How to Add Your Social Media Feeds to WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to add your social media feeds to your WordPress website?

Adding social media feeds in WordPress can help increase your followers, improve social engagement, and enrich your existing content.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to add custom social media feeds to WordPress and create a social wall that brings all your social feed content together in one place.

Why Add Social Media Feeds to Your WordPress Site?

Millions of people use social media every day to connect with family, friends, and brands they love.

You can bring this experience back to your website by taking your existing social stream and adding them to WordPress.

That way, visitors don’t have to leave your site to consume your engaging social media content.

What are some other reasons to add social media feeds to WordPress?

• Your following and engagement can act as social proof
• Help increase your followers across other networks by exposing them to your feeds
• Display real-time content to your posts and pages with your social media feeds
• Give off positive SEO signals like lower bounce rate and increased dwell time
• Make more product sales by including shoppable Instagram images
• Get more social media attention with an engaging feed, instead of easy to miss social icons

How to Add Social Media Feeds to WordPress

The best way to add social media feeds to your WordPress blog is by using a WordPress plugin.

With a plugin, you don’t have to spend time dealing with jQuery code, APIs, or trying to get things to display correctly. It just works.

Some commonly used plugins include Feed Them Social, Flow-Flow Social Stream, and EmbedSocial.

But, we recommend using the Smash Balloon plugin. It’s the best social media feed plugin for WordPress and it’s trusted by over 1.5 million users.

The plugin is easy to use and has all the features to add media-rich social feeds as well as a social wall with multiple social networks, to your WordPress website.

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to add social feeds for the most popular social networks:

• Adding a Facebook Social Media Feed in WordPress
• Adding an Instagram Social Media Feed in WordPress
• Adding a Twitter Social Media Feed in WordPress
• Adding a YouTube Social Media Feed in WordPress
• Adding a Combined Social Wall in WordPress

Adding a Facebook Social Media Feed in WordPress

Facebook is one of the most popular social media networks in the world. There’s a good chance you’re using it to interact with your fans and followers on your profile or business page.

One benefit of adding your Facebook feed to WordPress is you can highlight feeds from your Facebook groups and profiles in real-time. It can also help you get more likes and engagement on your social media posts.



The easiest way to add a Facebook social media feed is with a WordPress plugin. A plugin lets you add a custom Facebook feed to your site quickly.

We recommend using the Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed plugin. They have a pro and free version available.

The plugin lets you do things like combine feeds from multiple pages, let users share posts directly from your website, and customize your Facebook feeds appearance without HTML.



It comes with Gutenberg blocks to easily embed the feeds in your posts / pages, and built-in widgets that you can add in your sidebar or footer.

You can even add your Google Analytics script and other tracking codes to the plugin for retargeting purposes.

For more details, see our guide on how to create a custom Facebook feed in WordPress.

Adding an Instagram Social Media Feed in WordPress

On average, people spend 30 minutes per day using Instagram.

What if, instead, they spent that time on your website?

Instagram excels at presenting visually-oriented content. From images, to stories, IGTV videos, and more.



By adding your Instagram social feed to WordPress, you can offer your visitors a custom, highly engaging experience. All without having to leave your site.

You can add photos manually, but then you’re missing out on all the benefits of a live Instagram feed.

With a WordPress plugin, you can add your Instagram feed directly to WordPress. That way, whenever you upload an image to Instagram, it’ll automatically appear on your site.



We recommend using the Smash Balloon Instagram Feed plugin. It’s the best Instagram feed plugin for WordPress. There is a pro and free version of the plugin available.

This plugin lets you display content by hashtag or Instagram account, show comments and like counts, include lightbox popups, and more.



It also connects through the Instagram API instead of RSS, so new posts will automatically display on your WordPress site.

For more details, see our detailed guide on how to create a custom Instagram feed in WordPress.

Adding a Twitter Social Media Feed in WordPress

WordPress lets you manually embed single tweets into your posts and pages.

