“You need to get on Facebook”. How many times have you heard that about your business? It may get a bit annoying, but Facebook is an essential part of connecting with users and getting content out to the masses.
Whether you have a huge following already or not, it’s also important to find the best WordPress Facebook plugins to support your business page and prompting followers to share content.
Why You Should Consider Using WordPress Facebook Plugins
The purpose of Facebook plugins varies, considering some of them are for sharing, some of them for building follow counts, and some for showing pictures. Here are some advantages of installing a Facebook plugin in the first place:
- They’re great for showing users that you have a Facebook page and that they should follow it.
- The content can be revealed to give people a sneak peek of what’s being posted.
- Some of the plugins allow users to share your blog posts and pages with other users on Facebook.
- You may need to adjust the sizing of images and change content on shared posts.
- It’s possible you need a small widget to place a Like button on your page.
- You can boost your SEO through Facebook.
- You can even provide customer service through Facebook.
- Some Facebook plugins make your website more visual with picture galleries.
A Word of Warning When Working with Facebook Plugins
Keep in mind that Facebook is a third-party service. It’s not associated with WordPress or any of the developers making WordPress plugins. Because of this, there is a chance that some plugins get unexpectedly deactivated if they violate Facebook’s trademarks or copyrights. That said, all of the developers have been told about not doing things like showing Facebook logos, so you should be fine.
In addition, Facebook could have server issues that could bring down your site or show errors if Facebook takes too long to respond to the prompt from your plugin.
What should you do to avoid this?
You could take a risk and hope that everything goes well, but Smash Balloon has a nice tutorial that helps you almost completely avoid all issues with Facebook. The tutorial walks you through how to create a developer account on Facebook along with an app. This allows you to side-step some of the problems you may encounter.
(Suggested reading: How to Fix the Facebook oEmbed Issue in WordPress)
How to Add the New Facebook Page Plugin in WordPress
Facebook actually has its own option for adding a little widget to your WordPress site. If you’d like to go this route, here are the steps to get it done:
- Go to this Facebook page.
- Paste in your Facebook Page URL to the appropriate field. This is done automatically if you’re logged into the page.
- Choose which tabs you would like to appear on the widget.
- Adjust details like the width and height of the widget.
- Choose other settings like the size of the header, cover photo, and if you should show friends.
- Click on the Get Code button.
Facebook then reveals two bits of code for you to copy and paste into your WordPress site. Copy the first one and paste it into the header.php file of your child theme or regular theme. Locate the <body> tag and paste the code right after that.
The second code snippet can be pasted anywhere on your website you want the module to appear. Feel free to put it in a post or page or consider including it in a text widget so that it is displayed on all sidebars or footers.
The Best WordPress Facebook Plugins to Choose From
If you don’t like the look of Facebook’s own integration, or if you need a more unique tool (like Facebook sharing buttons), take a look at some of our favorite WordPress Facebook plugins below.
1. Widget for Social Page Feeds
The next Facebook plugin we like is called Widget for Social Page Feeds. Similar to Smash Balloon, this plugin brings your Facebook feed on your website. However, it’s in the form of a simple widget. Some people prefer shortcodes, whiles others wouldn’t know what to do without widgets. So, if you have plenty of widgets on your website already, this might be a great solution for you.
In short, you can go to your Widgets section of the WordPress dashboard and implement the module in places like your footers, headers, and sidebars. It’s a simple process that takes no more than a minute. Simply connect your Facebook page and activate the widget in the location of your choice.
Widgets are often far more lightweight than other alternative display options. That’s definitely the case with the Widget for Social Page Feeds plugin. A basic box is revealed that contains some of your most recent posts. After that, you have plenty of settings for hiding and showing certain posts and changing items like the header, language, and width.
Shortcodes are also available in this Facebook widget plugin, so you have the best of both worlds. Oh yeah, and it’s completely free without any prompts to pay for upgrades!
What Makes This One of the Best WordPress Facebook Plugins?
- The plugin has a primary feature that displays your entire Facebook feed (part of it) on WordPress. This is all done with the help of a lightweight widget.
- You can also use a shortcode for placing the Facebook gallery elsewhere on your website.
- The configuration takes seconds, asking for your Facebook Application ID and page URL.
- Widget customization settings include dimensions, languages, covers, titles, and more.
