Adding share buttons to your Medium article
Medium is a great tool when it comes to easily writing articles that look great. Part of this look is due to the clean and minimalistic design of the platform.
But when it comes to sharing your articles, or following you on Twitter or Facebook, their share buttons are a bit too discreet (or just non-existant).
In that case there’s an easy workaround to add the follow/share buttons you miss, or increase your share-ratio by making those call-to-action more obvious.
Use images
It’s as simple as that, just drop an image of the button in your article. You can put it anywhere, as long as it makes it little effect and doesn’t ruin the look of your article. The most important is that you love what you made!
Multiple images on the same line
You can take advantage of the “Medium Image Grid” feature. Drop two images at the same time and they will show up next to each other.
Ctrl+K
Then click on your image and press ctrl+k (mac: cmd+k). A text field shows up so you can paste your share link.
Creating a share link
Use this website: http://www.sharelinkgenerator.com/
For example to tweet
Juice! Romanian vitamins for creatives, techies, entrepreneurs, the curious or aspiring to be. https://medium.com/juice-romanian-vitamins
It becomes :
Sharing your article
Be careful! Until your article is published, you don’t have an official link leading to your article. When you’re ready for publication:
- Add the buttons
- Publish the article
- Edit the article
- Create the share link and add it to your buttons with Ctrl+K
- Publish the changes
- Test the buttons. Does it work? Good to go!
Choosing the preview image when sharing
Here’s a short article explaining how to chose or change it later if your not happy with your first choice.
Creating a follow link
Just add the link to the Facebook or Twitter page you want. For example to follow juice:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1324420520916918/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/_juice_ro
Juice share and follow buttons
Teodora made us some share and follow button that you can use. They can get updated over time, the latest version will always be featured here. You will notice that they have a lot of white space. It’s a trick to prevent medium from making them too big, and having them centered at the same time.
To use them, just do a right-click -> “save as” on each buttons.
We just miss a “Follow me on Facebook” and “Follow me on Twitter” button, coming soon!
Create your own buttons!
If you would like to add your personal touch, or suggest changes to the current one, don’t hesitate to create your own, taking advantages of all the tricks you now know. Send them as a response to this article!