What if you want to embed an entire Twitter feed, not just a single tweet?

Adding a Twitter feed to WordPress gives you all kinds of flexible content options.

For example, you can create a social feed of a relevant hashtag in your industry. Or, a rotating carousel of customer tweets that can serve as testimonials.

Using a Twitter social feed plugin, you can accomplish all the above and a lot more.



We recommend using the Smash Balloon Custom Twitter Feed plugin. It’s the best Twitter feeds plugin for WordPress. You’ll find a pro and free version available.

The plugin lets you do things like display multiple Twitter feeds, respond, like, and retweet while staying on your website, and add lightboxes for a full content experience.



For more instructions on adding a Twitter feed to WordPress, see our guide on how to embed tweets in WordPress.

Adding a YouTube Social Media Feed in WordPress

WordPress makes it easy to embed YouTube videos right into your site. Simply paste the URL into your post or page editor, and WordPress will automatically grab the embed code for you.

What if you want to add more than one video? Or your entire YouTube video feed to your site?

That’s where things get more difficult, unless you use a WordPress YouTube feed plugin.

By adding your entire YouTube social media feed to WordPress, you can enhance your visitor’s viewing experience. Instead of leaving your site and going to YouTube, they can watch your entire channel in one place.



We recommend using the plugin Feeds for YouTube by Smash Balloon. It’s one of the best YouTube social media plugins available for WordPress.

There are pro and free versions of the plugin available.

The plugin lets you do things like create a customizable gallery from all your channels, add live streaming, use advanced search queries to create custom feeds, and more.

You’ll find a few different layout templates to choose from to change the appearance of your video feed.



For more detailed instructions, see our step by step guide on creating a YouTube gallery in WordPress.

Keep in mind, you need to add your YouTube API key correctly. Otherwise, a lot of the social feed features won’t work.

Adding a Combined Social Wall in WordPress

You’ve learned how to add individual social media feeds to WordPress.

Next, we’ll show you how to combine all your social networks in one place with a WordPress social media aggregator plugin.

We recommend using the Smash Balloon Social Wall plugin. It’s the best social stream plugin for WordPress. It combines Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube social content into a single feed.

This helps you increase social sharing, gain followers across all your channels, and get the most out of your social content.

To use this plugin, you’ll need to install and activate one of the Pro Smash Balloon plugins mentioned above.

After that, you need to install and activate the Smash Balloon Social Wall plugin. For a step by step tutorial on installing a plugin, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once the plugin is installed and activated, navigate to Social Feeds » Create a Social Wall.



On this screen, you can connect the social accounts you want to display.

If your social media accounts aren’t set up yet, then now is the time to do it.



Simply click on each account you want to show up in your feed and follow the instructions for setting it up.

Then, leave the green checkbox checked if you want it to display. If not, then uncheck the box.



Next, click the ‘Customize’ tab on the top of the screen.

Here you’ll be able to change how your feed looks.



You can change the number of posts that display, the feed layout, and more.

For this example, we’ll input ‘9’ for the number of posts to display initially and select ‘Masonry’ for the ‘Layout Type’.



There are many other options you can change like the feed color scheme, background color, button text, and more. But, we’re going to leave most of the default settings.

If you make any additional changes, make sure you click ‘Save Changes’ before exiting the screen.

After you’ve finished customizing your wall, navigate back to ‘Configure Wall’ and copy the shortcode generated by the plugin.



Then, paste the shortcode where you want your social media wall to display.

This can be a dedicated page, within a blog post, or even inside a sidebar widget.



Now, when your visitors view your social feed, they’ll see all of your social networks together.

Plus, they can even filter by specific network and follow your other profiles too.



We hope this article has helped you add social media feeds to WordPress. You may want to see our ultimate social media cheat sheet and our expert pick of 40 useful tools to manage and grow your blog.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add Your Social Media Feeds to WordPress (Step by Step) appeared first on WPBeginner.