- You can include buttons for liking the page and sharing with other people on Facebook.
- There are several options for adjusting the number of posts showing up on the Facebook feed. For instance, you may want to hide some of your posts that aren’t relevant anymore or even remove the cover completely.
- The customer support is known for being rather responsive.
Who Should Consider This Facebook Plugin for WordPress?
The end result of the Widget for Social Page Feeds plugin isn’t much different than that of Smash Balloon. However, this plugin provides a far more lightweight solution with minimal settings. That way, you can almost instantly get your Facebook posts on your website and not have to worry much about customization. Having the option of both shortcodes and widgets is also a nice plus.
2. Nextend Social Login and Register
Nextend Social Login and Register generates an area on your WordPress website for new users to create profiles with their already existing social profiles. Current users can also come back and login with those same credentials. Facebook is included in the list of social networks, so what someone has to do is simply click on the “Login With Facebook” button and be logged into their account. After that, the work is done for them by creating a quick profile on your website.
Several other social login buttons are available such as Google and Twitter. The benefit of having a tool like this on your website is that users no longer have to go through the tedious process of creating a new account. This typically speeds up the process and increases the number of users you have on your site. It’s particularly important for membership sites and online communities where user profiles are required or you need users to register quickly.
The free version is robust enough for small businesses, offering login widgets and shortcodes, editable buttons, and Facebook profile pictures. You can buy the Pro Addon for $50 or $200 if you’d like 10 domain licenses. The premium plugin provides some interesting features such as a WooCommerce integration, additional providers like LinkedIn, and several login layouts.
What Makes This One of the Best WordPress Facebook Plugins?
- This is a social login plugin that integrates directly with the default WordPress login page. It simply adds the social buttons below the standard login and account creation form.
- There’s a free version with just about all the features most businesses will need. The Facebook login button is provided in the free version.
- Both shortcodes and widgets are offered for those who prefer working with one or the other.
- Several other social logins are available such as Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn.
- Custom redirect URLs are possible once someone creates an account with their Facebook profile information.
- All social buttons are customizable and translatable.
- WooCommerce compatibility is available in the premium version.
- You can opt to have users still type in their email addresses and usernames with their social profiles.
- Quite a few login layouts are available for testing out the configuration of your social login.
- Different icons and buttons come with the plugin.
- You can assign specific user roles when someone signs up on your website. You might also consider restricting user roles depending on who logs into your website.
Who Should Consider This Facebook Plugin for WordPress?
If you run a membership site, like a forum, community, gated-content site, or similar a Facebook login is a must-have to improve your subscriber rates.
3. Shared Counts – Social Media Share Buttons
One of the quickest ways to get the word out about your online products or blog posts is to implement social sharing buttons on your website. This way, users read a blog post, then click on the Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest share buttons to let other people know about it. The Shared Counts plugin allows you to implement this functionality on your own WordPress website.
Not only does the plugin provide sharing buttons, but it counts the number of shares from each network. This way, a user sees how many other people like the page, giving you some social proof.
Although we’re primarily concerned about getting a Facebook share button on your site, there are also several other social sharing buttons included:
- Facebook.
- Pinterest.
- Twitter.
- Email.
- Yummly.
- Email sharing.
- Printing.
- LinkedIn.
Much of the reason Share Counts is so popular is because the buttons look great on all themes and they load faster than some of the other competitors we’ve tested. It’s all a lightweight package with multiple style options to match your brand. The entire plugin is free for you to use, and there are no additional charges for upgrades or extensions.
Having said that, there are a few add-ons, such as a Pinterest image upload and a caching status. Both of these are free as well, but you must pull the files from GitHub and install the files on your site manually.
What Makes This One of the Best WordPress Facebook Plugins?
- Within a few minutes, you get social sharing buttons for improving your reach and getting people to talk about your product pages and blog posts.
- There’s no payment required. The plugin is entirely free, including the add-ons.
- Choose from a wide variety of colors, buttons, and layouts. For instance, some of the layouts are slimmer, while others are rounded and bigger.
- The button module displays how many shares you’ve received from social media networks. This way, people see your content as popular.
- You receive sharing buttons for options like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Pinterest pictures.
- The buttons are lightweight and fast, minimizing lag on your website.
