Social sharing can bring in traffic, but it should never slow a site down. We took a first look at Novashare, a WordPress plugin built by Forgemedia, and put its features, setup, and UX to the test. In this walk-through, we cover what it does, how it feels to use, and where it stands out for agencies, pros, and DIY users.
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Novashare – First Look Video
Overview of the Novashare WordPress Plugin
Novashare is a WordPress plugin focused on social sharing and speed. It comes from Forgemedia, the team behind the highly respected Perfmatters performance plugin for WordPress. That heritage shows up right away. The interface is clean, the defaults are sensible, and the options are practical. The plugin is built to be lightweight and fast, so it helps with Core Web Vitals and stays out of the way of your caching and performance stack.
It fits small blogs and large content sites. We can add modern sharing options without the bloat that often comes with big social toolkits. The setup works across the block editor, the classic editor, and popular page builders, so it fits most workflows.
Exploring the Novashare Website
Key Pages and First Impressions
We reviewed novashare.io and focused on four areas that help us judge product quality and trust.
- Features: Clear feature summaries with visuals of share buttons, counts, hover-to-pin, and layouts.
- About Page: Names with faces, which helps build trust and accountability.
- Documentation: Searchable documentation with helpful articles. A quick search for “share,” as a test, returns relevant topics and clear steps.
- Changelog: A detailed, dated changelog with version numbers. This is a strong signal that the team ships often and communicates well.
We also noticed a demo link and a feature request channel. These are small signals, but they point to a team that listens and ships.
Feature Requests and Support Reputation
Forgemedia has a strong support reputation in the WordPress space. They commit to in-house support, not outsourcing. From our experience and what we hear across the industry, their help is consistent and high quality. Expect fast responses and practical solutions. It feels like some of the best support in the business.
Core Features of Novashare
Share Buttons and Counts
Novashare gives us clean share buttons for popular networks like X and Facebook, plus optional share counts on networks that support them. The layout is minimal and readable. We can show a share panel when a user clicks a single share icon, or we can place inline buttons right in the content.
- Inline share buttons that auto-insert on selected post types
- Floating share bar that follows the view on scroll
- Share counts where networks allow it
- Clear design controls that fit most branding needs
GDPR-Friendly and Easy Setup
Novashare is built with privacy and compatibility in mind.
- Full block editor support
- Works with the classic editor
- Shortcodes for page builders
- Simple toggles and clear defaults
- Easy on-off controls per post type
Advanced Sharing Tools
Social Share Account Recovery
If you changed your site or URLs, Novashare helps recover share counts.
- URL changes like HTTP to HTTPS
- Domain changes or permalink shifts
Pinterest Image Hover Pins
If Pinterest drives traffic for you, Novashare can place hover-to-pin buttons on images. It supports different layouts and placement styles for image grids or post images and scales well across devices. The result is responsive across all devices.
Highlight and Share
This feature lets users highlight text and share it with one click. It is simple and fast.
- Highlight a sentence or phrase
- A small modal appears with share options
- Choose your network and go
Customization and Analytics
Match Your Branding
We can match button styles to our brand with lots of flexibility. Out of the box, the plugin uses native network colors. We can turn those off and use our own or even add custom SVG icons.
- Colors: default network colors or custom brand colors
- Icons: add custom SVGs
- Layouts: size, alignment, counts placement, and call to action text
A quick example: use inverse buttons for an outlined look, set a larger size for readability, and move counts before the icons to draw the eye.
Follow Blocks and Widgets
Beyond sharing, Novashare includes follow buttons for linking to our social profiles. We can add profiles like X or Facebook, then choose shapes (square, rounded, or circular), alignment, and colors to match our site.
Analytics and Link Shortening
The plugin supports UTM parameters and works with popular tools. We can shorten URLs for cleaner links and easier tracking.
- Google Analytics
- Fathom
- Bitly for URL shortening
Other Highlights
- Multi-site support
- Active updates and ongoing development
Hands-On Setup and Usage in WordPress
Installation and Initial Settings
After installation, Novashare adds its settings under Settings, Nova Share. The layout is simple and shows key areas like inline content, floating bar, share buttons, highlight, Pinterest, and configuration.
