Looking for some quick new ways to link your Facebook and Twitter accounts into your WordPress pages? Well, I’ve done a little searching for a few widgets and plugins I think you’ll like.
I found this nifty little plugin for WordPress that makes it a snap to add a cute little “Follow Me on Twitter” badge to WordPress installations… takes less than a minute and all you need to “code” is your twitter link. How easy is that?
To get it on your site, login to your WordPress admin account and, under Plugins, click on “Add New”. Run a search for “Follow Me” in the Plugins search box, and find the WP FollowMe by wpBurn.com. When you find it, just look for the “Install” link to the right of the search results and click.
Once installed, you’ll need to enter your twitter URL and choose your icon and you are done. Now your visistors can follow your tweets with just one little click. Nice!
What’s next?
How about publishing your actual Twitter Feed on your WordPress page (and why wouldn’t you?). That’s almost as easy. The WordPress Twitter Widget shows your last few twitters right there in the sidebar of your blog. Just do another search in your Plugins directory for Twitter Widget and find the one by Sean Spaulding. Install and activate the widget. To have it appear on your site, go to your Widgets panel and drag Twitter Widget into your sidebar and save. You’ll need to enter your Twitter url here too, and then you can also select how many tweets to show.
So, what fun widgets are out there for Facebook? How about a Share to Facebook icon on all your blog entries? This makes it easy for your readers to share your content. The Add to Facebook Plugin by David Goldstein is a simple install that can be configured from your Settings panel once it’s activated. Choose what kind of icon you wish to show and you are done.
You can also publish a feed from your Facebook page right on your blog’s sidebar. This one is a little more involved, but easily accomplished. Go to your Facebook Page and click on “Edit Page”. Find and click on the Promote with a Fan Box link in the right column. Select your page from the drop down menu, and in the “Choose where to add the widget” selection, choose “Other”. You will be given a snippet of code. Copy that code.
Now, log into your WordPress account. Go into your Widgets panel and drag a Text widget over to your Sidebar panel. Paste your Facebook Fan Box code into the text box and hit save. When you look at your page again, you’ll see your sidebar widget in place with your fans and your latest posts, plus a button for people to easily become a fan.
If you don’t like the look of the Fan Box, you can play around a little with the code to adjust a few things like column width, font size, stream size or number of fans to show.
I hope you play around with some of these fun widgets and let me know when you find cool new widgets to use on your own WordPress site.
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