Adding Social Media Buttons to website

[HMCOE]

We've been having phenomenal results with our interactive content on our blogs and now want to integrate the social world into it. (I'm well followed in my niche and it's time to share the knowledge and get the "Likes" and "Shares", frankly our users asked for it.)

What are the Pros and Cons of adding social media buttons

1. through a service like Share This via a simple JS code (it'll take a few minutes)
2. ... or should we invest the time, effort, and money to get a website designer to integrate the buttons one by one into the website?

I'm still torn whether we should sacrifice page load times versus getting well-designed sharing component to increase traffic and awareness...

... or perhaps there is a middle ground?

I'd love your opinions.

(example - I tested the Share This integration on a small blog -120 visitors a day- and it added 3 whole seconds to page load time at peak time ... but we got 13 shares over a 3 hour period)

[AlanBleiweiss]

Page load time are a serious concern for SEO and usability.  Share This also involves a 3rd party script that could become obsolete if any social platform changes something and then Share This doesn't update in a timely manner.  I always recommend clients get direct individual button integration at the template level, for exact look and feel placement.

The other factor is if the ST service is down, or there's a bottleneck from your server to theirs, that's another delay.  Better to interact directly with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and eliminate that weak link.