- The plugin retrieves old HTTP shares that the page may have had before. This way, you don’t lose the social proof you’ve built up from before.
- Styling can be completed for changing around things like where the buttons will show up in your blog posts.
- You can utilize a shortcode to ensure that all of your social sharing buttons are appearing in the right places.
Who Should Consider This Facebook Plugin for WordPress?
Sometimes there’s no reason for you to install a plugin like this because your WordPress theme already provides social sharing buttons. Page builders also typically have modules for these. However, if your blog posts, product pages, and other pages on your website lack social sharing tools, install Share Counts.
4. WP2Social Auto Publish
WP2Social Auto Publish turns your blog post publication into an automated task by linking to your blog and sharing directly to Facebook after publication. The plugin features customizable formats and content options, with tools for changing things like the title and description of your Facebook post.
You get to choose which of your published WordPress posts goes to Facebook. After that, you can decide to add an image, attachment, or link to the post.
As mentioned, you have settings for choosing the posts that should be sent to Facebook. This is done with the help of filter items. For instance, you can filter based on category or custom post types and only have those published from WordPress to Facebook. What’s cool is that you don’t only have to share blog posts. You can run your social strategy from your dashboard by posting to Facebook with simple text, links, images, and more.
As with many of the Facebook plugins we’ve outlined so far, The WP2Social plugin is also free.
What Makes This One of the Best WordPress Facebook Plugins?
- WP2Social is easily installed and features a simple interface for enabling the auto-publication of your content to Facebook.
- Both pages and posts can be published from your WordPress site to Facebook. You can also add your own regular text or image posts.
- The plugin lets you decide on a category or post type so that only a certain selection of WordPress items are being shared to Facebook.
- There are a few unique features such as adding a credit link for the photographer and enabling premium ads.
- You receive a log of all Facebook posts shared with your followers.
- You have options for adding attachments or links to the Facebook post.
- Each message you send out is fully customizable, with options for changing around things like images and text.
- Each shared post has certain elements that are able to be shown on the Facebook post. Some of these include post titles and descriptions.
Who Should Consider This Facebook Plugin for WordPress?
Automatically publishing your blog posts and new website pages on Facebook is a little tricky for some organizations. For instance, you shouldn’t be sharing the majority of your site pages. It wouldn’t make any sense to put your “About Us” page on Facebook every time you update it. So, if you don’t have a blog, you should probably forget about this plugin.
However, we recommend it for all companies and individuals with blogs. It’s important to remember that you’ll want evergreen content being shared automatically, since a post about a new software release you had three years ago doesn’t make sense.
5. Live Chat with Messenger Customer Chat
Live Chat with Messenger Customer Chat is a plugin that connects your WordPress site with Facebook Live Chat. More and more companies are starting to provide customer support through the Facebook chat module (or other chat plugins).
The benefits of adding this plugin include the fact that billions of people are on Facebook. You’re more than likely going to find new customers on Facebook, so why not answer questions on there? Also, you have the opportunity to quickly share product information, social buttons, and reviews in the chatbox. It’s all a nice package for providing the best customer service.
The plugin is made by Zotabox, so most of the time you’ll see the tool called by that name. This is only a premium solution. You can test it out for 14 days but after that, you need to choose a payment plan. It’s not as cheap as most Facebook plugins, but it does have some excellent features for expanding upon the functionality of your Facebook Chat module.
The pricing starts at $9.99 per month for the Starter Package. The price goes up if you need more than 1,500 push notifications or more websites supported. Keep in mind that Zotabox is far more than a live chat tool. It offers more of a suite, with tools for contact forms, social buttons, and banners.
What Makes This One of the Best WordPress Facebook Plugins?
- Zotabox lets you quickly reply to Facebook Live Chat messages on the dashboard.
- Chat history is available for you to check back on previous conversations.
- You can chat with customers through the Messenger mobile app.
- Feel free to customize the look and feel of your chatbox, with changes to sizing, colors, icons, and buttons.
- The plugin has a field for adjusting the welcome message when users try to contact you through Facebook.
- You have options for targeting certain customers with your chatbox. For example, you may decide to only have it show up on certain pages or based on where a person is located.
- Zotabox adds several other tools to your websites, such as a landing page builder, popup tabs, header bars, and more.
