As a WordPress user, at some point, you must have searched for the best social media plugins, so you understand when I say it is very difficult to find the perfect WordPress social sharing plugin.
ElegantThemes has recognized this problem and to address this issue, they have recently built a new social plugin from scratch; Monarch.
In this Monarch plugin review, we have installed the plugin on this blog and we have tested out all its options and functionality, here is our honest review of the Monarch WordPress social plugin by ElegantThemes.
Introducing Monarch
Monarch is a brand new solution to social sharing on WordPress. The WordPress social sharing plugin was developed by Elegant Themes, one of the most popular WordPress theme companies in the market.
Elegant Themes promises to take Social Sharing to a new awesome level with MONARCH, and it is no surprise, considering they have always been a unique company.
I have been a customer of elegant themes for over 3 years, they were the first WordPress theme company I signed up to.
I heard they were awesome and for $39 a year, I couldn’t argue. Being a longtime customer, when I heard of Monarch I was intrigued.
Installing Monarch
Monarch is installed like any other plugin,
Go To Plugins — Add New –Upload Plugin — Browse File — Select The Monarch Zip File — Install Now — Activate Plugin
It is recommended that you disable any existing social plugin.
Configuring Monarch
Once Monarch is activated, the next step is how to configure the Monarch WordPress plugin for best performance.
The Monarch Dashboard is tucked away under Tools in the left sidebar of your WordPress Admin.
Move your cursor to Tools and Click on Monarch Settings
Under Monarch setting, we have 3 Categories;
- Social Sharing,
- Social Follow
- General settings
Social Sharing
Under Social sharing, we have 7 subcategories that help you achieve the perfect design and functionality.
Location
Under location, You can select where you want your social settings to appear, there are five options; and all could be used at the same time
- Sidebar – Place your social button on the sidebar
- Inline – Place above, below or both above and below the article
- Pop-up – The social buttons pop up on trigger (End of page, when visitor is about to leave or after some seconds)
- Fly In – The social buttons shows on trigger at either the bottom left or bottom right
- Media – The Share buttons are triggered when you hover a picture.
Networks
Under networks, you can add and rearrange any combination of social networks, label each network and add your username to supported social networks.
Sidebar
Under the sidebar tab, you can choose icon style, Icon shape, configure display settings, color settings and you can also enable it on posts and pages or either of them.
Inline
Under the Inline tab, you can also choose icon style, Icon shape, configure display settings, color settings and you can also enable it on posts and pages or either of them.
Pop Up
Under the Pop-Up tab, you can choose icon style, icon shape, title, message, configure display settings, color settings and you can also enable it on posts and pages or either of them.
Fly-In
Under the Fly-In tab, you can also choose icon style, icon shape, title, message, configure display settings, color settings and you can also enable it on post and pages or either of them.
Media
Under the Media tab, you can choose icon style, Icon shape, configure display settings, color settings and you can also enable it on posts and pages or either of them.
Social Follow
Under the social Follow category, there are 3 subcategories; Network, Widget & Shortcode.
Network
Under the network tab, You can configure your networks just like in the social sharing category.
Widget
The Widget tab allows you to configure a social follow widget for your sidebar.
Shortcode
This tab enables you to configure a social follow shortcode. All you need to do is define your settings and generate a unique shortcode.
General Settings
Under General settings, you can adjust the frequency of count updates i.e You can set how often the plugin grabs and caches the counts from social networks that support APIs, You can disable it by setting it to Zero (0) if you don’t want to use cache.
Reset WordPress loops
This is an option to reset WordPress loops if Monarch does not recognize permalinks properly.
Custom CSS
You can use this to add custom CSS to the Monarch WordPress Plugin.
Review
Monarch is an awesome, atheistically pleasing & easy to configure WordPress social plugin. This plugin is easily one of the best social plugins we would ever see on WordPress.
Pricing: ElegantThemes developers package costs costs $89/yr, and this is the only license that grants you access to this plugin, the package contains all ElegantTheme’s themes and plugins.
This means for you to lay your hands on this awesome plugin, you have to signup for a developer’s package. Do not get me wrong, $89 is a cheap price to pay for what you are getting, but if all you want is the Monarch plugin, you will definitely think twice before paying that much. .
Performance: The performance of the Monarch plugin is heads and shoulder above every social plugin in the market. The plugin is feature packed yet so seamless and light on page load.
Ease of Use: Monarch is a very powerful social plugin, but credit must be given to ElegantThemes for the Monarch dashboard. It is effortless, smooth and awesome ”.
Support: I have used ElegantThemes for over 3 years and I think I can vouch for the quality of their support.
They have been around for a while and they are not going anywhere soon, this guarantees that the plugin would continue to be supported and developed, the support forum is also super easy to navigate and the support staffs are knowledgeable and quick to respond
In conclusion, ElegantThemes has done a great job with this plugin, when using this plugin, you can tell that they have a perfect understanding of what it feels like to be a user and because of that, they have built what I believe is the best WordPress social plugin at the moment.
