AccessPress Social Counter is perfect plugin to show your social media counts. To display the social counts you can add the Social Counter widget or shortcode [aps-counter] in your website. The plugin comes with 5 predefined themes. It uses the latest APIs to fetch data and comes with auto updates on all APIs. The plugin features drag and drop to display the order for selected social media. In this post, I will show Setup AccessPress Social Counter Plugin in WordPress.
Features of AccessPress Social Counter Plugin
The plugin includes Social media networks like, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, Sound Cloud, Dribbble plus Posts and Comments count. Some of the features of “AccessPress Social Counter Plugin” are listed below:
- 7 social media included (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Youtube, Sound Cloud and Dribble)Latest use of APIs to fetch data
- Option to select which Social Media Profile to show
- Cache setting – you can set a cache period to avoid frequent API calls
- Fully Responsive – compatible with mobile devices
- Support – Dedicated email, forum support
Premium Features
When the plugin is upgraded to its premium version, you can have much more features including the above general features. Some of the premium features are listed below:
- Major 18 social media included (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, SoundCloud, Dribbble, Youtube, Steam, Vimeo, Pinterest, Forrst, VK, Flickr, Behance, Github, Envato,Posts, Comments)
- Beautifully designed 20 themes to select from
- Floating Sidebar with 5 beautiful themes
- Popup sharing and many more..
Setup AccessPress Social Counter Plugin in WordPress
Step 1. Install AccessPress Social Counter Plugin and Activate the Plugin
In the first step, installing “AccessPress Social Counter” can be done either by searching for “AccessPress Social Counter” via “WordPress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New” as shown below.
You can also use the following steps for installing the “AccessPress Social Counter Plugin” in your WordPress dashboard.
- Download the plugin.
- Upload the ZIP file through WordPress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New > Upload screen in your WordPress dashboard
- Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
Once the plugin is installed and activated you will find a new menu named “AccessPress Social Counter” being added in the left menu bar of the admin menu bar.
Step 2: AccessPress Social Counter Plugin Settings
From the Dashboard menu, click “AccessPress Social Counter” to open settings of the plugin.
Social Profiles
In the Social Profiles tab we configure the necessary API credentials for social media you want to be display in your website. To display the social profiles with counter, you can either use [aps-counter] Shortcode or you can use “AccessPress Social Counter Widget” from Appearance’s widget section. For displaying the Social Profiles provided by this plugin with its Counter you first need to integrate your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Youtube, Sound Cloud, Dribble) into your website. You need to get the page ID’s or page name from your social media account and other relative information and fill them out in the corresponding blocks to take the advantages of “AccessPress Social Counter Plugin“.
Display Settings
Display Settings tab help you to configure the ordering list of the social counter icons using the drag and drop functionality. Here you can choose one of the default themes provided by the plugin.
Counter Format
The counter format option provide the numbering format inside the Social Media Icon.
Font and Frontend CSS
These options provides CSS to the Social Media Icons that’s being displayed in your website. You can have your own CSS for the icons or use the default CSS provide by the plugin.
Cache Settings
A cache is a period that can be set up in order to avoid the frequent API calls for share counts. The plugin has inbuilt caching method to prevent the frequent API calls due to which your website won’t get slow down.
System Status
The System Status provides information about your plugin configuration. Unless the fsockopen and cURL is not enabled and also wp_remote_get is not well working in your server, you wont be able to use the plugin features in your website. So you must assure they are well working in your server.
How To Use
How to Use tab provides the information about the using of this plugin. It has summarized content that helps you to provide the required things in the empty blocks of every tabs. The important thing is listed in How to Use tab such as the using of the shortcode in your post/blog, proper use of the parameters and much more. You can use these shortcode shown in this page to add to individual posts or pages.
Step 3: Create a Post/Page and Insert Shortcode to Your Post/Page
To create a new page, go to Dashboard > Pages >Add New and for post go to Dashboard > Posts >Add New. Insert the Shortcode provided by the plugin. In this post I have added the Shortcode of Facebook and Google Plus. Copy the shortcode from How to use tab as shown above.
Click on the Publish/Update tag to see the Social Media Icon being added in your post. You can also use widget provided by the plugin.
Step 4: Viewing Social Media Buttons in Your Site
The screenshot below shows how the Social Media Icon appears.
In this way, you can setup AccessPress Social Counter Plugin in WordPress. There are many social sharing plugins for WordPress. Finding the best among them is quite tricky. You can try this plugin in your website.