Do you want an EmbedSocial alternative for your site? In this post, we’ll see if Smash Balloon could be the right choice.
If you want to integrate social media into your website, you can do it easily as long as you have the right tool.
In this post, we’ll help you make the choice between 2 popular social media feed plugins: EmbedSocial and Smash Balloon. By the end, you’ll be able to pick the right one for your site.
We’re going to compare them based on the following points:
Overview: Smash Balloon vs EmbedSocial
First of all, let’s have a short introduction of both social media feed plugins.
1. Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon is a collection of 7 WordPress plugins in one single package. With it, you’ll have an easy time creating, customizing, and displaying social media feeds.
Ever since its creation in 2013, Smash Balloon has helped users show social media content on their site — zero coding needed. With it, boosting your followers and improving conversions will be a piece of cake.
You can add social media content from Facebook feeds, TikTok feeds, Google reviews, Yelp reviews, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube feeds and more with Smash Balloon. And they’re the most popular social media platforms out there so that’s great coverage.
With 1,750,000+ websites powered by Smash Balloon, it’s the #1 social media feed plugin in the market. In fact, it’s even used by some of the biggest brands in the world.
All this makes it easy to see how Smash Balloon is the popular alternative to EmbedSocial.
2. EmbedSocial
EmbedSocial brands itself as the #1 user-generated content platform. It’s a collection of plugins that will allow you to add user-generated content to your website.
And like Smash Balloon, EmbedSocial allows you to show various kinds of reviews, albums, social feeds, and social media stories.
Only launching properly in 2016, Embed Social has grown from a Facebook notification service to a social media solution.
Since then, they’ve managed to get a modest following over the years.
Ease of Use: Smash Balloon vs EmbedSocial
First things first, you need to know just how easy the plugin is to use. So, let’s see how Smash Balloon holds up as an EmbedSocial alternative in that regard.
1. Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon tries to keep things as simple as possible. Despite being packed with features, you’ll have no problems creating, customizing, and posting your social media feeds.
Plus, you even get a live feed editor to help you customize the design of your social media feeds with ease.
There are tons of customization options and they’re all laid out in a simple way and you can see how your feed looks in the life preview.
After that, you can quickly embed your Instagram and Facebook feeds directly from the feed editor.
Plus, Smash Balloon supports the WordPress editor as well, so you can embed your feeds by using content blocks.
On top of all that, you can check out the in-depth documentation or blog posts if you need guidance. And you’ll also have the dedicated support team ready to lend you a hand.
2. EmbedSocial
Like Smash Balloon, EmbedSocial also allows users to build social media feeds with no coding needed. All it takes is a few simple clicks and your feed will be ready.
While that’s pretty simple, you’ll then have to go and paste the embed code to your site. Unlike Smash Balloon, you can’t just insert a block to embed your feed when using EmbedSocial.
As a result, there’s some additional hassle at the start. Once you’ve done that, the rest of the process is pretty simple.
For customization, you have a choice of different templates to pick from. So, you can just select the right one and have your feed ready.
However, advanced customization isn’t very user-friendly here. If you want more control over your social feed, then you’ll have to use CSS. So, it may not be the best choice for you if you’re not familiar with coding since this can make it confusing.
So, creating social feeds that match your brand can be pretty difficult. Compare that to Smash Balloon, where your site’s design will automatically be applied to your feeds.
With EmbedSocial, matching your feeds to your branding is much harder.
Features: Smash Balloon vs EmbedSocial
With that, let’s move on and check out the features here. So, let’s see if Smash Balloon is a worthy alternative to EmbedSocial in that regard.
1. Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon comes with a lot of amazing features. Let’s look at the major ones below:
Easy Setup With Zero Coding
You won’t have to worry about complex codes with Smash Balloon. All it takes is a few simple clicks to prepare everything. And it’s also really fast so your time won’t be wasted.
Another great thing about Smash Balloon is that all of its options are well organized.
So when you start it up, you will not be overwhelmed by a ton of options.
Highly Customizable
Want your social media feeds to fit your brand identity? In that case, Smash Balloon has your back as well.
First, Smash Balloon will inherit your website’s appearance so your feeds are going to fit in perfectly. And it’s automatic so you don’t even have to change any settings.
Plus, there are a ton of customization options here. You can control the feed layout, size, font, color, behavior, and much more.
And with the live feed editor, it’s even easier to create engaging Facebook and Instagram feeds for your website.
With this EmbedSocial alternative, customization is actually one of its strongest points.