February 24, 2021 at 06:00PM

What’s Coming in WordPress 5.7 (Features and Screenshots)

WordPress 5.7 beta is out for a while now, and it is scheduled to be released on March 9th 2021. It will be the first major release of the year and comes with some new features and improvements.

We’ve been following the development closely and trying out the new features on our test sites.

In this article, we will show you what’s coming in WordPress 5.7 with features and screenshots.

Note: You can try out the beta version on your computer or on a staging environment by using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin.

WordPress 5.7 is under development and some features can still change and may not make it into the final release.

That being said, let’s take a look at what’s coming in WordPress 5.7.

Editor Improvements in WordPress 5.7

The WordPress editor is the area where website owners spend most of their time creating pages and writing content.

Each WordPress release brings new features and improvements to the editor. WordPress 5.7 will also ship with some exciting new features and enhancements to improve your editing experience.

Drag and Drop Blocks from Inserter

WordPress 5.7 will allow you to simply drag and drop a block from the ‘Add new block’ (+) inserter into your content area. This way you can choose where to place a block before you drop it on the post canvas.

Full-height Blocks Coming in WordPress 5.7

Do you like using the full-width blocks for cover, columns, and group blocks? This allows you to create visually stunning layouts. WordPress 5.7 will now allow you to create full-height blocks too.

These blocks will fill in the height of the user’s screen allowing you to create even more engaging layouts.

Block Variations Can Now Have Their Own Descriptions

WordPress 5.7 will now show descriptions for block variations. For instance, the social icons block has Facebook, Twitter, and other social icons. You can view them in the block inspector with a preview.

Social Icon Sizes

WordPress 5.7 will allow you to adjust the size of icons in the social media icons block.

Improved Buttons

WordPress 5.7 will introduce vertical alignment for buttons in the block editor. Users will also be able to choose from a preset percentage width for their buttons.

Adjust Font Size in More Blocks

Another improvement in the block editor is the ability to adjust the font size in more blocks including the list and code blocks.

Easier Migration from HTTP to HTTPS

Previously when you moved WordPress from HTTP to HTTPS you had to manually update URLs embedded in your content. Not doing so resulted in the mixed content issue.

WordPress 5.7 will make it easier to migrate your website to HTTPs. It will show the availability of HTTPS in the site health menu as a critical issue.

From here, users will be able to click on a button to update the WordPress URLs. This will switch your WordPress and Site URL settings, and update URLs in your content to use HTTPs.

Standardize WP-Admin Color Standardize Palette

WordPress 5.7 will also standardize the wp-admin color palette. Basically, WordPress uses Sass to generate CSS files on the fly.

WordPress came with a limited set of color schemes and introducing new color schemes was hard as developers had to deal Sass variable-based system.

In the upcoming 5.7 release, WordPress will collapse all colors used in the CSS to one of the available shades of blue, green, red, yellow, grey, black, and white. This will provide developers a palette with a wider range of light and dark color schemes.

New Robots API

WordPress 5.7 will introduce a new Robots API. This API will allow developers to programmatically control and update the robots meta tag on a website.

Robots meta tag allows you to tell search engine bots how to crawl and index a website. This can be achieved by adding a robots.txt file to your site’s root folder or by using the robots meta tag.

A new function called wp_robots will be introduced in WordPress 5.7. Developers will be able to modify the robots meta tab by adding their own filters to the function. Here is an example of how it would work:

function wporg_wp_robots_add_follow( $robots ) {
    $robots['follow'] = true;
    return $robots;
}
add_filter( 'wp_robots', 'wporg_wp_robots_add_follow' );

WordPress 5.7 will also add a max-image-preview:large directive to the robots meta tag by default. This will allow search engines to use the large image for preview in search results.

Here is how it would look in your site’s source code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <meta name="robots" content="max-image-preview:large" />
    </head>

WordPress will automatically hide this tag for websites that have search engine visibility turned off in the settings.

