GetSocial is made especially for WordPress.com bloggers. It automatically generates a (specially designed) social bookmarking toolbar for each one of your posts. This is a 100% scriptless way to create social bookmarking links, which makes it a perfect solution for wordpress.com users. It is also based on a 3 step wizard interface which is very friendly and easy to use. Oh, and it’s 100% free!
Download GetSocial now:
Great, but what is a Social Bookmarking toolbar anyway?
Well, here are some fine examples (made with GetSocial v1.00) – Try it!
Screenshot of GetSocial v1.00
How does it work?
After you download GetSocial (which is 100% Virus/Adware/Whatever free!), Extract and run GetSocial.exe (No Installation is needed, but you will need to have Microsoft .net framework 2.0 installed: nothing a quick visit to Windows Update won’t solve).
You can then select between adding Social Bookmarks to a post or an AddThis.com button to your blog (more on that later). You will need to enter a permalink to your post (which is the web address of your post) and the title of your post.
Click next and select your preferred type of Social Networking toolbar design (there are four of them!), after you get your code, paste it to your post (while in HTML Edit mode) and that’s it! Sounds difficult? Try it, and see for yourself just how easy it is! :)
UPDATE (July 23, 2008): Teck, from the Teck~Line blog, wrote a post about how to use GetSocial here.
UPDATE (August 24, 2008): Lee Aase, from Social Media University Global (SMUG), made a YouTube movie about using GetSocial – watch it!
Free software?
GetSocial is a donationware, which means you can use (and share) it for free for as long as you like (you can’t sell it or tell people you’ve made it yourself though). It is neither limited nor crippled in any way. If you use/like it, consider donating 5.00 USD (you can do it!) to the author of the software (that’s me!) Thanks :)
What did you say about AddThis.com earlier?
GetSocial lets you create an AddThis.com button for your blog as a whole. It is a little known fact, but when you put an AddThis.com button in your blog’s sidebar (even if you selected ‘WordPress’ when you generated the code on their website) your button will not link to your blog, instead it will link to the AddThis.com website! This is due to scripting limitations on wordpress.com that removes important parts of the script. I have found this error on every single AddThis.com button I’ve seen on wordpress.com so far!
UPDATE (May 19, 2008): Netty Gritty wrote a good article about the AddThis.com problem here.
How to check if my AddThis.com button links to my blog?
It’s very simple really: click it, and on the Bookmark & Share page click on ‘Favorites’ (See photo). This will add a website to your browsers favorites – if it’s your blog then everything is okay, but if it adds AddThis.com then everyone who ever used it promoted AddThis.com, and not your blog!
The good news: GetSocial can fix this for you in no time :)
What else?
Enjoy GetSocial!
Oh, and one more thing, GetSocial is not affiliated in any way with WordPress.com, AddThis.com or any of the Social Bookmarking providers.
Download GetSocial.zip here.
UPDATE (June 02, 2008): I’ve received some requests regarding a spacing/border issue in some WordPress.com themes. A new version, GetSocial 1.01, resolves these issues. Every download link in this post has been set to point to the most recent version of GetSocial. Scope this.
UPDATE (October 21, 2009): There is a new cross-platform on-line version of GetSocial. No download is needed, and it will work with every OS (Yes, it will work on a Mac). It’s called GetSocial Live, and it’s fast, easy to use and free! GetSocial Live is always up to date and currently features the latest Twitter and Yahoo Buzz buttons, read all about it here.
Hillel Stoler (and other cool stuff) 
Howdy just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you
know a few of the images aren’t loading properly. I’m not
sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different web browsers and both show the same results.
Thank you for the heads up!
All GetSocial / GetSocial Live images are hosted and mirrored on the WordPress.com cloud, this was done in order to make sure that the toolbars will remain available. You can always check the image status here: http://getsocialserver.wordpress.com/press/home/image-status/
hi great post we have going here!
Wow great plug in! Thanks : )
Cool Mushroom Mam
awesome plugin!!
except after i downloaded it, it wouldnt run on my computer!
An error msg said ‘The application failed to initalize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate thr application’.
