Social Links
Show your readers where to follow you. Meridian renders all nine native Ghost social accounts, plus 20+ other platforms through a single Code Injection snippet.
Meridian renders social links in three places: the site footer, the slide-out menu, and author bylines / author archives (each author's own accounts). Ghost natively supports nine social platforms — X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram — and Meridian shows them all automatically. For everything else — Substack, Patreon, GitHub, Discord, RSS, and more — Meridian provides a simple Code Injection snippet you paste once.
Where these links appear
Custom social links appear in the footer and the slide-out menu by default, next to your native social icons. Per-link placement controls let you scope a link to just one of the two (see Advanced below).
Native social accounts
Ghost lets you set all nine accounts in one panel — no code needed. Meridian picks them up automatically.
Log in to Ghost Admin.
Go to Settings → General → Social accounts.
Click Edit and paste a URL for each platform you use — X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. Leave the rest blank.
Click Save — the icons appear in your footer and slide-out menu straight away, in the same order as the panel.
On Ghost older than 6.37
Ghost expanded the Social accounts panel beyond Facebook and X in Ghost 6.37. On an older Ghost, the panel only offers those two — add the remaining platforms with the Code Injection method below until you update, and Meridian renders them the same way.
Custom social links
Need a platform Ghost doesn't offer natively? Meridian adds 20+ others — Substack, Patreon, GitHub, Discord, Telegram, Pinterest, Reddit, Medium, RSS, email, and more — through a single snippet you paste once into Ghost's Code Injection field.
Code Injection is required
Custom social links are added through Ghost's built-in Code Injection feature. You don't need to edit theme files or know how to code — just paste the snippet and replace the URLs with your own.
Log in to Ghost Admin.
Go to Settings → Code injection.
Copy the block below into the Site Header box. Each line is one social link — change the platform name and the URL on each line, delete the lines you don't need, and save.
<meta name="meridian-social-substack" content="https://your-name.substack.com">
<meta name="meridian-social-patreon" content="https://patreon.com/your-name">
<meta name="meridian-social-github" content="https://github.com/your-name">
<meta name="meridian-social-discord" content="https://discord.gg/your-server">
<meta name="meridian-social-rss" content="https://your-site.com/rss/">Click Save and reload your site — the new icons will appear right next to your native social icons.
One link per line
If a line has a typo or a wrong URL, it only affects that line. Your other links will still appear correctly. To remove a link later, just delete the line.
Supported platforms
Use one of these slugs in name="meridian-social-<slug>":
facebook | twitter (or x) | instagram |
youtube | linkedin | tiktok |
threads | bluesky | mastodon |
pinterest | reddit | github |
discord | telegram | whatsapp |
substack | patreon | medium |
rss | email (or mail) | link |
For email links, use a mailto: URL — for example content="mailto:[email protected]".
Native platforms win
The first nine slugs in the table are Ghost-native — set those in Settings → General → Social accounts instead. If a platform is configured there, Meridian skips any Code Injection link for the same platform, so you never get duplicate icons. A Code Injection link for a native platform only renders when the native field is empty (useful on Ghost older than 6.37).
Advanced: per-link options & custom platforms
The simple meta-tag form above is enough for almost everyone. If you need any of the following, switch to the <a> block form:
- The platform isn't in the list above (e.g. Goodreads, Twitch, Spotify) — paste a custom SVG.
- You want a link to appear in only the footer or only the slide-out menu.
- You want a different visible label.
Paste this block into the Site Header box (you can use it together with the meta-tag form):
<div data-meridian-social-links hidden>
<!-- A platform that's not in the supported list — paste an SVG icon -->
<a data-name="My Forum" href="https://forum.example.com"
data-svg='<svg viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="currentColor"><path d="..." /></svg>'></a>
<!-- Show a link only in the footer -->
<a data-platform="discord" href="https://discord.gg/your-server" data-placements="footer"></a>
<!-- Use a custom visible label -->
<a data-platform="youtube" data-name="Watch on YouTube" href="https://youtube.com/@your-channel"></a>
</div>Attribute reference
| Attribute | Required | What it does |
|---|---|---|
href | Yes | The URL the icon links to. |
data-platform | No | One of the supported platform slugs. If you leave this out, Meridian will try to detect the platform from the URL's hostname. |
data-name | No | The visible label (used by screen readers and as the tooltip). Defaults to the platform's name. |
data-placements | No | Where the link appears. Use footer, drawer (the slide-out menu), or footer, drawer. Defaults to both. |
data-svg | No | A custom SVG icon. Use this for platforms that aren't in the supported list. |
Where to find SVG icons
Need an SVG icon for a platform that isn't supported? These libraries let you copy an SVG with one click:
- Font Awesome Brands — official brand marks; this is the icon set Meridian uses internally, so anything you pick here will look right at home.
- Simple Icons — alternative library covering thousands of services with consistent single-colour brand marks.
- Lucide, Tabler Icons, Phosphor Icons — line-style icon sets, useful when no brand mark exists.
Open the icon in your library of choice, click "Copy SVG", and paste it into data-svg='...' (note the single quotes around the SVG — keep those exact).
Author social links
Ghost gives every author their own social account fields on their staff profile (Settings → Staff → click an author → Edit) — the same nine platforms as the site-wide panel. When set, they surface as social icons next to the author's byline on every post they wrote and on their author archive page.
Author bylines always show the author's own profile fields — Code Injection links are site-wide and don't appear there.
Troubleshooting
A link isn't showing up
Check the URL — it must start with https:// (or http:// / mailto:). If the URL is misspelled or missing the protocol, Meridian will skip just that line and leave the others alone. Open your browser's developer console (right-click → Inspect → Console) and look for warnings starting with [meridian social links].
The whole snippet looks broken after pasting
Some text editors and word processors automatically replace plain quotes (") with "smart quotes" (" and "). HTML doesn't understand smart quotes. If you copied the snippet from a Word doc or chat message, paste it into a plain-text editor first (Notes app, Notepad, or Ghost's Code Injection field directly) so the quotes stay straight.
I want to remove or temporarily hide a link
To remove a link permanently, delete its line. To hide a link temporarily, wrap the line in an HTML comment:
<!-- <meta name="meridian-social-substack" content="https://your-name.substack.com"> -->The link will be ignored until you remove the <!-- and --> markers.