If you want to disable this and let search engines decide which image to use for the previews, then you can add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

remove_filter( 'wp_robots', 'wp_robots_max_image_preview_large' );

Lazy Loading iFrames

WordPress 5.7 will automatically add lazy load to iframe embeds. Lazy Loading is a technique used to improve website speed during a page load. It basically tells the user’s browser to load an item when it is viewed.

WordPress already uses lazy loading for images by default since WordPress 5.5.

This means all embeds that use iframes, such as YouTube videos, will use lazy loading to improve your page load speeds.

If you are using Smash Balloon’s YouTube Feed, then it already optimizes your video feed by better caching and delayed loading.

Under The Hood Changes

WordPress 5.7 will also bring many changes for developers to explore and use in their own themes, plugins, and projects.

Following are some of these under the hood changes.

WordPress 5.7 will introduce new functions is_post_status_viewable() and is_post_publicly_viewable() to check if a post is publicly viewable. (See details)

Render block function will now allow developers to filter the content of a single block. (#46187)

WordPress 5.7 will add a filter hook to manipulate $user_data variable during retrieve_password() function. This will enable developers to perform custom validation checks during password resets. (#51924)

Developers will be able to change the ‘Go to site’ link displayed in the login page footer by using a new login_site_html_link hook. (#35449)

Two new functions get_post_parent() and has_post_parent() will be available in WordPress 5.7 to determine if a post has a parent and to get the related parent post as an object. (#33045)

We hope this article gave you a good idea of what is coming in the upcoming WordPress 5.7. Let us know what features you find interesting and what you’d look to see in a future WordPress release.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post What’s Coming in WordPress 5.7 (Features and Screenshots) appeared first on WPBeginner.

February 23, 2021 at 06:00PM

How to Require an Email Address to Download a File in WordPress

Do you want to have users enter an email address before downloading a file from your WordPress site?

Many businesses use free file downloads like eBooks, white papers, etc to collect email addresses and potential leads. These lead magnets convert really well because it offers users an incentive that motivates them to sign up.

In this article, we’ll show how to easily require an email address to download a file in WordPress.

Why Require an Email Address to Download a File in WordPress?

Email is still the best way to communicate with customers online. Many businesses collect email addresses as potential leads that they can follow up with to make a sale.

For instance, an online store may capture email leads based on user interests. Those users may not make a purchase right away, but it gives you an option to convert them later.

Similarly, if you are selling an online course, you can offer users a free lesson download in exchange for their email addresses. This way, you can send targeted emails to those users and convince them to buy your premium course.

It doesn’t always have to be a free file download. You can sell e-books, music, software, and other digital downloads.

What You Need to Collect Email Addresses

The easiest way to collect and build email lists is by using an email marketing service. This allows you to not only collect the email addresses but also be able to send beautiful emails, create customer segments, track open rates, and more.

We recommend using Constant Contact as the best email marketing service for small businesses. It allows you to easily collect email addresses, send targeted emails, segment your audiences, and grow your business.

Most importantly, it works really well with WordPress, WooCommerce, and all other essential WordPress plugins.

If you need alternatives, then do check out Sendinblue or Drip.

Note: You can still collect email addresses even if you don’t want to use an email marketing service right away. All the methods described below would still work for manual outreach.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to require an email address to download a file in WordPress. We’ll show multiple methods, and you can choose one that works best for you.

• Require email address for file downloads using OptinMonster
• Collect email addresses for file downloads using WPForms
• Collect email addresses for file downloads using MemberPress
• Track your file downloads in WordPress

1. Collect Email Address for File Downloads in WordPress with OptinMonster

This method is the most flexible, incredibly powerful, and recommended for all users.

For this method, we’ll be using OptinMonster. It is the best lead generation software on the market and allows you to easily collect email addresses with powerful popups, sign up forms, banners, and more.

First, you need to sign up for an OptinMonster account.

After that, you need to install and activate the OptinMonster plugin on your WordPress website. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

This free plugin is a mere connector between your WordPress website and your OptinMonster account.

