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How to Add Social Buttons in WordPress RSS Feed

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After our article that recommended users to stop using Feedburner, many users asked us how they can get the social sharing buttons like they had on their FeedBurner feeds. While most modern feed readers include social sharing capabilities, in this article, we will show you how to add social buttons in WordPress RSS feed.

Social sharing buttons displayed in WordPress RSS Feed

First thing you need to do is download the social buttons you would want to display in your feeds. There are several social media icon sets available for free. Choose one that best suits your needs. After that you need to go to Media » Add New and upload Facebook and Twitter icons to your media library.

Upload social media icons to WordPress Media Library

Once you have uploaded the icons, you need to copy their location URL. Simply go to Media » Library and click on the Edit link below Twitter icon.

Edit social icon files

On the Edit Media page, copy the File URL and paste it in a text editor. Repeat the process for the Twitter icon as well. We will need these URLs later.

Get the icon file URL

We will use the default WordPress content filter to add these icons below each post in your WordPress RSS feed.

You need to add this code in your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

// add custom feed content
function wpb_add_feed_content($content) {

// Check if a feed is requested
if(is_feed()) {

// Encoding post link for sharing
$permalink_encoded = urlencode(get_permalink());

// Getting post title for the tweet
$post_title = get_the_title(); 

// Content you want to display below each post
// This is where we will add our icons

$content .= '<p>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=' . $permalink_encoded . '" title="Share on Facebook"><img src="Facebook icon file url goes here" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="64px" height="64px" /></a>

<a href="http://www.twitter.com/share?&text='. $post_title . '&amp;url=' . $permalink_encoded . '" title="Share on Twitter"><img src="Facebook icon file url goes here" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="64px" height="64px" /></a>
</p>';
}

return $content;
}

add_filter('the_excerpt_rss', 'wpb_add_feed_content');
add_filter('the_content', 'wpb_add_feed_content');

This code simply adds HTML to display social icons below post content in your WordPress RSS feeds.

We hope this article helped you add social buttons in your WordPress RSS Feeds.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

10 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
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  2. Moeen Ahmed Sultan says

    Hi, it’s a very good article and I have implemented this. I want to know about linkedin, whatsapp, email, print, google+ and other social networks sharing button? And want to know about how to add these buttons below articles as well.

    Regards

    • WPBeginner Support says

      While we don’t have these at the moment, we will certainly take a look at possible methods

      Admin

  3. Sacha says

    Another great option would be to just add these in the SEO > Advanced > RSS with the Yoast SEO plugin.

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