Sharing blogger entries on social media

I like social media that makes sharing itself easy. I also like social media that is not obviously trying to prostitute itself to the intertubes (yes, my previous blogger layout was an intertube whore). For example, I like to have a digg button on an article, but I do not want it to be large and draw attention to itself (especially when the count is only in the single digits). I like it the way I have done it on my blog: You may be asking how this is done. I will show and tell you how to add buttons for sharing your Blogger blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and del.icio.us.

1. Open the Settings tab for your blog in blogger
2. In the Basic sub-tab make sure Show Email Post links? is put to Yes
3. Open the Layout tab
4. Select Edit HTML
5. Click the box for Expand Widget Templates
6. Search for quickedit pencil in the code.
7. Below that comment and the line after it are where you will add the buttons

I have captured the code from my blogger template in the image below. I am not saying that these are the best way to do these buttons, but they seem to work okay and are easy enough to implement. There are obviously a number of things you want to change. You'll want to insert your Twitter handle instead of mine. You may want to change the thumbnails to be independent of my site. However, it should pretty much work as advertised.

The hardest one for me to get working was for facebook, and this site got me most of the way there. I had to change and update a few things, and I still think there is probably a better way.