How to Easily Display an Author‘s Twitter and Facebook Profiles on Their WordPress User Page

As a WordPress expert with over 15 years of experience in web development, I‘ve seen firsthand how valuable it can be to showcase your authors‘ social media profiles directly on their WordPress user page.

Displaying Twitter, Facebook, and other social links offers many benefits for your website and content strategy. In this beginner-friendly guide, I‘ll explain multiple methods for seamlessly integrating social media profiles on author pages and help you choose the right solution for your needs.

Why Add Author Social Profile Links?

Here are some of the biggest reasons to display social media icons on author profile pages:

• Increased Traffic – Enabling one-click access to your authors‘ social accounts allows readers to easily follow them and get exposed to more of your content.

• Higher Engagement – Social media is crucial for building relationships with your audience. Making those connections prominent fosters loyalty.

• SEO Value – Profiles like Facebook and Twitter serve as trust signals. Adding them to your schema markup enhances how search engines understand your content.

• Works On Mobile – Unlike plain text links, clickable icons are easy for users on mobile. This improves UX.

• Build Credibility – Readers want to engage with real people, not faceless brands. Author profiles add a human voice.

• Encourage Sharing – Allowing one-click social sharing of your articles via the author‘s profile makes it more likely readers will spread them.

According to statistics from Social Pilot, 78% of marketers feel that social media marketing has been "very important" for their business. Displaying author social profiles helps tap into this massive opportunity.

4 Methods for Adding Author Social Links in WordPress

Depending on your needs and technical skills, you have various options for displaying social media icons on author profile pages in WordPress:

1. Manually Add Links to the User Description

Many WordPress themes include a "biographical info" box for authors below their posts. You can manually add social media links here using HTML:

1. Go to Users > All Users
2. Click the author‘s username or Edit link
3. Find the Biographical Info box
4. Add HTML links like:

<a href="https://twitter.com/username">Twitter</a> | 
<a href="https://facebook.com/username">Facebook</a>

5. Scroll down and click Update User to save

Now links will appear in the author bio area on their posts.

Pros:

• Quick and easy to add links to multiple authors
• Works with many existing WordPress themes

Cons:

• Basic styling – no custom icons
• Links open in same tab, not new one

2. Use an Author Box Plugin for Custom Social Icons

For more visually appealing social media links, a dedicated plugin like Simple Author Box is ideal.

It adds custom fields to user profiles for specifying social networks and handles displaying the icons:

1. Install and activate Simple Author Box
2. Go to Users > Your Profile
3. Expand the Social Media Links section
4. Select the platform from the dropdown and enter the URL
5. Repeat to add additional links like Twitter, Facebook, etc
6. Click Update Profile to save

The plugin includes icons for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. With the pro version, you also get YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud, and others.

Now stylish social media icons will show up in the author box widget on your posts.

Pros:

• Customizable icons match your site‘s design
• Supports many popular platforms
• Easy to use
• Opens social links in a new tab

Cons:

• Only displays icons in the author box
• Need pro version for some additional networks

3. Build Custom Author Profile Pages with a Page Builder Plugin

For complete design flexibility over your author profile pages, a drag and drop page builder like SeedProd is the best choice.

With SeedProd, you can:

• Create custom profile templates for individual authors or globally
• Add social icons using the pre-made Social Profiles block
• Customize the color scheme, layout, typography and more

Follow these steps:

1. Install and activate SeedProd
2. Click Add New Template to create an author profile page
3. Drag the Social Profiles block onto the page
4. Customize the icon styles, links, sizes, etc
5. Enable the SeedProd theme to publish

Now you have complete design control over your author profile pages, not just the social media links area.

Pros:

• Total design flexibility
• Create unique pages for different authors
• Add other elements like testimonials or articles
• Perfect integration with your theme

Cons:

• More complex to set up
• Need SeedProd paid version

4. Improve SEO with Schema Social Profiles

All in One SEO is a popular SEO plugin. It allows you to add author social profiles to your website‘s schema markup, even if they aren‘t visible.

This helps search engines better understand your content and authors.

To add social profiles with AIOSEO:

1. Install and activate the All in One SEO plugin
2. Edit the user and go to the Social Profiles tab
3. Enter the full profile URLs for each platform
4. Click Update Profile to save

Then to display the links, you can use another method above or add custom code like:

<?php

  $twitter = get_the_author_meta( ‘aioseo_twitter‘, $post->post_author );

  $facebook = get_the_author_meta( ‘aioseo_facebook‘, $post->post_author );

  echo ‘<a href="‘. $twitter .‘">Twitter</a> | <a href="‘. $facebook .‘">Facebook</a>‘;

?>

This gets you the SEO benefits even if the links aren‘t visible.

Pros:

• Enhances SEO without changing design
• Easy to implement

Cons:

• Doesn‘t automatically display links visibly
• Need coding skills to add them

Key Considerations for Picking the Right Method

With these 4 main options for adding author social media links in WordPress, which should you choose?

Here are a few key factors to consider:

• Design Needs – If you want full customization of layout and styles, a page builder like SeedProd is best. For pre-made author box widgets, a plugin like Simple Author Box works well.

• Developer Skills – Adding custom HTML to your theme or PHP code requires technical expertise. Plugins and page builders are more beginner-friendly.

• SEO Value – All in One SEO allows you to add social profiles to schema even if they aren‘t visible, boosting SEO.

• Convenience – For quick setup across many authors, basic HTML links in the user profile field can work. Plugins and page builders require more initial configuration.

• Mobile Experience – Icons and page builders often create better mobile UX than plain text links.

Evaluate your specific goals, audience, authors, and resources to determine the best social media integration solution for your WordPress site.

Next Steps and Additional Tips

• Make sure authors have social media profiles already set up and active before linking to them. An inactive account looks unprofessional.

• Test that your links are working properly by clicking them. URLs can easily get mistyped.

• If you have multiple authors, create a streamlined process for them to submit their profile links to you.

• Monitor engagement and clicks on social media icons. Inactive ones can potentially be removed.

• Consider using services like Social Pilot to auto-publish content to author profiles.

• For even more plugins that can display author social links, check out Author Social Links and User Social Links.

• Use tools like SharedCounts or BuzzSumo to measure your social media traffic and see which profiles are driving the most visits.

• Don‘t forget to promote your authors‘ social media profiles in your email newsletters, website bios, and elsewhere to maximize visibility.

Integrating social media profiles seamlessly into your author pages is a smart way to boost exposure and provide value to your audience. The options shared here make the process easy. Let me know if you have any other questions!