How to Embed a Facebook Group in Your WordPress Site

A re you interested in learning how to embed a Facebook group on your WordPress blog?

Many bloggers have their own Facebook group so that they can engage with their readers, extend the reach of their blog, and build relationships with their fans and followers.

Displaying your Facebook group on your blog is a great way to grow your online community. Your readers will be able to see posts and conversations from your Facebook group right on your blog, which will encourage them to join.

Embedding a Facebook group in WordPress takes a little bit of work, so we’re here with a quick guide to help you do it, even if you don’t have any technical experience.

Before we dive into the tutorial, let’s take a quick look at the benefits you’ll get from embedding your Facebook group on your WordPress blog.

Why Embed a Facebook Group on Your Blog

There are over 1.4 billion people who are members of Facebook groups today. That’s a lot of people who enjoy chatting, sharing, and learning from each other on a variety of topics.

The sense of community is one of the biggest reasons people enjoy Facebook groups. As a blog owner, you’ll want to tap into that sense of community by having your own Facebook group. Then, you can embed your Facebook group on your blog to help you create an even bigger community for it.

Not only that, but when you embed your Facebook group on your WordPress blog, you’ll:

• Increase engagement with readers: You’ll encourage blog readers to check out the discussions on your Facebook group page. These chats and comments may be different from what’s happening on your blog and show how engaged your readership is. People will want to be where the action is. 
• Build long-lasting relationships: Inviting readers and fans to be part of your Facebook community builds trust and loyalty to you and your blog. You’ll strengthen the bond between you as you talk about your shared interests.
• Boost your blog’s SEO: Embedding a Facebook feed on your blog gives your site an SEO boost because of the inherent nature of Facebook’s algorithm and SEO status. Your blog will enjoy an instant boost without a lot of coding or technical work. 
• Leverage the power of social proof: When people see how others are interacting with your group and blog, they’ll want to join in. Social proof is the psychological phenomenon of wanting to do something because people see everyone else doing it too. It’s like when you see a big line-up at a restaurant. You assume it must be the place to be since there’s a line and you want to go there too.
• Save time on planning content: Use the group feed to come up with new blog post ideas without having to do much research or other online work. It’s an easy way to find out what people are talking about without going anywhere else.

Plus, 77% of Millennials report making a purchase either online or in-store after seeing a product on Facebook.

So, if you’re planning on making money from your blog, like by selling an ebook, you’ll want to embed your Facebook group on your blog so that more of your readers will join it.

Embedding a Facebook group can be challenging, especially if you’re not a technical person. That’s why we created this post for you, so you can learn how to do it the easy way and start enjoying those benefits on your blog. 

Let’s look at what you need to embed your Facebook group on your WordPress blog.

What You Need Before You Start

You’ll need these 3 things to embed your Facebook group on WordPress without looking at any code or hiring a web developer.

1. A WordPress blog. We’ll be discussing how to embed groups with plugins, which you can only do with a WordPress blog. 
2. A Facebook group that you’re the administrator of. Facebook used to let you embed groups you were just a member of, but they’re changing that access soon. You need to be an administrator of a Facebook group to embed it on your site. But, if you’re friendly with the admin of another group and they let you embed it on your blog, that admin can use these instructions to help you do that too. For this post, however, we’re going to focus on those who are admins of their own Facebook group. 
3. The Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed Pro plugin. Smash Balloon offers the world’s leading social media feed plugins for WordPress. While they have a free version of this plugin, if you want to embed a Facebook group, you’ll need to pay for the pro version. 

Once you’ve gathered these 3 things, you’re ready to learn how to embed your Facebook group on WordPress. 

Embedding a Facebook Group on Your Blog (Step-by-Step)

Let’s get started embedding your Facebook group on your WordPress blog.

Step 1: Install the Custom Facebook Feed Pro Plugin

The first step to embedding your Facebook group in WordPress is to install Smash Balloon’s Custom Facebook Feed plugin and activate it on your website.

If you need some help, you can learn how to install a WordPress plugin in this step-by-step guide. 

