Do you want to embed a Facebook video in WordPress?
The videos that you post to Facebook also make great content for your website. By embedding a Facebook video feed, you can keep your site fresh and interesting while also growing your Facebook following.
In this article, we’ll show you an easy way to embed Facebook videos in WordPress.
Why Add Facebook Videos in WordPress?
Videos are a great way to connect with your audience and keep them engaged. This is true no matter whether you’re running a personal blog or a business website.
However, videos are particularly powerful if you want to make money online blogging with WordPress. In fact, 88% of people have bought a product or service after watching a video according to the latest blogging statistics.
Creating engaging and entertaining videos takes time and effort so if you’re posting videos to Facebook, then it makes sense to re-use them on your WordPress website.
By linking your website to your Facebook account, any new videos that you post to Facebook will appear on your website automatically. In this way, you can keep your website fresh with very little day-to-day effort.
Embedded videos can even help grow your Facebook page. If website visitors see lots of interesting videos and playlists then they’ll want to follow you on Facebook. This can get you some extra followers and more engagement.
With that being said, let’s see how you can easily embed a Facebook video in WordPress.
Installing a Facebook Video Plugin in WordPress
The easiest way to embed a Facebook video in WordPress is by using the Custom Facebook Feed Pro plugin.
It’s the best social media feeds plugin and lets you easily embed Facebook albums, comments, reviews, community posts, videos, and more on your WordPress website.
In this guide, we’ll be using the pro version of Smash Balloon as it allows you to embed videos in WordPress including HD, 360o, and Facebook Live videos.
Smash Balloon Pro also lets you show photos in a custom Facebook feed, and display the total number of likes, shares, comments, and reactions below each post. However, if you’re just starting out and have a limited budget, then there’s also a free version you can use.
First, install and activate the Custom Facebook Feed Pro plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, head over to Facebook Feed » Settings and enter your license key into the ‘License Key’ field.
You’ll find this information under your account on the Smash Balloon website.
After entering the key, click on the ‘Activate’ button.
Connect Your Facebook Page or Group to WordPress
Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed allows you to embed videos from Facebook pages and groups. You can even show the videos in a lightbox popup so people can watch the full video directly on your WordPress website.
The first step is connecting your Facebook page or group to WordPress, so go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and then click on ‘Add New.’
Smash Balloon lets you show posts from your Facebook timeline, photo albums, Facebook statuses, events, and more.
Since we want to embed Facebook videos in WordPress, you’ll need to select ‘Videos’ and then click on ‘Next.’
Now, you need to select the Facebook page or group where you’ll get the videos from.
To do this, click on ‘Add New.’
Next, choose whether you want to show videos from a Facebook page or group.
Once you’ve done that, click on ‘Connect to Facebook.’
This opens a popup where you can log into your Facebook account and choose the pages or groups that you want to use with Smash Balloon.
After that, click on ‘Next.’
Now, Facebook will show all the information that Smash Balloon will have access to, and the actions it can perform.
To restrict Smash Balloon’s access to your Facebook account, simply click to disable any of the switches.
Just be aware that this may affect the videos that you can embed on your WordPress blog or website so we recommend leaving all the switches enabled.
When you’re happy with how the permissions are set up, click on ‘Done.’
After a few moments, you should see a message confirming that you’ve connected your WordPress website to Facebook.
With that done, you’re ready to click on ‘OK.’
Smash Balloon will now return you to the WordPress dashboard automatically.
How to Embed Facebook Videos in WordPress
At this point, you’ll see a popup with the Facebook group or page that you just linked to your website. Simply select the radio button next to the page or group you want to use and then click on the ‘Add’ button.
If you accidentally closed the popup, don’t worry. You can simply refresh the page to reopen the popup.
Once you’ve done that, WordPress will take you back to the Facebook Feed » All Feeds page automatically. Just like before, click on ‘Add New,’ select ‘Videos’ and then click on the ‘Next’ button.
Now, select your Facebook page or group, and click on ‘Next.’
On this screen, you can choose the template that you want to use for the video feed.
All of these templates are fully customizable so you can fine-tune the design depending on how you want to show the Facebook videos on your website.
We’re using the ‘Default’ template, but you can choose any template you want. After making your selection, click on ‘Next.’
After that, you can choose whether to show all the videos from your Facebook page or group or just the videos from a specific playlist.
If you choose ‘Show from a specific playlist,’ then you’ll need to enter that playlist’s URL.
Once you’ve made a decision, go ahead and click on the ‘Next’ button.
