New Facebook Feature Spells ‘Awesome’ for Blogging

by Lisa Hall-Wilson

So glad to be back here for Techie Tuesday! Facebook has made a lot of changes over the summer, but I wanted to share one with you that’s super cool. No – really, this is pure awesomesauce and bloggers everywhere are going to love it!

You’ve probably heard about Facebook unleashing the ability to embed posts directly from Facebook. Ho hum – people say. What’s the big deal? How does that help me?

The How

Just like you can embed Youtube videos on your blog, you can now embed specific status updates, photos, or links from Facebook onto your blog. This is ridiculously easy. If you can embed a Youtube video, you can do this too.

Facebook will create the embed code for you. You won’t be able to adjust this at all for those savvy enough to try. Just cut and paste the embed code into the blog post.

What’s the big deal?

When you embed the post from Facebook, you take all of the Facebook functionality with it.

All of the people who liked, shared or commented on the post will appear on the blog embed. Instant credibility – this is something people have found interesting. People can like the page or subscribe to the profile from the post on your blog. They can like or comment on the post on your blog, and have those actions appear on Facebook for their friends to see.

This is how things go viral! Plus, they can share the post from your blog to their own Timelines.

The Fine Print

The poster’s privacy settings rule. You can share a post from either a profile or a page, but if sharing from a profile the post must have been made public by the poster.

You can always go back and change the privacy on a post that’s doing well if you want to embed it. There’s an easy toggle menu beside the date. The globe icon means it’s public. Also, you can’t embed a post from a group. If a post gets deleted on Facebook, it will disappear from your blog too.

Here is the biggest bummer: Facebook (as of right now) will not be tracking the interactions from embedded posts, so you won’t see the bump in your page insights on the post.

Some Ideas For Writers

I think there are a bunch of ways writers/authors can use this feature. First, this will help those blog readers who lurk but never comment engage more. If they’re already on Facebook, let them see you’re active there – that you have a community there. One click and they can join the club.

This also lets you extend the discussion from Facebook to your blog. Not all of your blog readers follow you on Facebook, give everyone the chance to weigh in on popular status updates and posts.

Last week my blog broke. 😦 Very sad. It didn’t completely break, but the comments feature stopped working.

I’m still working on fixing that – think it might be a plugin I’m using, BUT in the interim I was able to embed the Facebook post (where I shared the blog update on Facebook) onto the blog and it gave people a way to comment right on the blog. Not a long term solution, but it worked really well in a pinch. And I got a few new subscriptions on my profile as gravy.

Some ideas for writers/authors/bloggers…

• Why not create a round-up post of the popular status updates or photos from your page or profile? Every new action (like, share, comment) bumps the post in Facebook so not only do people get to see it on your blog, their actions will give it new life on Facebook.
• Make an announcement (book release, sale, signing) on Facebook and share it on your blog.
• Take a really popular discussion from Facebook to your blog.
• Curate content from popular news sources or up to date news items
• Test content on Facebook before sharing on your blog
• Why limit it to blog posts? Embed posts in your newsletter from mailchimp or aweber, or emails.
• Incorporate an embedded post in a media release to journalists.

What are some ideas you have for using the embedded post feature? I’d love to hear your thoughts and answer questions down in the comments.

Two ways to get more Facebook magic with Lisa:

Facebook: Start to Finish ~ 6 week class begins September 9th

This class will take you behind the scenes so you can understand all the workings of Facebook so changes won’t leave you in the dust.

Building a Tribe Using a Facebook Profile ~ Live webinar on Sept. 19

(Using a profile to build platform is covered in the 6 wk class so don’t sign up for both.)

Use the code Lisa20 for 20% off either class.

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I’ve taken two of Lisa’s classes and she really is ALL THAT.  🙂 Do you have Facebook questions for Lisa? Shake your cowbell in the comments, y’all!

~ Jenny

About Lisa

Lisa writes dark fantasy novels that honestly face harsh struggles, where life is gritty and messy, and change how a character thinks, acts — who they are.

In addition to fiction writing, Lisa is a freelance writer published across Canada specializing in marketing copy for faith-based non-profits, and short non-fiction pieces for magazines and newspapers. She specializes in interviews, profiles, and social justice initiatives. Lisa is passionate about making this world a better place one get-off-your-butt-and-do-something article at a time.

Lisa has won awards at the Canadian Church Press, the Canadian Christian Writing Awards, and her co-written blog (with Marcy Kennedy) was nominated 3 times at the 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards. Check out Lisa’s freelance portfolio here or learn more about Lisa Wilson Communications here.

You can also find her Blogging Through The Fire each week or on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.