In June 2012, Facebook announced its tighter integration with the WordPress content management system (self-hosted) by launching its free “Facebook” plugin available through the WordPress plugin directory.

The plugin allows users of both platforms to automatically post their WordPress posts to their personal profiles and pages they manage, as well as to “tag” (add the names of) pages or friends in posts.

What the Facebook plugin actually does

The Facebook plugin for WordPress also creates these widgets that you can add to your sidebars:

• Activity feed: shows the activity of friends, including likes and comments;
• Recommendations: Give readers personalized suggestions for pages.
• Like, subscribe and send mailboxes, customizable with fonts, sizes and options to display Faces.
• Through the plugin settings, you can configure the following options:
• Like, Subscribe, Send customizable – can be added to the top, bottom of the post, or both.
• Comment box: allows readers to leave comments to be posted on your timeline, it also includes moderation tools for blog administrators.
• Recommendations Bar: Add a pop-up window in a corner at the bottom, displaying personalized recommendations for other posts that your readers might be interested in. The reader can “Like” the posts and add them to their timeline.
• Social Publisher: the key functionality that helps you publish your new posts as updates to your profile or your pages. You can also include mentions of other people or pages and you can configure where these mentions will be displayed.

On paper (or rather on screen) it all sounds pretty exciting. So we couldn’t wait to try everything on our sites and see how it really works!

Plugin installation

The installation process is pretty straightforward. Just download the plugin from the WordPress directory or install it directly through WordPress. However, you must make sure that you are running WordPress v.3+.

Then you will need to go into the plugin settings to configure it. It has helpful screenshots to show you how to do it. You will need to create your own Facebook application (probably the first for many Facebook users!) To get the keys to the application that the plugin will use. And to create an application, you will need to verify your Facebook account by adding a mobile phone number or your credit card (if you haven’t already).

You will also need to authorize the plugin with your Facebook account login to allow posting of posts on your profile / pages.

I’m not going to rewrite the steps here as I believe the plugin itself and the Facebook Developer Help contain enough information to build a basic app for the plugin to work.

Plugin Settings

The “Main Configuration” information will be obtained by completing the configuration stages and instructions provided by the plug-in.

Next, you’ll want to configure your post and page settings.

Personally, I would rather be able to choose by mail, per page, or both. However, in this first option, you will use the social sharing options on both or neither. I’ve shown you some of the options below on what the plugin does and how they can be customized to fit your website.

Benefits of using the plugin

1. Easily add social sharing buttons (like, send, share, subscribe) to your posts and pages. You can also add these options to the sidebar. HOWEVER: you can configure these options in advance using other sharing plugins such as AddThis, ShareThis or DiggDigg. These plugins also give you more flexibility on where to place your social sharing buttons and style customization.
2. You can offer personalized recommendations to your blog visitors based on the activity of other visitors. This is a very useful option for a blog, as it could keep your visitors there longer, having them read one post after another. The recommendation bar at the bottom also makes it easy to share posts via Facebook, so you could potentially gain more visibility for your content across readers and visitors. You can avoid using the plugin and offer similar functionality by using the most popular posts, most commented posts, other social sharing plugins, etc., but I would say that it is not the same nor is it that interactive.
3. You can embed Facebook comments in your posts, these posts will be visible on the readers’ profile and thus promote your content among their friends. HOWEVER: if you previously used the default WordPress commenting option (and had comments on your blog), enabling this option will override the WordPress comment template. So your previous comments, made without the Facebook option, will no longer be visible! If you used another plugin to manage your discussions (such as DISQUS), you will now have 2 comment options: via DISQUS and via Facebook plugin. Personally, I think it is confusing for your readers. Additionally, DISQUS already offers Facebook login / integration as well as many other options for those who don’t want to use their Facebook account when commenting.
4. You can automatically post posts and pages to your profiles and pages that you manage. You can also mention other people and pages in your posts, which will increase your visibility on Facebook as these updates will be posted on the profiles and pages you mention. HOWEVER: I have tested this functionality with 2 different Facebook profiles on 2 different websites. Obviously I followed the instructions multiple times, but it just wasn’t posting to my profile! Page posting worked fine (twice in my case as I use network blogs to distribute my blogs). But the only way I could link my profile was by mentioning me in the post. So at the moment, it seems that this feature is not quite correct.
5. If you have network blogs or a similar application that already publishes your posts on your profile and page, you will need to decide which option you prefer to use: the Facebook plug-in or a third-party Facebook application. The benefit of the plugin would be that it can mention other people and pages, not just you and your page. And you can add a custom message when posting a post to both mention pages and mention people. A bit like doing an update message with a link attached, but through WordPress and this can be scheduled!

The negatives of using the Facebook plugin for WordPress

1. Slow down your website: Like any other additional plugin that you have to consult another website before yours is fully loaded, this plugin will affect your loading speed. In our test, the same blog post dropped from 85 to 81 just by activating the Facebook plugin.
2. Override WordPress Comments – If you previously used WordPress Comments, instead of a third-party plugin, your old comment list and form will disappear if you turn on Facebook Comments option (not if you only use other parts of the plugin). We tested it with themes from Genesis and Themeforest, other premium themes may behave differently.
3. The options are somewhat conflicting with each other: if you activate Like, then check Send, you do not need to activate Send, as the function will be replicated.
4. Activating Open Graph did not work in the test: it did not allow the publication of posts on my personal profile. If you managed to fix this problem or know why it happened, please share your comments! However, Page’s post worked. I also don’t know what will happen to my applications. Was I able to “submit” my post action as instructed! I’ll keep trying and update this post if I have more information …

In summary

I will be using the Facebook plugin for WordPress on the TJConsulting blog. I will not post posts on my page or profile yet until I discover the integration part of the app. Networked Blogs publishes all my posts reliably on my profile and pages and also creates a tab with a feed of recent posts. On the occasion, I need to share a post with another Facebook user; I will do it manually using the usual Facebook share button below each update. I’ll stick with my current comment fixes that also allow for MailChimp integration for my newsletter subscription.

However, you can see new boxes added to Blog sidebar – Personalized Recommendations, Share this on Facebook. Also under posts and pages you will find the options Like, Send and Subscribe.

Now it’s your turn. Have you tried the new Facebook plugin? You like? How will you use it? Have you managed to integrate it with your App? Wait for your thoughts!