Smart Feed Caching for Speed and Backup
Because of Smash Balloon’s smart caching feature, your feeds don’t have to ask the social media platform for data every time they load.
So, your web pages will need much less time to load. As a result, your social media feeds will be fast and snappy. And what’s more, a fast web page is much better for SEO!
Even better, smart caching will also back up your social feeds. So, your feeds work perfectly even when the social media platform goes down.
Multiple Feeds Support
You can add as many social media feeds as you want if you have Smash Balloon. Plus, you can also add feeds from many different social media accounts. With Smash Balloon, you won’t have to worry about any limits there.
And, you also get different types of feeds. In fact, here are a few examples:
- Facebook Timeline feed
- Custom Twitter feed
- Instagram photo feed
- YouTube video feed
- Shoppable feed
- Events feed
- Instagram Hashtag feed
- Twitter Hashtag feed
- And more
And all these feeds are fully responsive so they’ll work perfectly on mobile devices too.
Optimized for SEO
Smash Balloon also makes sure that your social media feeds help you rank higher in search engine results.
Unlike other social media aggregators, Smash Balloon doesn’t use iFrames to show your feeds. That’s because search engine bots will ignore iFrames, which is not good for SEO.
Smash Balloon actually embeds the social media content on your site. So, the social media content on your site will be recognized by search engines.
As a result, you can use your social media content to boost your SEO ranking.
2. EmbedSocial
Now, let’s check out the features that EmbedSocial has to offer:
Works With 99% of Website Builders
One standout feature for EmbedSocial is that it works for almost all website builders and eCommerce platforms. In fact, as long as the platform supports JavaScript, EmbedSocial will work there.
For some platforms, EmbedSocial even has native apps that you can install. And like Smash Balloon, it also works perfectly with WordPress.
Analytics
Want to know how well your social feeds are performing? Well, EmbedSocial has some analytic tools that can help you there.
You can find out which posts are performing well and how many clicks your feeds get. For advanced analytics, EmbedSocial comes with support for Google Analytics.
With a bit of effort, you can integrate Google analytics into your site and find out how your feeds are doing.
10+ Templates for Social Feeds
After you’ve connected your feed, you can just pick from a collection of pre-built templates. So, creating a nice looking social media feed is pretty easy.
Unlike Smash Balloon, customization is pretty limited with EmbedSocial. But if you quickly want to create a beautiful feed and don’t need to match it to your website, then EmbedSocial can be convenient.
6 Supported Social Media Platforms
With EmbedSocial, you have a choice of 6 different platforms for your social media feeds. Besides the ones supported by Smash Balloon, you also have support for Tiktok and Vimeo.
If you wanted to add feeds from those two platforms, then this can be a pretty huge plus for you.
Of course, the downside is that you don’t get as many options for each platform. If you want things like Facebook group feeds or shoppable Instagram feeds, then Smash Balloon is the better choice.
Customer Support: Smash Balloon vs EmbedSocial
When it comes to online solutions, you can’t ignore the support options available for each option either. Whenever you run into an issue, you’ll need a dependable customer support team to help you out.
Let’s see which of the 2 options offers better support.
1. Smash Balloon
One of the best things about Smash Balloon is the quality of customer support. The dedicated support team will help you if you have any issues with social media feeds.
In fact, you can just check out the user reviews, and see that people are happy with the quality of customer support. So, Smash Balloon has a fantastic 4.9/5 star rating with over 1,600,000 installs.
And you can also check out the tutorial videos, blog posts, and documentation for additional help.
2. EmbedSocial
You also get some support options with EmbedSocial, in case you run into any problems. Just drop them a message, and they’ll get back to you at their earliest convenience.
Plus, you also have a knowledge base that you can look through if you need more help.
And EmbedSocial has a rating of 4.8/5 stars with 412 reviews. In comparison, Smash Balloon has a rating of 4.9/5 stars with over 5000 5-star reviews.
While the rating isn’t as high as Smash Balloon, EmbedSocial is definitely well-received by its users.
Pricing: Smash Balloon vs EmbedSocial
Of course, you’ll need to consider the price before you make the purchase. Now that we’ve considered everything, let’s check out the pricing and see if Smash Balloon can compete as an EmbedSocial alternative.
1. Smash Balloon
The great thing about Smash Balloon is that you can use it without paying. Just use the forever free Smash Balloon plugins with all the basic features.
They are perfect if you just want to add social media feeds to your website. Plus, you’ll always have the option to upgrade if you need more features.
The premium plugins have a pretty simple pricing plan. You have 3 plans for each plugin: Personal, Business, and Developer.
