I learned how to do this from Ashton over at Something Swanky. I got the social media silhouettes I use from her. She offers them for free in her own post about how to create your own social media icons. 

I wanted to make a video because this was one of the most confusing things I ever learned how to do as a blogger. Once you get the hang of it, though, it is pretty easy.

These videos do not have sound, but I think it is pretty self-explanatory if you watch the screens.

First, use a program like PicMonkey to create your graphic. 

Here is the video for how to do that. The silhouette images I use in the video for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ all came from Ashton’s post.

 

Then upload your image into a draft blog post.

You need somewhere to host your image. I prefer to do it on my own blog. I have a draft marked “Buttons and Stuff: DO NOT DELETE.”

Next, use an image mapping tool to link your image to your social media accounts.

The tool Ashton used in her tutorial is no longer offering their service for free. Now I like to use a website called http://www.html-map.com/

Copy the image location from your draft blog post and paste it into the line on the image mapping website.

Create boxes on the image mapping site around each icon and link it to the corresponding social media site.

Finally, create a text widget (or html gadget if you are on

Blogger) with the code for your image.

Put a new text widget (WordPress) or html/javascript gadget (Blogger) in your sidebar. Just copy and paste the code from the image mapping website.

You can see what I mean in this video.

 I hope this was helpful!

I’d love to have you join me on Facebook and share the social media love.