- You can take advantage of push notifications, which collect subscribers on your website and send out messages to them. Social buttons are available for getting more people to share your content and like your pages.
- You can pull social reviews from places like Facebook to show your customers how great your products and services are.
- Several social mobile tools are included so that your customers can reach out to you through Facebook on their phones. You can also chat with the users on your own devices.
Who Should Consider This Facebook Plugin for WordPress?
Consider Zotabox if you’d like a full suite of tools to go along with your Facebook Live Chat module. If you’re looking for a free plugin for this, simply skip it.
6. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO may not seem like a Facebook plugin to some, but it actually has some excellent features for improving your Facebook posts from WordPress. A big part of the idea behind Yoast is to attract more visitors from SEO organic traffic but also from social networks. It does this by optimizing your posts and ensuring that your content is appealing when shared on Facebook and other networks.
Many Yoast SEO users take the free version and see incredible results by improving their search engine optimization on pages and posts. It allows you to target certain keywords and check readability statistics, just to name a few of its SEO tools. Overall, Yoast focuses primarily on SEO, and that includes also helping people find your content through Facebook.
The free version of this plugin is most likely going to work well for most companies. However, in order to get the best Facebook features, you need to upgrade to the premium version. The premium plugin starts at $89 for one site and goes up to around $750 for 10 sites.
Once you sign up for the premium version, you’ll gain access to some interesting Facebook features such as social previews so that you know what your content is going to look like when users share on Facebook. You can also link up to WooCommerce for improving the social and search engine optimization for that.
What Makes This One of the Best WordPress Facebook Plugins?
- Yoast is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress.
- The premium version has some excellent features for ensuring that your social posts look good. For instance, you want to make sure that the featured image looks right before users start sharing the post.
- You have the option to upgrade to the WooCommerce SEO add-on, which links to your online store and makes it much easier to get visitors with the help of Facebook.
- Yoast has the ability to optimize unique elements for SEO and social networks. These include news articles, local pages, and videos.
- The primary SEO area is where you can configure your metadata. This is essential for Facebook since your titles and descriptions are also shown along with the featured image.
- The plugin has a readability score, telling you how well you’re writing and if it’s going to be easy for users to sift through your content.
- Yoast provides top-notch customer support, especially for paying customers.
- It’s a complete SEO suite, with some extra features for things like insights, recognizing the best keywords, and recommended internal links.
Who Should Consider This Facebook Plugin for WordPress?
Without a doubt, Yoast is one of the first plugins you should install after creating a WordPress website. It’s a must-have tool for anyone trying to gain traction with the search engines, such as Google and its alternatives. It’s also nice because while you optimize for the search engines you’re also making Facebook posts look nice if people choose to share your articles.
7. Simple Like Page Plugin
The Simple Like Page Plugin is all about telling your customers or users that they should follow your brand on Facebook. It doesn’t have a very complicated interface and that’s the point. In short, the plugin reveals a small module on your website, similar to your Facebook Business page, but in a miniature fashion.
You can see everything from the cover image to some of the people who like the page. There’s also a button for people to instantly click on the page and Like it, all without having to visit the Facebook page at all. This is particularly convenient since it cuts down on the steps needed to gain followers.
The Simple Like Page Plugin functions as a widget, so you can go to the Widgets section on your WordPress dashboard and adjust the settings. The widget has a minimalist style, offering only a few settings for changing the box size and hiding a few elements like the cover photo. This plugin, in particular, is available for free but the developers also have some premium plugins, some of which work well with Simple Like Page Plugin.
What Makes This One of the Best WordPress Facebook Plugins?
- It’s a simple way to gain more followers on Facebook.
- Simple Like Page Plugin is a widget, meaning you can drop it in places like your sidebar or footer.
- It doesn’t take up too much room on your website.
- The widget provides the Like button for customers to click on. There’s no need for them to even visit your Facebook page.
- Several customization elements are there, such as the cover image and the users that also follow your page.
- You can opt to show some of your most recent posts to give users an idea of what type of content you share.
- Page events can also be posted through this app.
- Users have the option to send messages to the page. This is all done through the widget, so the customer has no need to go to the Facebook page.
- It’s free.
- The developer has several gallery plugins that could pair well with the Like button.
Who Should Consider This Facebook Plugin for WordPress?
