule it to be posted on any day at any time you choose.
This is a simple sharing facility that is useful and easy to use. It is recommended.
SocialPilot browser extension
SocialPilot is another web service for automating social shares covered earlier and it saves you time and effort. There is a free Starter plan that enables you to add up to three social networks and post 10 times a day to each of them. Up to 30 posts can be queued.
Sign up, log in, add your social accounts and then add the extension to Safari. It adds a button to the toolbar. When you find something you would like to share on social media, click the SocialPilot button in the toolbar and a window opens to enable you to see and customise the post.
You can choose which social accounts to post to and there is a nice preview of the post in the lower half of the window. It contains an image preview, title and description. The text of the post can be edited in the box at the top and a character counter lets you know how many remain for Twitter.
The Add to Queue button adds the post to a queue (you set up a posting schedule on the site), but clicking the arrow reveals four options. It can be shared now, shared next (jumps the queue if there are other shares waiting to be posted), you can schedule the post to occur on any day and time, and there is a Repeat Post option.
Posts can be repeated on a schedule, such as daily. That’s useful for Twitter where you need to repeat shares several times to maximize the number of people that see it.
This is another great extension for Safari and is recommended.
Buffer browser extension
Buffer is one of the best known social sharing automation services and many people use it to schedule updates. What you might not know is that there is a Safari extension that makes posting and scheduling social shares easier than visiting the website.
If you don’t have Buffer, sign up for a free account at the website. It supports the most popular social networks and lets you schedule up to 10 posts for each one.
After signing up and adding your social networks, add the Safari button and you can share your web finds. A nice feature of the Buffer extension is that it shows mini previews for each of the social networks.
There is a big difference between Twitter and Facebook for example, and customising the post for each service is simpler and more obvious. Click the one-line snippet and it shows the full post. You can then edit the text to make sure Twitter is under 140 characters and add more text to Facebook, which allows hundreds of characters.
The social share can be posted now, added to the queue (set a schedule at the website), or manually scheduled to occur on any day or time.
This is another recommended extension
Other social sharing extensions
There are other extensions that enable you to share web content on social sites, including a Pinterest button. Search the Chrome and Safari extensions for whatever services you are a member of.
There is no limit to the number of extensions you can have, so if you want all three of the ones covered above, then go ahead and install them all.
Action points
- Add extensions to Chrome or Safari to enable easy social shares
- Browse the web and when you discover something interesting, share it, either now or schedule it for later
Online Course: Automate social media sharing and updates
2 Automate social media with Buffer
3 Automate social media with Hootsuite
4 Automate social media with Recurpost
5 Automate Pinterest using BoardBooster
6 Automate social media with SocialPilot
7 Automate social media with Social Oomph
8 Automate social media with Dlvr.it
9 Shares with Chrome and Safari extensions
