I Gotta Create!: How to Add Social Media Buttons ~Blog Tips 101

I finally did it.

I finally added social media buttons
or icons to my blog.

What took me so long?

I guess I had assumed it was too

difficult and time consuming to figure out.

But Karen over at

posted a tutorial that inspired me.

{love her blog}

Along the way I figured out some shortcuts

to share with you today.

Plus, I had fun picking out my colors over at

Carrie Loves Design. Aren't they irresistible?

Karen's tutorial involves using photobucket and Word.

I bypassed that and used my blog.
You can, too!
Here's how to add social media buttons:

Download the icons for free from Carrie's site.

I chose a variety of colors for a whimsical,

confetti-like feel:

Once downloaded,
just drag the icon you want over

onto your desktop. Or, right-click

and save to a folder.

Then I uploaded the buttons on my
About This Blog page,

just as you would for any photo
or image in any other post.

I linked the images to the appropriate webpages,

as you would for any other post.

Publish your updated "About" page and
keep the published page open.

Now we'll create a Social Media Button gadget
for your sidebar.

Go into Blogger layout and add a Gadget.
{In Wordpress, use the Widgets function.}

You're going to choose the HTML Gadget in Blogger:
{In Wordpress, use the 'text' widget}

Put a title on your Gadget and fill it with the pair of tags shown below. You need one tag pair for each social media button.

Basically the first tag (a href) creates your link,

and the second tag (img src) in the pair holds your image.

Keep this HTML Gadget open and proceed to the next step.

Both your HTML Gadget and your published "About" page are open on your computer desktop.

On your "About" page, right-click on a Social Media icon and copy the image address, like this:

Now, paste that image address into your Gadget
on the (img src) line right between the "quote marks" as shown:

Repeat this for each button.
You have now added the image coding
to your Gadget or Widget.

Now it's time to add the actual link
to your social media pages:

Add the webpage links for each button
on the (a href=) line right between the quotation marks.

Just click the buttons on your "About" page
to open each social media site,
copy the address and paste it into your gadget!

Now you have a place where all the coding exists
for each one of your social media buttons.

You can easily copy and paste it on any page
or post from now on.
For example, all the buttons above are working ~
click to test!

What do you think? Fun, right?!