What is the Shack Article Sharing Extension?

Documentation for Joomla 3

what is the shack article sharing extension

Shack Article Sharing is a very simple to use and yet powerful plugin. Once you installed and enabled it, it will add to your Joomla articles:

  • Facebook's "Share" and "Like" buttons
  • Twitter's "Tweet" button:

share and like buttons at the frontend

With these social sharing buttons:

  • Your Joomla site will look much more appealing and professional.
  • Your Joomla site visitors will be able to instantly broadcast your content to their Facebook and Twitter streams. This will give your site improved exposure to human visitors and search engines.

Here is how Shack Article Sharing via Twitter and Facebook happens.

Once a visitor clicks the "Tweet" button, they will see the "Share a link with your followers" box. If they are already logged in to their Twitter account, the box will display:

  • Their Twitter username
  • The link to the content item they are sharing on Twitter
  • The "Tweet" button to send the Tweet: 

share this link box

If they are not logged in to their Twitter account, instead of the "Tweet" button, they will see "Log in and Tweet":

share this box for non logged users

If your site visitor who is not yet logged in to their Facebook account clicks the Facebook's "Share or "Like" button, they will see the "Facebook's login prompt box:

the facebook login box

If they are logged in and clicked Facebook's "Share" button, they will see the "Post to Facebook" box. Facebook will populate the share box with the following items:

  • Your Jooma site URL
  • The title of the article
  • The Full Article image, if it has been set
  • The first 210 characters of the article content, as shown in the image below. They will also be able to add their own comment or message in this box:

post on facebook

You have an option to replace the title of the article with its Search Engine Title. The Search Engine Title in Joomla is the title that will be displayed by Google and other search engines in their search results. Facebook also uses them.

The best way to create a Search Engine Title is by using OSMeta Joomla extension. It gives you one tidy screen to set Search Engine Titles for all of your Joomla articles:

set the search engine title

Here is this Search Engine Title at work in the Facebook share of the article:

search engine title at work

In OSMeta you also have an option to replace the text of the article with its meta description. Here is a meta description I created for my demonstration:

meta description at work

Note: Facebook stores shared content in its cache for 24 hours. Don't forget to re-scrape your article in the Facebook Sharing Debugger, as shown in the image below. Otherwise, no one will see your new share title or meta description.

Documentation for Joomla 5

what is the shack article sharing extension

Shack Article Sharing is a very simple to use and yet powerful plugin. Once you installed and enabled it, it will add to your Joomla 5 articles:

  • Facebook's "Share" and "Like" buttons
  • Twitter's "Tweet" button:

share and like buttons at the frontend

With these social sharing buttons:

  • Your Joomla site will look much more appealing and professional.
  • Your Joomla site visitors will be able to instantly broadcast your content to their Facebook and Twitter streams. This will give your site improved exposure to human visitors and search engines.

Here is how Shack Article Sharing via Twitter and Facebook happens.

Once a visitor clicks the "Tweet" button on one of your Joomla 5 article, they will see the "Share a link with your followers" box. If they are already logged in to their Twitter account, the box will display:

  • Their Twitter username
  • The link to the content item they are sharing on Twitter
  • The "Tweet" button to send the Tweet: 

the article share at twitter

If they are not logged in to their Twitter account, instead of the "Tweet" button, they will see the "Log in and Tweet":

the login first prompt

If your site visitor who is not yet logged in to their Facebook account clicks the Facebook's "Share or "Like" button, they will see the "Facebook's login prompt box:

the facebook log in first prompt

If they are logged in and clicked Facebook's "Share" button, they will see the "Share on Facebook" box. Facebook will populate the share box with the following items:

  • Your Jooma site URL
  • The title of the article
  • The Full Article image, if it has been set
  • The first 210 characters of the article content, as shown in the image below. They will also be able to add their own comment or message in this box:

post on facebook