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Detailed Review of WordPress Plugin Monarch – Take Social Sharing to The Next Level
It’s not surprising that this plugin will amaze our eyes with its clean and slick design, after all, it’s designed from the company called Elegant themes.
Monarch is one of the simplest, but still extremely flexible plugins I’ve ever used for social sharing. You will be amazed from the options this extension has to offer. If you are looking for better social sharing experience, Monarch is the plugin for you.
Let me explain why this tool is the best and it will take social sharing to the next level: Detailed review of the WordPress Plugin Monarch.
What does this plugin actually do?
Describing in a couple of words: it will take social sharing to the next level. It’s obvious, it allows you to add buttons, so people can share you content through the web.
Who is this plugin for? And is it for you?
I would recommend Monarch plugin to most of you, but especially for someone building boutique sites. It will fit perfectly for those who have a clean and minimalist design. The large responsive buttons, the option to change the shape and the included styles are truly unique.
If your website falls in one of the following categories you should definitely add this plugin: Personal; Portfolio; Agencies; Business; Boutique stores.
Installing social sharing plugin Monarch
In order to download the .zip file containing the files for this amazing WordPress plugin, you will have to create an account with Elegant themes. However, the Personal subscription they offer, which is 69$ per year won’t cover downloading the plugin, you will need to go with either Developer package (89$ per year) or purchase Lifetime access (249$ one time fee).
Once the account is created, the installation itself is pretty straight forward. Download the files, and install the plugin from Plugins > Add new from inside your WordPress dashboard. So far so good, let’s see what this plugin has to offer.
Getting started with Monarch WordPress plugin
When accessing Monarch settings, you will immediately see all the different locations you can put the social sharing buttons. There are 5 different locations, but I must say that these options cover almost 100% of the places, you will want to add share it to FaceBook button:
Let’s see them one by one:
- Floating Sidebar. This is a very common, effective, and sleek way to add social sharing icons to any page on your website. It comes in with 3 different icon shapes and 5 different hover actions:
- Inline – Above and/or Below Content. This option is perfect for blog posts and pages you want your visitors to share with their audience. Monarch allows you to place sharing buttons either above the content area, below the content area, or in both locations. This option also comes with a couple of different shapes:
- Automatic pop-up. This option will allow you to create automatic pop-ups in different locations of your website. Additionally, you can set the share buttons to appear when the client is making specific actions, like: After Inactivity, At The Bottom Of Post, After Commenting, After Scrolling, After Purchasing.
- Automatic Social Fly-in. This is another great way to grab the attention of your visitors. The fly-in option is similar to the automated pop-up. It can be also activated in specific situations, like: After Time Delay, At The Bottom Of Post, After Scrolling, and etc:
- Media Sharing. Pictures and videos are the two things that are most shared on social media, why don’t you add a social sharing button to them? Now you can with this plugin. Simply enable the Media option and it will auto-detect the images shared on your site and attache slick buttons to them:
The social networks you can use with this plugin
Most of plugins out there are offering only a limited amount of social networks you can use with them, but not Monarch. This plugins takes social sharing to the next level, remember. And for this reason it will allow you to connect it to all (I think), of the available networks. Starting with: Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Buffer, Pinterest, RSS, Github, Mailchimp, AWeber, Outlook, Evernote, Digg the list is enormous:
Once you decide which social sharing channels you want to use on your website, you can easily change the order. Monarch provides really intuitive arranging options. Just drag and drop the boxes to arrange them the way you want:
Setting up Monarch plugin
After we went through the possible options this plugins has to offer, let’s test it out to see if it is easy to be used.
Firstly you will need to choose the social networks you want to add. After arranging them the way you want, you need to save the changes. Now lets add buttons in a couple of locations.
Adding Inline social buttons. The developers of this plugin outdone themselves when it comes down to user experience. You will need a couple of minutes tops, to understand the buttons you need to turn on, in order to complete the task. When configuring the inline options you will need to choose these set of settings:
- Icon style
- Icon shape
- Display settings: Above post, below post or both, Number of columns etc.
- Color settings. you can even change the color of the social buttons
- Post type settings. Option to add the buttons to Home, Posts, Pages.
The settings for all of the other locations are similar and quite flexible. With a few clicks you can add, modify and change the social sharing buttons.
Additionally, Monarch control panel is added inside each post and page you have. From there you can Enable/Disable the buttons for the specific post, and also see your sharing statistics. This part is pretty useful if you want to remove the buttons for certain page.
What is the price of this social sharing plugin?
To download Monarch you will need to sign up for one of the Elegant themes packages. They offer 3 different packages you can choose from, but in order to get the plugin you will need to go with at least the Developers one, which comes at the price of 89$ a year. Even though this is one of the best plugins for this kind of job, it really is a bit too much.
If you want to take social sharing to the next level by purchasing Monarch, my personal recommendation will be to use one of Elegant themes included in the subscription. This way you won’t need to pay extra $ for a WordPress theme.
Pros and cons of the WordPress plugin Monarch
Pros:
- Slick design.
- Easy to use.
- Different shapes for the buttons.
- Buttons can be added almost everywhere inside your site.
- Over 35 Social Networks to Choose From.
- Responsive.
- Lightning Fast.
- Import, Export option available.
Cons:
- Price. If you want to purchase only the plugin from Elegant themes you will still need to subscribe for one of their plans. The price for the package, allowing you to download the plugin is 89$, which is quite expensive for only one plugin.
- If the design of your website is not clean or minimalistic, this plugin probably won’t fit.
Final Thoughts
There are two main things that can make a plugin truly successful in the eyes of the customers – beautiful front end, and easy to use customization. Monarch owns them both. This is my choice for social sharing plugin, and I am sure that it will take social sharing to the next level on your own website, too.
What social sharing plugin are you using on your own website?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row fullwidth=”false” attached=”false” padding=”0″][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_btn title=”Download + Full Demo” style=”flat” color=”peacoc” align=”center” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.elegantthemes.com%2Faffiliates%2Fidevaffiliate.php%3Fid%3D30206%26url%3D22162|title:Elegant%20Themes%20Social%20Sharing%20Plugin|target:%20_blank” button_block=”true”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row]