Apparently its becoz the freeware has a unknown publisher and wouldnt run on the computer.
i was getting soooo excited about adding these buttons onto my posts, but now i cant run your program, i dun no what to do :( !
Try the on-line version: http://getsociallive.com
This looks awesome! Unfortunately, I am a mac user and cannot open the file once opened. Do you have a mac version?
Check out GetSocial Live!
Great tool, works perfect!
Hi, I just tried this and it is a superb superb! thing. actually I was using addtoany button in my wordpress.com, but there the problem was I had to manually remove the javascript line from the html that they were giving. Plus, here, the stumble upon, facebook etc are readily shown as individual clickable links. so its greater than any other share this buttons.
Thanks again.
Hi Hillel,
Im having trouble getting the unzip executable to run. It comes up with a message saying “unable to locate dll” and when I look through the error it lists “mscoree.dll” as missing. Is there something i’m doing wrong? I’d love to use this tool but I’m not the most computer literate so this has completely stumped me.
Hope you can help!
JB
Hi James,
It sounds like a problem with your unzip program…
You can try to download GetSocial again, or use the on-line version: GetSocial Live
Hillel – Todah Rabah, great tools. I’ll look forward to seeing what else you have up your sleeve.
GREAT software. I plan to start using it for all my posts. Thanks so much!
this is great! i am using it and look forward for any further improvements with this application.
although it is a minor issue, it will be great if you can provide some options for color. especially something that looks better with dark themes.
thank you a lot for the effort!
this is great! i am using it and look forward for any further improvements with this application.
although it is a minor issue, it will be great if you can provide some options for color. especially something that looks better with dark themes.
thank you a lot for the effort!
Its not working. Neat idea but the button dosnt appear. It just shows as code.
You need to copy the code into your post while in HTML edit mode (as opposed to the visual editor).
You might want to check out this tutorial @ Teck~Line Lounge.
Thanks Hillel
Did some searching and GetSocial was the best recommended ‘share bar’. It really does the trick and is so easy to use.
Just got totally social on my blog and it looks damn fine, thanks! :)
Very elegant and easy to use, thanks for taking the time to create this!
I just started using this yesterday, and I quite love it. As far as changes to it go, I think the biggest shortcoming at the moment is the lack of an “Email This” button, followed by a “Printer Friendly” one. Still, fantastic work.
The next version of GetSocial will have “Email to a Friend”!
GetSocial…You Rock!!
Wow!
Thanks Hillel.. I searched for ages for a way to put those links on my blogs and this is by FAR the easiest.. Thanks for taking the time to code such a great little program..
Definitely gonna send people round here.
Wish Paypal worked for South Africa. You’d be well worth the donation!
Do you think you can make an online version of your plugin? This would be a welcome option for use Linux users. Plus, you can then generate ad revenue.
Hi Paul,
I’m definitely considering this for a while now – everything but the ads part that is :)
Thanks a lot for this program. Really Works.
The GetSocial festure works great … except for one thing. When I click on Facebook, instead of pulling the excerpt from the actual blog post, it pulls from the Twitter feed on our blog. How do I get it to pull from the post?
Awesome thanks a ton!
GetSocial rocking
God dag! Kan jag ladda ner en bild fran din blogg. Av sak med hanvisning till din webbplats!
Generellt ja, vilken bild behöver du?
Why is this using AddThis.com? It requires registration and the number of services is very low and out of date.
Why don’t you use AddToAny.com for your app? There is no registration, it’s a very nice interface, and it’s good for international sites too.
Offer AddToAny or better and I am sold on your app! Thanks.
This is top notch stuff! Thank you so much for this stunning work!
Great tool, thanks! When I post to Facebook it doesn’t give the option not to post a picture. Any idea why?
Thanks! & Yes: it’s facebook’s fault!
Rebecca:
By “regenerate” I meant remaking them. If you change the address of your blog, then all the permalinks will be modified. You will need to reuse GetSocial to generate updated buttons.
If there was a real demand for such a feature, I guess I could make an automatic Uninstall/Repair feature – however there are no plans for that in the near future.
scenthive
Sorry there is currently no Mac support for GetSocial – I don’t even own a Mac! :)
Why not try mono?
