How to Add Facebook Connect to Your WordPress Website
23 Mar 2009
Facebook Connect has been around for several months, and so far there are two plug-ins that allow you to add the Facebook Connect functionality to your WordPress powered website. However, therefore, please do note: these instructions are for a self-hosted WordPress blog. I’m not girly enough to even know if you can use this on a WordPress.com hosted site, but probably not. Either way, man up, take out your wallet and host your own website. Hostgator.com is a good, reliable and cheap web host.
It will only be a matter of time until there are many plugins to choose from, but for now your choices are:
•WordPress plugin by Sociable– Has more community features including showing recent visitors, inviting friends, and sharing comments with friends on Facebook
•WP-FBConnect WordPress Plugin– Adds login and commenting to your blog with Facebook Connect
The Facebook plugin by Sociable! seemed more exciting to me, so I downloaded, extracted and uploaded it to my plugin directory. Once you activate and go to the WordPress Settings page for the Facebook Connect Plugin, you will see a link to the Facebook Developers page to create a new Facebook Application. You need to create a new application in Facebook and then edit the settings so that all of the callback URLs match your WordPress URL (mine was http://kevinhood.com.)
Then copy and paste the AIP and Secret keys from your Facebook Developer App page into the WordPress plugin settings. The last step you may have to do is edit the header.php and footer.php files in your theme directory. Here are the required changes:
header.php
Add the bold text to your header:
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xmlns:fb=”http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml”>
footer.php
Add the bold text to your footer if it is not already there:
<?php wp_footer(); ?>
</body>
</html>
Finish the process by adding the Facebook Widget to your sidebar and that should be it! Not too much work to allow your visitors to easily log in and leave automatically approved comments with a picture and link to their Facebook profile. Users can also see the latest Facebook visitors in your new community, and they can invite their friends to join your website. Lastly, the WordPress plugin settings let you post your blog comments to your Facebook profile.
It’s like a full social circle from your Facebook profile or page to your WordPress website, and a new community for your site with real authenticated users. So far, I see nothing but positives with using Facebook Connect on a WordPress website.
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6 Responses to How to Add Facebook Connect to Your WordPress Website
Amanda
March 25th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Hello, love the feel of your site!
I just tried installing the plugin by sociable and the ‘connect with facebook’ image/link doesn’t show up in Safari. I just looked at your sight in Safari and it’s there! You didn’t do anything extra?
Amanda
March 25th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Oooh, nevermind. It has to do with the ‘Facebook Connect Via SSL’ being selected. It disappears when it’s checked and reappears when it’s not! Sorry to bug ya! 🙂
Kevin Hood
March 28th, 2009 at 7:11 am
Thanks for the update Amanda. I didn’t check the SSL box because I didn’t have a SSL certificate for this site. But thanks for reminding others to NOT check that box.
I still have a few bugs with Sociable! and WordPress 2.7, but hopefully they will be fixed soon.
Murray
March 30th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Is there anyway to get Facebook connect to integrate with the WordPress backend? The problem we have is that we use the comments on our blogs and stories as additional content throughout the site. With Facebook connect there is no way to use the comments that people leave.
Ed Bisquera
March 31st, 2009 at 12:06 am
This is a great way to further connect your blog with those on Facebook or at least allow those with Facebook accounts to integrate into a WordPress blog.
Pretty cool!
Ed
Kevin Hood
March 31st, 2009 at 11:05 am
I agree Ed, and I’m sure this plugin or others will soon have a lot more features.
@Murray: The comment from Ed, who connected via the Facebook Connect link, shows up in my wordpress backend. It is a “real” comment. Click on Ed’s name and you’ll see his Facebook profile, when he joined this site, and his comments on this site.