Upon activation, you need to visit OptinMonster » Settings page and click on the ‘Connect existing account’ button.

This will bring up a popup where you can log in and connect your WordPress site to your OptinMonster account.

Now that your WordPress site is connected, you are ready to create your first campaign. Head over to OptinMonster » Campaigns page and click on the ‘Add New’ or ‘Create your first campaign’ button.

Next, you’ll be asked to select a campaign type. OptinMonster supports lightbox popups, floating bars, inline optins, fullscreen, slide-in, and gamified campaigns.

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll create a lightbox popup campaign. Below that, you can choose a campaign template by clicking on it.

You’ll then be asked to provide a name for your campaign. You can enter any name here to identify it easily, and then click on the Start building button.

This will launch OptinMonster’s campaign builder interface with a live preview of your campaign in the right panel. You can click on any item in your campaign to edit it.

You can also add new items to your campaign by clicking on the Add Blocks button.

Once you are satisfied with the design, you can switch to the success view. This is the view your users will see when they have submitted their email addresses.

There are multiple ways to allow users to download the file on the success view. You can edit the text and add a link to the download file.

Alternately, you can click on the Add Blocks button and then add a ‘Button’ block. After that, click to select the button block and switch to the ‘Action’ panel.

From here, select ‘Go to a URL’ under the ‘Button click action’ setting and then enter the file download URL.

Once finished, don’t forget to click on the Save button to store your campaign settings.

Next, you need to click on the Integrations tab on the top to connect your email service provider.

Simply click on the Add New Integration button and then select your email provider from the list. Follow the on-screen instructions to set it up.

Note: If you just want to capture email leads for your CRM software or manual outreach, then OptinMonster can automatically use their MonsterLeads feature to store them for you.

Now that everything is set up, you can switch to the Publish tab to make your campaign go to live. Simply switch to the ‘Publish Status’ from Draft to Publish by clicking on it.

Don’t forget to click on the Save changes button to save your campaign settings and then click on the close button to exit the builder.

After that, you’ll be redirected back to your WordPress site, where you can configure where and when you want to display the campaign.

For example, you can show it on specific pages or posts, existing customers, target WooCommerce customers, and more. For details, see our guide on how to show personalized content to different users in WordPress.

For this tutorial, we will be showing it to all visitors. After that, simply set the status from pending to published and click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to launch your campaign.

You can now visit your website in a new incognito tab to see your campaign in action.

Your users will be able to provide their email address, and after that, they will see the success view of your campaign with a file download link.

2. Collect Email Address for File Downloads in WordPress with WPForms

This method is handy if you want to create custom lead generation forms and add them to your WordPress landing pages.

For this method, we’ll be using WPForms. It is the best WordPress form builder plugin that allows you to easily create custom lead capture forms that you can add anywhere on your website.

It also allows you to redirect users to a file download upon form submission.

First, you need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the WPForms website.

After that, you can go to WPForms » Add New page to create your email capture form. First, provide a name for your form and then select a template.

Templates are a starting point, and WPForms comes with several commonly used templates. For instance, you can choose a newsletter sign-up form or a contact form template.

After choosing the template, WPForms will launch the form builder interface with a preview of your live form on the right.

From here, you can click on any form field to add. edit, move it up or down, or delete it. You can also click on the ‘Submit’ button to change the text to ‘Download’.

Once you are done editing your form, you need to switch to the marketing tab to connect it to your email service provider. You can skip this step if you are manually managing form leads.

WPForms supports all the top email marketing platforms. Simply click on your email service provider and follow the on-screen instructions to connect it.

Once finished, you need to switch to the Settings tab and then click on Confirmation. From here, you can configure what to do when a user submits the form.

You can choose to show a message with a link to the file download. You can also show users a page on your website to download the file or redirect them to the file download URL.

Once finished, don’t forget to click on the Save button at the top to store your settings.

Adding The Form to Your Website

WPForms makes it super easy to add your forms anywhere on your website.

