Displaying your Facebook feed on your website is a great way to engage visitors and keep them updated on your latest posts and activity. Embedding your Facebook feed can help drive traffic back to your Facebook page and is relatively easy to set up. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to embed a Facebook feed on your website for free.
Why Embed a Facebook Feed?
There are a few key reasons why you may want to embed a live Facebook feed on your website:
- Increase engagement – Having fresh and updated content from your Facebook page encourages visitors to interact and engage with your brand.
- Drive traffic – Links and previews back to your Facebook page gives visitors a taste of your content and may entice them to visit your Facebook page.
- Appear social – An embedded feed gives the impression that your brand is active on social media and interacting with an audience.
- No development required – Facebook’s embed code allows you to add a feed without having to develop anything custom.
Overall, displaying your Facebook posts directly on your website can help make your brand more engaging, social, and drive more traffic to your Facebook page and website.
Step 1 – Get the Facebook Embed Code
The first step is to get the embed code from your Facebook page for the feed you want to display. Here’s how:
- Go to your Facebook page
- Click on the “Settings” tab in the left sidebar
- Select “Templates and Tabs” from the menu
- Click on “Embedded Posts“
This will open a window with the embed code and options for customizing your feed. By default, the code will embed your entire timeline as a feed. But you can choose to only show certain posts or display a feed filtered by photos, events, videos, or other criteria.
Once you have the embed code – either customized or the default – copy the entire code block.
Step 2 – Paste the Code into Your Website
Next, you’ll need to paste the Facebook embed code into your website HTML. There are a couple ways to do this:
Option 1 – Add to an HTML editor
If your website has an HTML editor or you’re using a CMS like WordPress, you can paste the code directly in:
- Go to the HTML editor on your site, often found in the theme or template files.
- Paste the full embed code where you want the Facebook feed to appear.
- Update the page/post to publish the changes.
The Facebook feed should now appear live on your site!
Option 2 – Edit website code
Alternatively, if you don’t have an editor and want to manually edit your HTML:
- Open your website code files.
- Find the section of code where you want the Facebook feed to go.
- Paste the embed code inside the body of your HTML.
- Save the code changes and upload to your server.
Again, once uploaded your Facebook feed will be displayed on your website.
Step 3 – Customize the Look and Feel
By default, the embedded Facebook feed will take on the standard Facebook styling. But you can customize the look and feel to better match your website design:
Customize in Facebook
When generating the embed code in Facebook, they provide several options for styling:
- Colorscheme – Change the color of text, backgrounds, and links.
- Size – Set the pixel width and height of the embedded feed.
- Hide cover photo – Remove the cover image from the top of the feed.
- Show facepile – Toggle showing profile photos of recent visitors.
Play around with those settings to find a style that fits your site.
Use Custom CSS
For more advanced customization, you can use CSS to override the default Facebook feed styling. For example:
<style>
.fb-page {
width: 500px !important;
background-color: #fff;
}
.fb-page span {
color: #333 !important;
}
</style>
Just add any CSS immediately after the embed code to alter the feed style.
Step 4 – Manage Your Facebook Feed
Once added, your Facebook feed will automatically update whenever you add new posts. But here are some tips for managing your feed going forward:
- Post consistently – Refreshing content will keep visitors coming back to the feed.
- Watch for breaking changes – Facebook may change their embed API in the future breaking feeds.
- Monitor engagement – See if your website visitors are interacting with the Facebook feed.
- Promote it – Let your Facebook fans know the feed is on your website.
Keeping your feed filled with great content will maximize its impact! Change the filter or use case if some types of content perform better than others.
Pros and Cons of Embedding a Facebook Feed
Before adding a Facebook feed to your website, consider some of the potential advantages and disadvantages:
Pros
- Easy to set up and manage
- Fresh content automatically added from Facebook
- Engages visitors with multimedia posts
- Promotes your Facebook page and content
- No development work required
Cons
- Less design control compared to custom built feeds
- Can slow down your website’s load time
- Facebook API changes may break the embed
- Content quality depends on your Facebook posts
- Some visitor privacy concerns
Overall, the pros tend to outweigh the cons for most use cases. But factor in your specific needs when deciding whether to embed a Facebook feed.
Alternatives to Embedding a Facebook Feed
If embedding a Facebook feed isn’t right for your website, here are a couple alternative options to consider:
Link to Your Facebook Page
Rather than show a live feed, you can simply include a link on your site pointing visitors to your Facebook page. This removes any performance or design concerns but loses the embedded experience.
Curate Specific Facebook Posts
Instead of the full feed, you can handpick specific Facebook posts to showcase on your website. This allows more control over curation and design, but requires manual updating whenever you add new content.
Use a Social Media Aggregator
Tools like SharedCount or Social Pug can aggregate posts from Facebook and other networks into customized social feeds for your site. This provides more flexibility but requires 3rd party integration.
Conclusion
Adding your Facebook feed to your website is one of the easiest ways to showcase your social media content directly to site visitors. The embed process is straightforward, but gives you options to filter and customize the feed however you prefer. Just be sure to keep the feed stocked with fresh content. Embedding your Facebook posts can be a nice addition to share your brand personality and give fans a reason to engage both on your site and Facebook.