Smash Balloon will now create a feed based on your source and the template you’ve chosen. This is a good start, but you may want to fine-tune how the videos appear on your site.
How to Customize Your Embedded Facebook Videos
The Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed plugin gives you lots of ways to customize how the videos appear on your website. That being said, it’s worth taking a look at these settings.
In the WordPress dashboard, go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds. Here, find the video feed you just created and click on the ‘Edit’ button next to it, which looks like a small pencil.
This opens the Smash Balloon feed editor, which shows a preview of your Facebook video feed to the right.
On the left-hand side, you’ll see all the different settings you can use to customize how these videos appear on your WordPress website. Most of these settings are self-explanatory, but we’ll quickly cover the major areas.
If you want to change the template, then click on ‘Template.’
Then, select the ‘Change’ button.
This opens a popup showing all the different templates you can use for your video feed.
Simply select the design you want to use instead, and then click on ‘Update.’
The next setting is ‘Feed Type,’ which allows you to show different content in your feed. For example, you might decide to show photos, albums, or events instead of videos.
Since we want to embed Facebook videos, you’ll typically want to ignore this area.
Next, click on ‘Feed Layout.’
Here, you can choose between different layouts, such as masonry and grid, and change the feed height.
As you make changes, the preview will update automatically so you can try different settings to see what looks the best.
By default, Smash Balloon will show the same number of videos on desktop computers and mobile devices such as smartphones.
You can preview how your videos will look on desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones using the row of buttons in the upper-right corner.
Mobile devices usually have smaller screens and may struggle to process lots of large, high-resolution videos. Visitors may also be using their mobile data rather than free Wi-Fi.
With that being said, you may want to show fewer videos on smartphones and tablets. To do this, simply type a different number into the ‘Mobile’ field under ‘Number of Posts.’
By default, the Facebook feed shows fewer columns on smartphones and tablets, compared to desktop computers. This helps all your videos fit comfortably on smaller screens.
However, after testing the mobile version of your WordPress website, you may be unhappy with how the columns look on tablets and smartphones.
You can change the number of columns that Smash Balloon uses on tablets, mobiles, and desktop computers using the ‘Columns’ settings.
The next settings page is ‘Color Scheme.’
Smash Balloon uses the colors inherited from your WordPress theme by default, but on this screen, you can switch to a ‘Light’ or ‘Dark’ color scheme instead.
Another option is to create your own color scheme by selecting ‘Custom’ and then using the controls to change the background color, change the text color in WordPress, and more.
Smash Balloon can add a header to your feed, which is your Facebook profile picture and the name of the page or group. This lets visitors know where the embedded videos come from, and where they can find this content on Facebook.
To add this section, click on ‘Header’ in the left-hand menu.
You can then click on the ‘Enable’ toggle.
After adding a header you can change how this area looks, including hiding or adding your Facebook profile picture, changing the size of the bio text, and more.
If you want to remove the header completely, then click to turn off the ‘Enable’ toggle.
By default, Smash Balloon shows the title of each video. If you want to hide the title, then select ‘Posts’ from the main Smash Balloon editor menu.
Then, go ahead and click on ‘Post Style.’
On this screen, you can hide the video titles by clicking on the ‘Show Video Title’ slider.
This can be useful if you haven’t added titles to all your videos, or your titles don’t make sense outside of Facebook.
On this screen, you can also hide or show the video descriptions. For example, you may use these descriptions to provide extra information about the video.
To add the description, simply click to enable the ‘Show Video Description’ switch.
By default, Smash Balloon doesn’t add the Facebook ‘like’ button to your video feed. If visitors like your embedded videos then they may want to follow you on Facebook.
With that being said, you may want to add a ‘like’ button to the feed, by selecting ‘Like Box’ from the editor’s left-hand menu.
After that, simply click on the ‘Enable’ button so that it turns blue.
Smash Balloon adds this button below your video feed, but you can change this by opening the ‘Position’ dropdown and choosing ‘Top.’
On this screen, you can also change how the ‘like’ section looks including changing its width, showing how many people follow you on Facebook, adding a custom call to action, and more.
When you’re happy with how the button looks, you can move on to the next settings page by selecting ‘Load More Button.’
The Load More button encourages visitors to scroll through more of your video feed, so Smash Balloon adds it to your embedded Facebook feed by default.
Since it’s such an important button, you may want to customize this button by changing its background color, hover state, label, and more.