Thought I’d ask since it seems like it’s been a while. Any support for mac users for Get Soical? If no, any plans in the near future?
Thanks.
This works tremendously well. Thanks for your work.
Hillel, thanks for responding so quickly. How could I “regenerate” the buttons?
Hi Rebecca,
That’s a good question! :)
Currently, there is no automated process that will remove the GetSocial buttons from your post. You can manually remove the code of course – but please note that GetSocial will work with WordPress.org just as well (although you will probably need to regenerate the buttons).
Hi Hillel, The script is great, but now I’m exporting posts to create a wodpress.org blog and I would like to remove the getsocial. Is there a way to remove / uninstall it? Thanks!
Hi Jim,
In general, clicking the digg button is a good way to find out if the Social Bookmarking buttons were deployed correctly because it checks your link.
As for your problem, I bet that you’ve copied the link from the editor window. I know this because there is a bug in wordpress that sends the wrong web address to the clipboard. You can check it out yourself by copying a link from the editor to notepad.
You need to paste the correct permalink for your post to GetSocial, and the best way to do that is to copy the permalink directly from the address bar (when viewing the post).
Hillel—
After enormous frustration with Addthis and WordPress.com, I found Get Social and am very pleased. However…
On my version the Digg link never seems to be able to upload the specific post. I get a message from Digg saying the link appears to be broken…any idea why? any help you can offer? (the other buttons seem to work fine)
Thank you. This did exactly what I needed: http://www.soc101.com. I’d tried messing with the script someone created to try to do something similar but your program was infinitely better. Thank you.
A donation is on the way.
thank you http://www.thenoz.wordpress.com
I would also apreciate Mac version… no toy for us yet.
Regards
Totally sweet! I fiddled around for a week or so, trying to get Digg this set up, and here all i had to do was get the .net 2.0 file from microsoft, and badda bing, I’ve got social networking buttons on my latest blog. I’ll have to go through them all naow to add the buttons, but I’m dead certain it’ll be worth it. Thanks a bunch! I’ll cough up $5 no problem!
And the version for Mac users is where?
Installing Mono didn’t help with getting GetSocial to run on Ubuntu 8.10. I’ve reported the bug:
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16643
The funny thing is that I was somehow able to get GetSocial working 6 months ago. I did something after I installed Mono and now I cannot remember exactly what I did.
Hi Paul,
What about mono (mono-project.com)?
I’ve tested GetSocial with MoMA (mono migration analyzer) and it was compatible. It is to my understanding that if you’ll install Mono’s Visual Basic runtime on your system you’ll be able to run GetSocial under Linux and MacOS X.
If this works for you (or anyone else!) please let me know..
Any chance of writing a Linux version of this great app?
irtiza,
GetSocial will generally work with any blog or website. You can see it in action on blogger (by clicking the link in) here:
http://hillelstoler.com/2008/05/18/getsocial-social-bookmarking-for-wordpresscom/#comment-620
Also, GetSocial requires Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 – either run Windows Update or get it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856EACB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-AAB15C5E04F5&displaylang=en
hi, is this social bookmark addable in a blogger blog? i downloaded it and unzipped it. but when i click at the exe file it says unable to initialize or something like that. what should i do? plz help
Aww man, I have to download .Net. Poor me :( Ok, I’m giving in :) Thanks! This better not have a virus, haha.
Application failed to initialize.
Any way to do this without the download? Thanks.
It works an absolute dream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love it, Love it, Love it…I’ve been looking for a solution just like this. I just found it and already I’m using it. I really like the classic buttons, they look great on my blog.
Hello again I’m dropping by to update you on a new update with “GetSocial” one of my readers have a “blog spot” blog and is running the bookmark bar with out any problems…
Here is the link so you can see for your self
http://mapsandearth.blogspot.com/2008/09/google-earth-poultry-density-worldwide.html
Teck
thank you for this tool .it’s realy great.
i will do it with my blog :http://mapsandearth.blogspot.com
and it works even it’s not a wordpress
i’m a poor man .when i be good i will donate for you .:-)
Jennifer, did you mean:
http://www.hillelstoler.com/feed
vs.
http://www.hillelstoler.com/rss
??
