Private, Fast, Social Sharing Links

Social sharing links used to be everywhere. Blogs and news sites loved them. You’d see buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and more on every article.

But these sharing tools had problems. They loaded lots of scripts from different social networks. That slowed down pages and sometimes broke things. Worse, they could be used to track users and shared data without consent.

Now, most people skip these bloated widgets. In fact, many sites just don’t bother with social sharing links at all.

Static Social Sharing Links

There’s an alternative: static sharing links. These are simple URLs that point to a social network and prefill the post content or link you want to share.

These links don’t load extra scripts or track users. They’re fast and safe because they open a network’s share page directly.

For example, here’s a plain Twitter sharing link:

https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Check+out+this+article&url=https://example.com

When someone clicks this, Twitter opens with the message ready to send.

« image prompt: “A simple web page with static social sharing links (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) shown as text links” »

Supported Parameters by Network

Most major networks support some kind of static sharing link. Below are the ones I have found and used:

• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=TEXT
• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=URL&title=TITLE&type=LINK
• Mastodon: https://toot.kytta.dev/?text=TEXT (Uses a third party service)
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=URL
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=URL&title=TITLE
• Twitter/ X: https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=TEXT&url=URL&via=USERNAME

Why Use Static Sharing Links?

Static social sharing links let users share your content quickly without tracking or slowing down your site. They’re easy to add - just a regular HTML link.

Few sites use them now, but they’re worth considering if you care about privacy and speed. You keep control over what loads on your pages, and your readers get a better experience.

If you’re looking for lightweight, private ways to let people share your content, try adding static social sharing links.