Another option is to remove the button completely, by clicking the ‘Enable’ toggle. For example, you might remove this button and then encourage visitors to check out your Facebook page in order to see more of your videos.
By default, Smash Balloon allows visitors to watch your Facebook videos without leaving your WordPress website.
They can simply click on any video thumbnail to open it in a lightbox, as you can see in the following image
Visitors can scroll through the videos in your feed using the arrows.
If they want to like a photo, leave a comment, or share the video to their page, then they can click on the ‘View on Facebook’ link.
There are a few different ways that you can customize Smash Balloon’s default lightbox.
To see your options, click on ‘Lightbox’ in the left-hand menu.
Here, you can change the color of the lightbox’s text, links, and background colors.
The lightbox feature allows visitors to watch your videos in a popup. If you prefer, then you can disable the lightbox so that all your videos play as small thumbnails, embedded inside the page content.
In this way, you can encourage people to visit your Facebook page, to see the full-size video. To disable the lightbox, simply click on the ‘Enable’ toggle to turn it from blue to grey.
When you’re happy with how the video feed looks, don’t forget to click on ‘Save.’
You’re now ready to embed the Smash Balloon feed in your website.
How to Add Facebook Videos to WordPress
With Smash Balloon, you can add the video feed to your WordPress website using a block, widget, or shortcode.
If you’ve created more than one feed using Smash Balloon, then you’ll need to know the feed’s code if you’re going to use a widget or block.
To get this code, go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and then look at the feed="" part of the shortcode. You’ll need to add this code to the block or widget, so make a note of it.
In the following image, we’ll need to use feed="6"
If you want to embed your Facebook feed in a page or post, then we recommend using the Custom Facebook Feed block.
Just open the page or post where you want to embed your Facebook videos. Then, click on the ‘+’ icon to add a new block and start typing ‘Custom Facebook Feed.’
When the right block appears, click to add it to the page or post.
The block will show one of your Smash Balloon feeds by default. If you want to use a different video feed instead, then find ‘Shortcode Settings’ in the right-hand menu.
Here, simply add the feed="" code and then click on ‘Apply Changes.’
The block will now show the videos from your Facebook page or group. Just publish or update the page to make the video feed live on your website.
Another option is to add the feed to any widget-ready area, such as the sidebar or similar section. This allows visitors to watch your Facebook videos from any page of your site.
Simply go to Appearance » Widgets and then click on the blue ‘+’ button.
After that, find the ‘Custom Facebook Feed’ widget.
Then, just drag it onto the area where you want to show the video feed.
The widget will show one of your Smash Balloon feeds automatically.
To show a different feed instead, type or paste the feed’s code into the ‘Shortcode Settings’ box and then click ‘Apply Changes.’
You can now make the widget live by clicking on the ‘Update’ button. For more information, please see our step-by-step guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.
Finally, you can embed videos on any page, post, or widget-ready area using a shortcode.
Simply go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and copy the code in the ‘Shortcode’ column. You can now add this code to any Shortcode block.
For help placing the shortcode, please see our guide on how to add a shortcode.
Add a Specific Facebook Video in WordPress
Sometimes you may want to embed a specific Facebook video in a page or post. For example, you might have a Facebook video that talks about the same topics as your latest blog, or a promotional video showing the product you’ve just launched on your online store.
To embed a specific video, you’ll need to buy and install the Featured Posts extension as it allows you to display a particular post or event using its ID.
To start, go to Facebook Feed » Extensions.
Here, find the ‘Featured Posts’ extension and click on its ‘Add’ button.
This will open the Smash Balloon website in a new tab, with instructions on how to purchase the extension.
Once you have the extension, you can install it in exactly the same way you install a plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After activating the plugin, go to Facebook Feed » All Feeds and click on ‘Add New.’
Under ‘Advanced Feed Types,’ select ‘Single Featured Post’ and then click ‘Next.’
You can now choose the page or group that you want to use as your source by following the same process described above.
On the next page, you’ll need to enter the ID of the video that you want to embed.
To get this ID, visit Facebook in a new tab and then open the video that you want to embed.
You can now go ahead and copy the URL.
After that, just post the URL into your WordPress dashboard and click on ‘Next.’
Once you’ve done that, you can style the video and then add it to your site following the same process described above.
We hope this article showed you how to embed a Facebook video in WordPress. You may want to check out our guide on how to create an email newsletter and our expert pick of the best YouTube video gallery plugins.
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The post How to Embed a Facebook Video in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
February 03, 2023 at 01:03AM