Hillel-I don’t know if this is a recent change or not, but wordpress.com RSS feeds now also include images and the getsocial buttons are included. Any way to keep them out?
Great application thanks a ton. Just one question that I have. How do I change the background color to match my theme? Once again thanks a lot.
kevin
GetSocial requires .net framework 2.0 – run Windows Update or get it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856EACB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-AAB15C5E04F5&displaylang=en
fahrusha
No Mac support at this time, sorry. I’ve seen this movie on YouTube about using GetSocial on a dual OS Mac, you can watch it here:
jimconnolly
The images are all stored in the GetSocial file server. Visit there (and check out ‘Image Status’):
alpinebluesky
It is unlikely because PageRank is based on other websites linking to your page (and their PR). You might say that it could hurt SE crawling because of the additional links per page but I have encountered no evidence of such a phenomena myself. You can read more about PR here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
Great tool! I’m adding it to http://savory.tv now!
One question though, when you add these types of outgoing links on every post, does it hurt your google page rank?
Hello Hillel,
I have just tried your program out on one of my blogs and it has worked perfectly, first time with no problems.
I have just one question though…
Where are the social bookmarking images located, that are generated when the ‘get social’ toolbar is added to a blog post? I’m curious, as I’m guessing that if the toolbar images were removed or that server went down, all the posts that had the toolbar installed would look weird.
If I’m wrong about this – please forgive my ignorance.
Jim Connolly
Thanks for solving the problem of not being able to Add This.
Great tool! Too bad there is no Mac support, but it’s good I have an Intel Mac running XP as well as OSX. So I can just toggle to Windows to generate the GetSocial code.
Oh sorry I see there is no Mac support.
Thanks.
Dear Hillel,
Thanks for this info. Is there a “Get Social” for Mac users?
Fahrusha
Hillel, thank you SO much,
I’ve been going NUTS trying to get this working with “Addthis”, and it’s just been messing me around.
Your solution is so simple, it’s just great. Well done, and thank you.
I GET AN ERROR – I run the getsocial.exe and tells me I need .Net Framework ?????
The frame/spacing issue has been resolved in the new version of GetSocial, check it out:
http://hillelstoler.com/2008/06/02/getsocial-101
10! Absolutely 10!
(Next time you’re in the neighborhood, lunch is on me!)
Hi MJ,
I see you’ve set up a *working* AddThis.com button in your blog using GetSocial, that’s nice!
As for the spacing/frame phenomena: this is caused due to theme settings – some themes add spaces and frames to images. I will do my best to deal with these issues in future versions of GetSocial.
As for now, you can:
– Change your theme using CSS (but you need the CSS upgrade)
– Select a different theme (not likely)
– Use the ‘Design’ setting in GetSocial (try it and see if you like it better)
Hillel :)
Please Help!
I am using your GetSocial on my blog –> http://ideasandrevolution.net/
Can you tell me why have those spaces between the image links on the toolbar?
Thanks in advance…
Hello Hillel,
Thank you for making “GetSocial” I download it
and I have to say it’s very easy to use… :)
Hi Paul,
First of all, thank you for your donation – much appreciated!
As for the features you’ve suggested, they will most likely be included in the next versions of GetSocial. Both of these options were excluded from the first release in order to keep the wizard as short and clear as possible (the graphics were designed to facilitate them though).
Also, in future versions you’ll be able to arrange the icons in any order you wish, and select from a wider range of Social Bookmarking services. I still need to find a way to streamline the entire process into the wizard (without using checkboxes and such!).
Enjoy (and) GetSocial,
Hillel :)
Great application. I am making a donation. Here are my suggestions to help make it even better:
– give users the option of alligning the buttons to the left, right and center
-give users the option to delete buttons they do not want to include
Thanks.
Hi Deeptone and Carol,
GetSocial is a windows application (created with Visual Basic 2005). Although you can use different methods to run GetSocial (and other windows applications) on a Mac, there is currently no official Mac support. Sorry :)
would love to try this but I have a mac. Do you have a mac version? I did not see a reply to the post about this above.
