How to Embed Facebook Status Posts in WordPress
July 15. 2021
Most commercial websites run a number of social media profiles for marketing purposes. Some only use a couple that they feel are the most popular. While others go for four or five, depending on what their audience is like. But, if there is one social media platform that almost all businesses should have it’s Facebook. So, it only stands to reasons that, if you want to run a commercial website, you should know how to embed Facebook status posts in WordPress. And we’re here to show you how.
Why is embedding Facebook status posts a good idea
It stands to reason that you should run a Facebook profile if you have a business website. But, why should you go through the trouble of embedding Facebook status posts? Surely you can simply add a social media button on your landing page, and that will be enough to connect your website to it. Right? Well, not quite. To bridge the gap between your Facebook profile and your website you should spare no expense. Good websites make good use of Facebook as it is not only popular but also quite useful for giving precise information and promoting content. Facebook statuses in particular can be a great way to promote new products, outline new offers and inform the audience about important updates. Therefore, if you want to make sure of Facebook’s full functionality, you should know how to embed status posts on your website.
Embed Facebook status posts in WordPress
There are essentially two ways to go about embedding Facebook status posts. One is where you embed each post manually. And the other is when you create a feed where your status posts will be updated automatically. For in this article, we will cover how to embed single posts.
Adding Facebook status to WP posts
As it is with most things related to WordPress, the easiest way of embedding Facebook status posts is through a plugin. While there are a couple of options, we will go with the Smash Ballon Social Post Feed plugin, as we feel it is one of the best Facebook plugins. The paid version does give you some useful features and customization capabilities. So, we would advise you to consider using it.
Step: 1
First, you’ll need to install and activate the Smash Ballon plugin. Since this is fairly straightforward and self-explanatory, we will assume that you got through it without issue. Once you’ve activated it, head on to the Facebook Feed -> Settings in your WP admin area. There you need to open the Configuration tab and click on the “Connect a Facebook account” button. A pop-up window will open up where you can choose the page or the group that you want to connect to. Once you do, click the “Continue” button.
Step: 2
Now you need to log into your Facebook account and connect with the Smash Ballon plugin. The following screen will give you a list of all the Facebook pages that you can connect to the plugin. Select the ones you want and click “Next”. After doing this you will need to give permission to Smash Ballon to manage Facebook posts, read posted content, etc. Once you give permission, click the “Done” button. You should get a message stating that you’ve successfully linked Facebook and Smash Ballon. Click the OK button to go back to your WordPress page.
Step: 3
In WordPress, you should see a pop-up with all the authorization pages. What you need to do is to select your page and click the “Connect this page” button. After doing so you should see your Facebook page in the “Connected Accounts” section of Smash Ballon settings. Just make sure now to click the “Save Changes” button.
Step: 4
Now you can embed a Facebook status post to your WordPress website. You first need to select which status you want to embed. Then you need to copy the link of the status. To do so, simply click the timestamp of a Facebook status and copy the URL. After this, all you need to do is to open the content editor in the new WP post and click the (+) button in the top left corner to add the “Embed” block. Here you simply add the URL and you are done.
Final thoughts about social media and websites
Combining social media with your website is always a good idea. Apart from embedding Facebook status posts, you can also embed Instagram photos or Twitter posts. But, if there is one thing that we would advise you to do is to be careful when doing so. While you should embed Facebook status posts in WordPress, your website shouldn’t simply become a proxy for your Facebook page. Both your Facebook page and your website need to be separate entities and the user needs to have a clear motivation of why and when to visit them.
A Facebook page is usually much more intuitive and easier to understand as people use it on a daily basis. So you can rely on it for important info and lucrative offers. Websites, on the other hand, tend to be less intuitive but give you much more freedom to publish the content that you want. A good website makes use of this freedom to promote the brand and to enhance the users’ online experience. So, before you start connecting social media posts with your website, try to understand what role each of them plays and how to monitor the online traffic. That way you will yield the best results from your online presence.