16.6 percent of the web is powered by WordPress including The New York Times and People Magazine. Sites ran through WordPress attract more than 600 million unique visitors each month. With these numbers, it only makes sense that Facebook would collaborate to create a plugin to help WordPress site owners the capability of integrating their site to the biggest social media network in the world.
While there are other plugins that allow you to automatically post content from your site to your Facebook timeline and other Facebook pages, the Facebook engineers, working with open source coders wanted to create something even better. Their plugin will allow you to automatically post to your timeline and other Facebook pages, it will also allow you to mention the names of pages and friends in order to gain a larger reach.
Some websites have been able to test the plugin before it became available in order to review and help correct any bugs. These sites include TechCrunch, Buzz Media and The Next Web. The comments have been that the plugin helps connect better with site visitors, provides users with a more personalized and engaging experience.
The WordPress widgets you can choose from do not require any specific technical knowledge and are easy to work with. One of them is an activity feed that shows site visitors activity from their friends. This activity includes likes and comments based around your site. Another widget is called Recommendations and this gives site visitors personalized suggestions for pages on your site that they are most apt to like. It also gives visitors a recommendation bar option that has the option for users to share your site content with their own Timeline, which should provide the same marketing advantages as word of mouth advertising.
Along with the widgets, the Facebook WordPress plugin has customizable Like, Subscribe and Send buttons. There is also a Comment Box that makes it convenient for people to comment on your site. Their comments will show up on your site and on Facebook giving you an increased opportunity to gain social proof. An SEO support for Facebook Comments is also included to help search engines index activity to improve your site’s visibility.
Adding the Facebook plugin to your WordPress or WordPress VIP site will give you an instant boost for your social media marketing efforts. You can download the plugin at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook/. There is no charge for downloading it or using it on your website.