Hi Hillel,
You left a comment on my blog to present your wizard, and by golly it’s a neat enough tool to merit its own post. Check it out here.
However as you can see, there’s a spacing problem with the generated images. As I mentioned in my post, I suspect that this has something to do with the CSS used in my theme, surely an image padding issue. But, since I’m not paying for my hosting at wordpress, I can’t change the theme’s css.
I’d have no idea either how to go into your exe and correct for my specific case. Is this something that you could repair in the next version of the exe?
In the meantime, the “design” appearances -er- appear just fine because they’re on a white background.
Mac users?
This is awesome, Hillel. I’m relatively new to wordpress, so I need something that’s simple. The wizard was terrific for me. The only place I ran into a glitch was my own problem: I forgot to switch to html view the first time on the final step. Once I figured that out, no problems!
And, since the character of my blog is such that only certain posts are relevant to be shared on social networks, I actually like that I’m selecting which posts will have this functionality added.
I stand corrected… I was thinking wordpress.org. Sorry guys! Too bad sharethis doesn’t work on wordpress.com : /
Thanks for the info Lonnie :)
However, please note that GetSocial is a windows application (and not a WordPress plugin). WordPress.com (as opposed to WordPress.org) does not allow plugins.
GetSocial is designed to bypass this limitation.
There is another plugin I’d suggest for your wordpress blogs. It is the Sharethis plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this/
You can decide which social web services to put on the widget and in which order. ShareThis also has an email/send function that allows you to import your address books from your email accounts, MySpace and AIM, making it super easy to send articles to friends (which addthis and getsocial do not offer). ShareThis also has a “post” function so you can post stuff directly and automatically to your blog. ShareThis is really easy to add to your template as well! you should try it out…
Thanks so much for the link love! :D
I am going to do a review of Getsocial too. But I want to have a first-hand experience first.
I have a question for you though. Can I modify your code to include more links and additional styles? I will credit you for the original code of course, if I succeed in my adventure, that is! :D
Hello there Hillel,
I’ve published a brief promotional post pointing to this post of yours and just wanted to let you know that. Happy blogging :)
TT http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/getsocial-for-wordpresscom-bloggers/
Most people can run GetSocial without any additional installation.
If you get a message that says .net Framework 2.0 is required, you need to install the Redistributable Package.
Use Windows Update, or download it directly from their website here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856EACB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-AAB15C5E04F5&displaylang=en
There seems to be three versions of .net 2 Framework. Can you please give me the url of the one that will work best for this project?
I would really like to try out Getsocial. Thing is, .net things are totally new to me.
Netty Gritty,
Thanks for your comment, using the ‘Favorites’ will help you diagnose a defective AddThis.com button on your blog – even if you don’t have a user on any Social Bookmarking service. This is a simple test that anyone can do within seconds!
Also, no need for second hand solutions: GetSocial will automatically create a fully functioning AddThis.com button for your blog, with literally zero effort (you won’t even need to upload an image).
Enjoy GetSocial!
Get Social looks pretty good. Gonna test it out and mess around iwth it sometime when I got some free time.
good luck! :)
Kudos for Getsocial. But I would like to say something about Addthis.
“click it, and on the the Bookmark & Share page click on ‘Favorites’ (See photo). This will add a website to your browsers favorites – if it’s your blog than everything is okay, but if it adds AddThis.com then everyone who ever used it promoted AddThis.com, and not your blog!”
I will disagree. Nobody who uses social bookmarking will bookmark the Addthis page, the Addthis page helps a reader choose a social bookmarking site they want, it’s as simple as that! If the reader wants to add a blog post as a fave in the browser, s-he will have to click the permalink instead.
Yes, the codes of Addthis to make it work properly is stripped out, making it hard for wordpress.commers. So I had created solutions for wordpress.commers .
How to use the Addthis button PROPERLY in the side bar of a wordpress.com blog
How to use Addthis button properly for wordpress.com blog posts
Thank you..!
Its really great..!