Basic setup looks like this:
- Install and activate Novashare
- Go to Settings, Nova Share
- Toggle Inline content and choose post types; posts are on by default
- Select the networks you want to display and save
We think of these as global settings. We can override them on a per-post basis using the blocks in the editor.
Using Blocks in the Block Editor
Share Buttons Block
Add the block by typing “/nova” in the editor, then choose Share Buttons. If inline content is enabled globally, the buttons will appear based on those rules. The block lets us override that with a custom layout for a single post.
Helpful options:
- Button style: solid or inverse
- Size: small, medium, large
- Alignment: left, center, right
- Show counts: before or after icons, with count color control
- Call to action text: add short text above the buttons
Example: set style to inverse, size to large, counts before icons, and a call to action like “Share this post” for a clean and visible layout.
Floating Bar
The floating bar sits on the left or right and sticks on scroll. It is ideal for long content.
Setup steps:
- Toggle the Floating bar and select where it shows, posts, pages, archive, home
- Choose a position, left or right
- Set design options, breakpoints, and offsets
The floating bar shares many design settings with inline buttons, but it adds placement and behavior controls. We can set breakpoints for mobile, adjust offsets, and tweak share counts. It feels granular without being hard to manage.
Click to Post Block
Click to Post creates a small block that opens X with a prebuilt post. It supports global themes, like Simple, and we can override the style per post.
What we can set:
- Call to action text
- Theme variation
- Hide URL, hide username, or hide hashtags
- Colors for text and accents
There is also meta support in the post editor for social image, title, and description. That helps control how content looks when shared to X and other networks.
Follow Buttons Block
This block adds links to our social profiles. Remember to open each icon’s settings and paste the profile URL, or the icon will not render on the front end.
Setup steps:
- Add the Follow Buttons block
- Choose networks like X or Facebook
- Add profile URLs for each icon
- Style shape, size, alignment, and colors
Highlight Feature
The highlight feature adds share icons over highlighted text. It is quick to set up and encourages selective sharing of key lines.
- Enable the Highlight feature in settings
- Choose a style, for example Blue Sky
- Select which post types allow it
- Highlight text on the front end, then share from the modal
We ran into a browser quirk in Microsoft Edge where the browser’s own copy popover hid the share modal. You can turn off the browser popover to see Novashare’s modal. Adding that note in docs would help users.
Pinterest and Additional Configurations
Pinterest tools include hover-to-pin and controls for what images to use. If Pinterest is core to your strategy, we suggest reviewing the demos on the Novashare site to see it in action.
The Configuration area goes deeper:
- Enable X counts via a third-party service, add your X username
- Add a Facebook App ID and App Secret for richer integration
- Mastodon support
- A simple place for custom CSS
Meta, Analytics, and Recovery Settings
Open Graph and Meta Box
We can let Novashare output Open Graph tags inside the head of our site. We can also hide the meta box in the editor if we want a cleaner interface. There is a default social image field to cover posts without a featured image.
Share Counts Management
We control how and when counts appear.
- Minimum total share threshold, for example wait until 5 before showing counts
- Refresh rate for counts, with several frequency options
- Purge share counts to reset
Analytics and Shortening
Use UTM parameters for better reporting in Google Analytics, and connect Bitly for short links.
Account Recovery
If we migrated domains or changed URLs, the Recovery settings help restore lost counts by mapping old and new formats.
Final Thoughts
Novashare delivers a fast and flexible social sharing solution for WordPress. The controls are granular, the editor blocks are well built, and the defaults are sane. We like the floating bar, highlight-to-share, and how global settings and per-post overrides work together. The docs, changelog, and support posture build trust.
Pros we noticed:
- Clean UI and easy setup
- Smart design controls and brand matching
- Inline, floating, and share panel patterns
- Highlight-to-share and Click to Post
- Analytics tagging and Bitly support
- Share count recovery and multisite support
If you want a performance-first sharing solution, this one deserves a look.