If you’re keen on widgets, this may be the best option. It’s a useful tool with a quick Like button for building your followership. Some themes already have some sort of function like this, so you should make sure you need it in the first place.
8. WordPress Social Sharing Plugin – Social Warfare
If you’re looking for some more power behind your sharing plugin, WordPress Social Sharing Plugin from Social Warfare has a beautiful frontend section for adding social share buttons. Not only that, but it builds social proof with the help of share numbers on each button.
In some of the other Facebook sharing plugins, the total share count is accumulated for all of the social networks. Social Warfare breaks it down so that users see exactly how many of those shares were to Facebook or some other networks.
The top social networks are all supported, including Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Pinterest. You get to choose where the share buttons are placed, such as at the beginning of a post or below the content. You can customize all of the information that goes into the sharing module that goes off to Facebook. For instance, it allows you to modify items like the thumbnail size, custom themes, and text size.
There is a free version that includes Facebook, but you can upgrade to get even more features and supported buttons in the pro version.
What Makes This One of the Best WordPress Facebook Plugins?
- Social Warfare includes beautiful social sharing buttons (including Facebook) so you can have your users share content and work as a type of marketing for your brand.
- It supports a wide range of social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Mix.
- You have options for where you want to put the buttons. Some people like having them both above and below the post content or to choose one.
- All of the social buttons can have a counter on them. This way, the shares are counted and shown to other users. This helps them to realize that some of your content is very popular and that they should read it.
- The plugin comes with a widget so you can customize everything from post thumbnail sizes to custom visual themes.
- Shortcodes are provided with the plugin as well.
- Social Warfare provides a bonus feature that reveals a “click to tweet” button in your content.
- The content protection feature in Social Warfare blocks content hijackers from linking their content to yours or straight up stealing it.
- A Pin button is available for those who would like their customers to share certain pictures to Pinterest.
- Link shortening, click tracking, and other analytics are possible in the dashboard.
Who Should Consider This Facebook Plugin for WordPress?
Social Warfare isn’t for everyone, but it does pack quite a few features into the free version. If you don’t have social sharing buttons included with your theme we recommend trying out a few of them. Start with Social Warfare, then move onto some of the other suggested here and elsewhere. Much of the time it comes down to personal preference and how the buttons integrate with your current theme.
Having said that, everyone should have these sharing buttons on their blogs and online stores, so at least consider Social Warfare.
Which of the Best WordPress Facebook Plugins is the Best for You?
Much of the time, it’s best to test out a few plugins before committing to anything, especially if you plan on paying for an individual or agency license. For Facebook plugins, the functionality varies drastically, so take a look at the final recommendations we have below to ensure that you’re installing the right ones.
- Widget for Social Page Feeds – Go with the widget plugin to get a Facebook feed on your website. The advantage of the widget is that it’s extremely lightweight and doesn’t take up much space.
- Nextend Social Login and Register – Use a plugin like this to boost the number of users on your website. For instance, a membership website can expedite the registration and login process by letting people use their Facebook login information.
- Shared Counts – Social Media Share Buttons – Go with this social sharing plugin if you don’t already have sharing buttons included with your theme.
- WP2Social Auto Publish – If you have a blog with evergreen content, an auto-publishing tool like this is an excellent way to get your content published on Facebook.
- Live Chat with Messenger Customer Chat – We like this one for offering customer service through the Facebook Live Chat module. This particular plugin also has a full suite of tools for things like social reviews and landing pages.
- Yoast SEO – Everyone should have Yoast installed on WordPress. It’s great for boosting SEO for your website and through Facebook pages.
- Simple Like Page Plugin – If your theme doesn’t already have this, consider installing the Simple Like plugin to show some of your most recent Facebook posts and to prompt users to follow your page.
- WordPress Social Sharing Plugin – Social Warfare – We recommend Social Warfare for those who don’t currently have sharing buttons with their theme. The plugin also has tons of other features, similar to the Jetpack plugin. You may be able to eliminate many of your current plugins by going with Social Warfare.
And that’s all we have for the best WordPress Facebook plugins on the market! If you have any questions or would like to suggest some other great Facebook plugins, let us know in the comments below.
Head of Content at Kinsta and Content Marketing Consultant for WordPress plugin developers. Connect with Matteo on Twitter.
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