You can get the Personal Plan for just $49/year, giving you unlimited uses for 1 site.
Next, you have the Business Plan for $99/year. You’ll get every feature of the Personal Plan, along with unlimited uses for 5 websites.
If you want to upgrade, there’s the Developer Plan for $149/year. You can get all of the previous features with support for up to 25 websites. And you even get priority support!
And if you want something more, check out the All Access Bundle. For $299/year, you get ALL of Smash Balloon’s plugins, including the Social Wall Pro plugin.
Even better, the bundle comes with unlimited access for unlimited websites!
And on top of that, you also get the growing number of Facebook extensions as well as the future plugins from Smash Balloon. All that, and you can use it for unlimited websites.
If Smash Balloon isn’t the right one for you, don’t worry. You have a 30 day 100% money-back guarantee with all of Smash Balloon’s plugins! So, it’s risk-free.
2. EmbedSocial
Just like Smash Balloon, you can also get a free option for EmbedSocial. Since it’s completely free, it’s pretty limited in features here. In fact, you get no customization options at all here.
Aside from that, the free plan only supports 3 feeds in total from a single source. Compared to the unlimited feeds from Smash Balloon, that’s a pretty big limitation.
If you want to upgrade, then EmbedSocial is pretty clear about its pricing plans. You get 3 different plans here: PRO, PRO Plus, Premium.
With $29/month or $348/year, you can get the PRO Plan. With it, you can add 3 social feeds to your site from 3 different sources. Keep in mind, this plan is more expensive than Smash Balloon’s All Access Bundle.
If you upgrade to the PRO Plus Plan for $49/month or $588/year, you can add a total of 15 feeds on your site, from 6 sources.
Want to add unlimited feeds on your site like with Smash Balloon? Then you have the Premium Plan for $99/month or $1188/year. You also get 15 sources for your feeds here.
Although you can get a free trial, it’s just for 7 days. And unlike Smash Balloon, you can’t get a refund except for a few specific reasons. So, investing in EmbedSocial can be a bit riskier.
All in all, it’s clear that EmbedSocial is much more expensive despite having a few significant limitations.
Our Verdict: Smash Balloon vs EmbedSocial
Finally, it’s time to make a decision. With the features, ease of use, customer support, and prices in mind, let’s see if Smash Balloon is the right EmbedSocial alternative for you.
1. Smash Balloon
- Smash Balloon supports the top 4 most social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Plus, it also comes with more options for integrating them.
- You can see from the 4.9/5 star rating that Smash Balloon has a lot of happy customers. A big part of that is due to the amazing customer support.
- Since Smash Balloon automatically inherits your site’s looks, it’s super easy to match your feeds to your branding.
- You also get tons of amazing customization options along with a live feed customizer for Facebook and Instagram feeds.
- With Smash Balloon, you have NO limits for the number of feeds.
- Smash Balloon is much cheaper than EmbedSocial and even has a lot more features.
- Finally, you can just get a complete refund if Smash Balloon isn’t the right option for you. So, it’s practically risk-free.
2. EmbedSocial
- EmbedSocial is supported by almost every website builder out there. Like Smash Balloon, it works well with WordPress.
- With EmbedSocial, you can have feeds from 6 different social media platforms.
- While the pre-designed templates make it simple to create a nice-looking feed, you’ll need to use CSS if you want to customize things further.
- If you want to match your feed to your brand, then it can be pretty time-consuming and complicated.
- The pricing plans are much more expensive with EmbedSocial, and you’ll have to deal with a limited number of feeds.
- You can only get a refund for specific reasons.
Although there are a few plus points for EmbedSocial, it’s clear that Smash Balloon wins overall.
Not only is Smash Balloon much cheaper, you’ll get a lot more features, including unlimited feeds and better customization to make sure they fit your branding image.
And on top of that, the high-quality customer support means you won’t have to worry about running into any issues.
All that, and you can also have unlimited feeds for your site with Smash Balloon.
If you’re not running a WordPress website, then EmbedSocial can help you out. But in any other case, you’re better off using Smash Balloon.
Now, it’s easy to see why 1,600,000+ websites, including some of the biggest brands in the world, use Smash Balloon.
And that’s it!
We hope this comparison between Smash Balloon and EmbedSocial showed you everything you need to know about both options.
Now, you can find the best social media feed plugin for your site and grow your business.
Ready to get started with social media marketing? Just grab Smash Balloon’s All-Access Bundle today!
Still wondering if Smash Balloon is the best social media feed plugin? Then you can check out another comparison: Elfsight vs Smash Balloon.
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