WordPress link to Facebook is 90% there… needs a tweak
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strongI wrote to WordPress:/strong
I followed the instructions to connect my IEBA blog to my Facebook account. It works fine. It pulls the title and the excerpt description properly. It links the title to the blog article. All well and good.But it doesn’t have a “Share” button at the bottom.
For some stupid reason, it has _another_ link to the blog article. The redundant link is called “Read Original Post” which is what clicking on the linked blog title does, just a few pixels higher.
The problem is that people who want to SHARE the love and post about my blog article CAN’T because there’s no SHARE button. I can’t get the additional potential click through traffic. Isn’t that the whole point of connecting WordPress to Facebook?
Why does it have to stop at my Wall?
Please affect change so that the last item becomes “Share” like it is supposed to be.
Oh, and adding the first image of any blog post connected to Facebook would ROCK! and make it look like something authored in Facebook, instead of something a little odd.
=================================On Jul 7, 2010, at 2:14 PM, Naoko – WordPress.com wrote:
People can share your post by “Like”ing it or commenting (this will show up on their profile page).
Many of our users place GetSocial Live or AddThis buttons on their WordPress.com blog sidebar text widget to make it easy to share your posts.http://getsociallive.com/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/addthis=========================
I wrote back:Liking or commenting is not sharing. Those two items merely say:
Michael Owens commented on Anthony Burokas’s status.
Michael Owens likes Anthony Burokas.Neither of which give the person reading THEIR page ANY information about what I took the time to write and try to link through Facebook. If WordPress took the time to properly craft the connection to use “Share” instead of providing a redundant link to “Read original post” people could SHARE my link on their page and then all of the people who read THEIR page can read my article’s title and the Excerpt Text that I took the time to craft to be enticing. And when someone SHARES it from their page… and so on, and so on…
THAT’s what’s social media is all about.
Wordpress ALREADY has the connection. It’s already approved and it already works. It just needs to be crafted to provide a “Share” link on my Facebook page, instead of the redundant link to “Read original post.” You guys are SOOOO close to getting this one right. It’s just a little more and BAM… more WordPress viewers. But you have to make it “Share.”====================
I’ve already contacted WordPress on this one.
If you agree with me that the inerrant Facebook connection should say “Share” instead of “Read original post” then join me and let WordPress know please.The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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There is already a solution you may want to consider using that’ll give you the result you want. It’s called RSS Graffiti http://www.facebook.com/RSS.Graffiti
Take a look at a screen shot of my Facebook
http://shimworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/facebook-capture.jpgAnd you’ll notice the elements you want are there: a thumbnail along with Comment, Like *and* Share. That 10% may be a restriction on the part of Facebook rather than WordPress being 10% short of a satisfactory service. I know WordPress team has 110% of my vote for doing so many things right and necessary.
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Manual pasting of URL gives you more control .. allows you to pick and choose which image you want appear as thumbnail (where available). I guess someone who churns out 5 to 10 blog posts per day would find the manual method laborious
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I do seven or so a day and I find it well worth the effort. I mean, it’s a click you do seven times per day, it’s not heavy lifting.
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Shimworld, Thanks! I will look into that.
I’m fine with the labor, but I appreciate that my Facebook will pick it up automatically. Does it just use the first image? So I carefully select that one knowing it’ll be in all places?
The SHARE button is critical because, while _I_ may be fine with manually doing it (but prefer automatic) those who read my facebook page and want to share it it with THEIR friends, thusfar have not been as good. A) I get no linkback & traffic, B) their posting is not carefully crafted so it’s less enticing to their readers to click through- diminishing returns.
Using Share ensures that their post will have the title, blurb, image and it can be shared again. I’m disapointed that it doesn’t natively work in the existing WP/FB connection, but happy to hear that there may indeed be something that gives me 100% of what I want.
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RELATED QUESTION…. if I have some HTML that gives me a “share” button in a widget, AFAIK, that widget has to be crafted for a particular page, and no matter what page a person may be on, only the embedded URL page will be “shared.”
