With almost 60 million
WordPress users, many that also have their own Facebook pages, a lot of people
want to know how to link Facebook to WordPress. The first question is what
exactly does this mean - linking Facebook to WordPress? Well, there are
actually a few steps we must take to fully integrate Facebook into our
WordPress Blogs.
Fortunately this can be easily
achieved using a couple of free WordPress Plugins and Widgets. This tutorial
will explain exactly what linking Facebook to WordPress entails and overview
the Plugins and widgets required to achieve this. I will also walk through
exactly how to configure the Plugins and widgets to give your WordPress Blog
and Facebook page a huge social boost!
The 4 Different Ways we can
Link Facebook to WordPress
There are several ways we can
link Facebook to WordPress. To become fully integrated, our Blogs should
contain the following functionality:
1. Have the option to easily
post summaries of our Blogs to Facebook
2. Have a 2 way commenting
system between FB and WP
3. Have a place advertising
your FB page on your WordPress Blog for people to Like
4. Have the option for visitors
to "Like" your individual Blog posts
Posting Blogs to Facebook and
2-way Commenting
Let me elaborate on this. Part
1 simply means when you write up a new post, you want a simple "click of a
button" process to publish a summary of your post to Facebook, along with
a link back from Facebook so people can read your entire post.
Part 2 means that when someone
comments on Facebook, that comment gets published on your Blog site and vice-versa.
This makes your Blog and Facebook page appear to be more popular because every
time someone comments, that comment is going to both places.
The one key word here would be
"simple". We don't want to manually copy and paste our Blogs and
create a backlink, or copy and paste comments here, there and everywhere.
Fortunately there is one awesome plugin that takes care of this.
Using Wordbooker to Link
Facebook to WordPress
Wordbooker is an absolutely
awesome plugin with unlimited flexibility. It has so much flexibility in fact,
that the options sometimes get a little confusing. There are essentially 2 main
options:
- Automatic or manual posting
of Blogs to Facebook
- 2-way commenting, 1-way
commenting or no-way commenting
I would recommend manual
posting, as you don't want to accidentally publish posts to Facebook or publish
an unfinished post, and 2-way commenting, as this increases the conceived
popularity to both FB and WP which is never a bad thing! Let's dig in.
Installing and Authorizing
Wordbooker with Facebook
First go ahead and install the
plugin. From you WordPress dashboard, go to plugins, install new plugin and
search for the Wordbooker plugin (activate after you have installed it)
The next thing we need to do is
authorize Wordbooker to communicate with your Facebook page. Wordbooker can be
found under settings. Click Wordbooker from the settings menu to bring up the
main configuration screen.
After you click "Authorize
Wordbooker" you will be taken to your Facebook login page. Login to
Facebook and you will be greeted with a screen that allows you to authorize
Wordbooker to post to your Facebook page. Click on "Go to App" and
then click "Allow" from the next page.
There's just one more step.
After you click allow, you will be taken back to your WordPress Blog. To
complete the link from Wordbooker to Facebook, click the "Reload
Page" button and you should be taken to the general Wordbooker settings
page.
Configuring Wordbooker to Post
Blogs to Facebook and Sync Comments
The best thing about Wordbooker
is how easy it is to use! The settings that it comes with are good enough to
get your first Blog posted to Facebook without changing anything.
As mentioned, I prefer to post
manually to Facebook. I often edit my posts after I publish them, and sometimes
I publish posts in progress and don't want them to be posted to Facebook before
they are done. Posting to Facebook is achieved directly through the page where
you compile your posts in WordPress. Scroll down to the bottom of your post to
see the Wordbooker options. There are several check-boxes to check here:
- First check "Publish
this Post to Facebook"
- Check the box pertaining to
which wall you want to publish to
- Check all 3 of the last boxes
to enable 2-way commenting (optional)
The only thing left to do is to
update your page and Wordbooker posts it to Facebook:
Tip: You can insert a featured
image and Wordbooker will pull that image into Facebook too! I try to keep the
images to a max size of 125×125 pixels.
Linking Facebook to WordPress
via a Sidebar Widget
Next, we are going to link
Facebook to WordPress via a pretty cool sidebar widget. It gives your Blog
visitors the option to Like you on Facebook and join your network of friends.
Think about what we have accomplished above. Every time we make a new post to
our Blog, and publish it on Facebook - each of your friends will get an update
on their page - so the more friends or fans you have on Facebook, the greater
an audience you can share your Blog with.
We need to give your Blog
visitors an easy and obvious way to join your Facebook network to allow optimal
growth of your fan-base. This Widget accomplishes exactly that!
The Widget is called
"Facebook Social Plugin", search for it through your WordPress
dashboard and install the same way as we did the Wordbooker plugin. Activate
and take a look at your available Widgets (through Appearance, Widgets).
You'll see a couple of
additional options, the one you want to drag into your sidebar is called
"Facebook Like Box". After you drag it into your sidebar, you will
need to configure it to pull from your Facebook page - the settings are minimal
and fairly obvious - just don't forget to enter your Facebook URL and click
save. Take a look at your website after this and you should have an easy avenue
for people to Like you on Facebook in the sidebar area!
Link Facebook to WordPress -
Get Visitors to Like your Posts
The final way we can link
Facebook to WordPress is by getting your visitors to actually link to your
posts through their Facebook accounts. Again, we should focus on making this
obvious and easy. Wordbooker does have a function for this, but there is
another little plugin that also gives visitors the option to Tweet, post to
Google +1, Pinterest, Delicious and a host of other social platforms.
The Plugin is called
"Shareaholic". Search for it through your WordPress dash and install
as we did the previous 2 Plugins and activate it.
Access the Shareaholic plugin
and click where it says "Please visit the Plugin Options... " then
hit "Enable Shareaholic". You'll then be taken to the Shareaholic
dashboard where you can configure this Plugin. I click on Enable Sexy
Bookmarks, which allows me to choose which social media platforms I allow my
visitors to share my posts on.
And there are a ton of options
to choose from. Select the media platforms you want to allow your visitors to
post to, scroll to the bottom of the options page and hit save. There are
oodles of options as you scroll down, but the defaults are pretty good. Now, at
the bottom of each post you make, there will be a bookmark bar, where your
visitors can share your posts to their Facebook page and any of the social
media networks show above!
Linking Facebook to WordPress
Summary
Well that's all there is to it!
These are the 4 key steps in fully integrating Facebook into WordPress and to
increase the popularity of your Blog! I do want to point out one more option,
but this is usually very theme dependent.
A lot of Blog theme designers
today recognize the importance of integrating social media into their Blog
design, and as such, most themes come with configurable options to enter your
Facebook as well as other social platforms. The respective icons will then show
up on your Blog could be in the header, footer, sidebar, or all 3 places - the
placement and appearance is theme dependent.
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