Step 2: Connect Your Facebook Account to the Plugin

Once you’ve activated the plugin, click Facebook Feed » Settings to open the plugin’s Settings page to link your Facebook account.

To connect Facebook to your website, click Connect a Facebook account and follow the instructions to link your Facebook group.

If you’re not already logged into Facebook, you’ll be prompted to log in. Log in, click Continue, and follow the prompts to link your group.

One of the prompts includes adding the Facebook ID of the Facebook group you want to embed on your site.

Go to the Facebook group in your browser, look at the URL, and copy the Facebook ID at the end of the URL.

Then, paste it in the Facebook ID field, like this:

Once you’ve finished linking your Facebook group to the plugin, you’re taken back to the plugin’s Settings page in WordPress.

Scroll to the Settings section and change the Is it a page or group? option to Group. This ensures that the plugin knows it’s dealing with a group from Facebook instead of a page (which makes a difference from a technical perspective.) 

You can also configure other settings on this page, like the number of posts to display, when you want the plugin to check for new posts, and more.

Click Save Settings and let’s look at a few more plugin options you can set up now. 

Step 3: Personalize Your Facebook Group Feed

Click Facebook Feed » Customize. Under this tab, you can change settings for the width, height, and background color of your group feed.

When you’re happy with the options, click Save Changes.

Next, you’ll learn how to display different post types from your Facebook group on your blog.    

Step 4: Select the Post Types to Display From the Group

The Custom Facebook Feed plugin can display your group’s newsfeed, events, videos, albums, and more.

To get started, click Facebook Feed » Settings. Then, under the Customize tab, click General » Post Types.

Check the appropriate options to display different Group feeds on your blog, such as statuses (regular news feed updates), events, photos, videos, links, and albums.

To keep customizing your Group’s feed, scroll to the Header section to choose whether to display a text or visual header.

The text header displays the name of your Facebook group in simple text above the posts on your blog. Use the visual header to display your Facebook group’s cover photo and more, like in the example below.

You can also customize the Post Layout to display thumbnails, half-width, or full-width versions of posts in the feed. 

When you’re happy with your choices, click Save Changes to continue the setup process.

Step 5: Embed Your Facebook Group in WordPress

There are 2 ways to embed your Facebook group in WordPress:

• WordPress block: The ideal option if you’re using the WordPress block editor.
• WordPress shortcode: The perfect option if you want to embed it in a widget or are comfortable with a little code and want to customize the display even further.

Embedding With the WordPress Block

To embed your Facebook group to a new page using a WordPress block, navigate to Pages » Add New.

Inside the editor, click the Plus (+) icon to add a new block and search for “facebook” to find the Custom Facebook Feed block.

Click on the Custom Facebook Feed to add it to the page and that’s it! Don’t forget to hit Publish to make the Facebook group feed live on your blog.

Next, we’ll go over how to embed your group with the shortcode.

Embedding Your Group With the Shortcode

To embed your group with the plugin shortcode, click Facebook Feed » Settings and scroll to the Display Your Feed section and copy the shortcode.

Now, navigate to the post or page editor and:

• if you’re using the Classic Editor, paste the shortcode where you like.
• if you’re using the Block Editor, add a shortcode block and paste the shortcode into it.

Click Publish or Update to see your Facebook group feed displayed on your blog.  

Embedding Your Group in a Widget

You can also embed your Facebook group in any widget, such as ones in your blog’s sidebar or footer.

To embed it in a widget, click Appearance » Widgets in the WordPress dashboard.

Click and drag the Text widget to the appropriate widget-ready area where you’d like to embed the feed. Paste the shortcode into the widget content area.

Click Save and see your Facebook group embedded in your sidebar or footer widget.

Here’s what your Facebook group feed could look like in the sidebar:

And that’s it!

You’ve learned why embedding your Facebook group in WordPress can help your blog and how to embed it with Smash Balloon’s Custom Facebook Feed plugin. You’ll extend the reach of your blog, grow your Facebook group, and build more solid relationships with your readers and followers.

If you want to learn more about Facebook and your blog, learn how to get more email signups through your Facebook group and check out the best Facebook plugins for WordPress (Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed Pro is the number 1 plugin on the list.) 

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