Is there a way to have a “Share” button in a widget (so it appears on all pages & posts) that picks up the current URL (of the page or post) and shares that on Facebook on demand?
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Yes, use http://Getsociallive.com . The only downside is, you’ve got to do it for each post one at a time.
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@ieba
You’re in luck, again. But it’s not in the form of a widget. Instead, it’s a simple couple of steps and yes, the script is “crafted for a particular page” for its link to be shared on FB on demand. Check out my post and click on the custom (Like and Share) button to see if you like it (best part the button also appears on the front page). http://shimworld.wordpress.com/ If you dig that, head over to http://bit.ly/9wEePS for instructions. All the best. -
Yea, I did that and it’s worse than the built-in WordPress Facebook link.
[caption id="attachment_163" align="alignnone" width="475" caption="Note how Shimworld jis just a line of text, as opposed to a link created in Facebook, which is what I'm after. "]<img class="size-full wp-image-163" title="shimworld" src="http://kl1hbalaska.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/shimworld.png" alt="" width="475" height="288" />[/caption]The shimworld link, clicked when on the home page, ends up being just as much as commenting on someone’s post- something most people do not see in their feed if they follow me. They DO see the post below it, about the cat, which I created in Facebook and has a Share button.
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Okay, yea, I have no idea how to actually use code here. And I’ve failed twice.
So here’s the image:
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Here’s what I get when my blog http://ieba.wordpress.com connects with Facebook directly:
Not bad, but I want the Share link, instead of the redundant “Read original post” link, which does exactly what clicking on the title of the article does.
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Hmmm, a scheduled post went live on my blog today, and on my facebook page, you can see both the WordOress and the Graffiti versions.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114586588588985#!/anthony.burokas
Graffiti has the Share button (yay) and it lists the blog itself (nice) but it didn’t pull any images from the post. (there were two)
When I tested it with a different blog (WAOTBP) it did pull an image- of the video in the body of the post.
Is there a setting I’m missing? Do I need to make the image “featured” (not possible with my IEBA.wordpress.com theme)?
To be honest, it didn’t pull an image when I tested it and created a Preview in their Facebook APP page. I have RSS Graffiti set to “Standard” mode which says: “Publishes a text exerpt and any available media (image, audio or video).” -
While checking out RSS Graffiti’s app page, I discovered that it can be configured to also post feeds to Facebook Pages – a nice addition. Now I can have my blog posts fed to FB Profile and Page. I don’t know about additional settings to pull images – it just works for me. And if there happens to be a post where I don’t like the “default” image, I’ll just delete it and paste the link in and select the thumbnail manually.
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Okay, yea, I have no idea how to actually use code here. And I’ve failed twice. So here’s the image:
That’s the way it’s meant to work: “Like and Share” the post as designed. :)
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If you want to have both “Facebook Like” and “Share on Facebook” buttons easily in your blog post, try this technique – this is exclusively for wordpress.com blog posts.
it uses a bookmarklet that launches the buttons even before you leave your blog post editor! It’s very easy and you can even choose which one you want to add first.
How to add both “Share on Facebook” and “Facebook like” buttons easily in a wordpress.com blog post
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@Sanjidas
Having tried your “Share on Facebook” button, I noticed a difference between Sharing this way vs direct pasting of URL into Wall post. Pasting of URL does not prompt the captcha while captcha prompts as soon as I hit the share button. I guess this is the way FB has designed things to avoid being spammed ? -
Facebook acts like Digg and Yahoo Buzz etc (like, you have to go thru captcha sessions to share). Twitter or delicious etc don’t require captha. It’s the way they are programmed.
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Sanjidas, thanks for that, I can see it being useful elsewhere…
But the little issue I’m trying to iron out now is getting an image with Graffiti. I’m getting the link, and in Facebook it says Share (unlike the direct WordPress connection which says “read original post”) but I’m not getting an mage.
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