Simply, edit the post or page where you want to display the form. On the post edit screen, click on the (+) add new block button and select WPForms block.

This will add the WPForms block to your post or page content. You need to select the form your created earlier from the drop-down menu.

You’ll see a live preview of your form in the content editor. You can now save or publish your post / page and visit your website to see your form in action.

Based on your settings, when users submit the form they will get the confirmation message with the file download link or redirected.

3. Collect Email Address for File Downloads in WordPress with MemberPress

This method is recommended if you want to make the file download available to existing users, members, or paid users.

For this method, we will be using MemberPress. It is the best WordPress membership plugin and allows you to easily control access to premium content, file downloads, members-only content, and more.

First, you need to install and activate the MemberPress plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit MemberPress » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the MemberPress website.

Next, you need to switch to the ‘Payments’ tab and select a payment method to accept payments for membership subscriptions. You can also create free subscription plans if you want.

MemberPress supports PayPal and Stripe. You can also use Authorize.net with their Plus and Pro plans.

After selecting your payment method, you’ll be asked to provide your account details. You can also choose to add multiple methods.

Once finished, click on the ‘Update Options’ button to save your changes.

Now you are ready to create a membership plan.

Simply go to the MemberPress » Memberships page and click on the Add New button.

On the next screen, you can give your membership plan a name and set a pricing option. Depending on how you want to organize your memberships, you can choose lifetime, expiring, or fixed expiring plans.

After that, click on the Publish button to make your membership plan available.

Next, you need to create an access rule. This allows you to control which parts of your website you want to be protected and available to members-only.

On the next screen, first you need to choose which content you want to be restrict under ‘Protected Content’.

MemberPress offers a whole range of options. You can select posts that match certain tags, categories, pages that are under the same parent page, single posts, or any URL.

For instance, we have chosen to protect all content tagged members-only.

Below that, you need to select who will have access to the protected content. We have chosen anyone who has Basic membership.

Once you have set up the rule, don’t forget to click on the Save Rule button to save your changes.

Next, you need to create content that you want to be protected. For this tutorial, we want users to be able to download a file.

You can create a new post in WordPress, based on our rules settings we will simply add the tag members-only to protect this page.

After that, you can simply add your file download as a link or a download button in the post content.

Next, scroll down to the ‘Membership Unauthorized Access’ box and set the ‘Unauthorized Message:’ to custom. After that, you can add a custom message you want to show to users who have not signed up yet.

You can now save or publish your content and preview it in a new browser window using incognito mode. You’ll see your custom unauthorized access message with the login form.

Connecting MemberPress to Your Email Service

MemberPress works with all top email marketing providers and you can automatically add all new members to your website into your email list.

Simply go to the MemberPress » Addons page and install the addon for your email provider. For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll show you Constant Contact but settings are pretty much the same for most email providers.

Next, go to MemberPress » Settings page and switch to the Marketing tab. From here, you can connect your email service by providing your account API keys.

For details, you’ll need to see MemberPress documentation for your email service provider.

After entering the required information, click on the Update Options button to save your settings.

Next, you need to visit MemberPress » Memberships page and edit the membership plan you created earlier. Scroll down to the ‘Membership Options’ box and switch to the Advanced tab.

From here you can check the option to enable email sign up checkbox for that membership plan.

After that, don’t forget to click on the ‘Update’ button to save changes.

Now when users visit the sign up page, they will see an option to subscribe to your email list.

Tracking Your File Downloads in WordPress

Now that you have enabled email requirement to download a file in WordPress, you may want to see how users are finding it and how many users download it.

You can do that by using the MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin on the market and allows you to easily track file downloads in WordPress.

For more details, see our complete guide on how to easily track file downloads in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily require an email address to download a file in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to get more traffic to your website and our expert pick of the best business phone services, so you can ask for phone numbers in exchange for file downloads using the methods above.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Require an Email Address to Download a File in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

February 22, 2021 at 06:00PM