You can make something work in theory, but reality can often have a different opinion. My plan to integrate WordPress with Facebook worked in theory (and the first tests) but in practice there were problems.
The weak link was Facebook’s feature that imports an RSS feed as your Notes. It is supposed to check the feed every couple of hours, but it simply doesn’t. The internets suggested that this isn’t something new and given that Notes isn’t high in the Facebook food chain, I doubt this will be resolved soon. The situation called for more research.
The answer came from the Wp-Fb Comments plugin. It uses Facebook’s Graph API to
- publish WordPress posts on the Wall of a Facebook Page
- import comments on Facebook to WordPress
- copy comments from WordPress to the Facebook without requiring from the user to act (it is posted as a coment in the post on the Page Wall, not on the user’s stream).
All in all, this is working well, but seem to be two issues. One, and i’m not sure where this is coming from (the Wp-Fb Comments plugin or the Facebook Connect one), the user gets a popup with just a Facebook logo when he posts. Two, my new page has zero likes ;) but this isn’t something a little bit of social media marketing can’t solve…
My next target is to make this setup less dependent on Facebook, allowing people to comment without a Facebook account (and without forcing them to register on WordPress either). To be continued then…
Read also: Trying out the Livefyre commenting system and How to add Facebook / Twitter / etc authentication on WordPress
Tags: comments, Facebook, integration, WordPress
Well this post doesnt apply any more :)
I'm using LiveFyre as well and have had a hard time with the most popular facebook comments for wordpress plugin. I don't know. I see comments then they disappear and then come back and there is NOTHING in my moderation queue over at facebook developers…..
@PatrickHealy thanks for stopping by my blog. You seem to have both LiveFyre and the Facebook comments plugin on your site! The two systems are completely separate.
@MarkosGiannopoulos Yeah, I know. So are the two completely incompatible? I know someone that has regular comments and FB comments working ok but not a comment management system. I had it popping in and out until I installed Digg Digg and now it just doesn't work at all…..
The Facebook comments plugin (by Facebook) is an independent comments system. All comments are stored on Facebook servers and moderation can be done on a Facebook page https://developers.facebook.com/tools/comments (You need to have setup an Facebook application for that)
Livefyre integrates with WordPress, e.g. every comment you post via Livefyre is also copied in your WordPress database as well as the Livefyre system.
If something on your site appears or disappears without any hint for the reason you probably have some incompatibility between the wordpress plugins you are using.
@MarkosGiannopoulos I figured. The one I am using seems to be the most popular one however I have heard mixed reviews. It does list a few plugins that conflict with it due to them loading the "old" javascript libraries and this facebook plugin loading the new ones. I am sure that list is not comprehensive and that is why I am getting the FB comments drop in and out (sometimes the right library loads first). The thing is, I have NONE of these comments in my FB app for moderation. It's as if they are somewhere else and just linked to my post. I don't like that. It gives me no control.
@PatrickHealy you need to create a Facebook application and put it's ID as a meta tag on your pages like this <meta property="fb:app_id" content="XXXXX"/> <meta name="fb_app_id" content="XXXXX">This will combine all (new) comments on your site under this application and you will seem the in the Facebook moderation tool
Oh, that's all done. They show up, they just disappear from time to time. That's why I suspect it's a java library thing. Here: http://phacient.com/2011/09/a-lesson-in-time-mana…
You can see the comment box all the time but there are a number of FB comments on that post that *sometimes* show up. It's frustrating….
Maybe the two is not compatible, I currently using livefyre without wp-fb plug-in. Livefyre is really working for me and it do good actually.
@loseweight Just coming from a party with these guys tonight. Seems there will be a big announcement tomorrow and another in about a month. Livefyre will be the only tihng I use soon. They are amazing. Love these guys.
I have followed your post… I like the way you explain things. Thanks for sharing informative posts…