Do you want more people to see and engage with the content you publish on your WordPress site? One great way to increase traffic and grow your audience is by sharing your new posts on Facebook automatically.
With over 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the biggest social media platform in the world. If you can tap into even a fraction of this massive user base, it can drive significant growth for your site.
In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll explain the benefits of auto-posting from WordPress to Facebook and show you how to set it up in just a few clicks.
Contents
Here are some of the key reasons you should connect your WordPress site with Facebook:
1. Expose Your Content to a Wider Audience
Every time you publish a new blog post, only a small percentage of your email subscribers will actually see it. And an even smaller number will visit your site to read the full article.
By auto-sharing your new content to Facebook, you can get it in front of a much larger audience. Even if only 1-2% of your Facebook followers click through, that can still drive a ton of new organic traffic.
2. Increase Social Engagement
Links shared on Facebook generate 8X more engagement on average compared to other social platforms.
When you auto-post your new content, it will show up in your followers‘ feeds. This makes it really easy for them to like, comment and share with just a click or tap.
More engagement on Facebook means more people will see your posts in their feeds. So you get compounding growth from every new piece of content you publish.
3. Grow Your Email List
Many marketers use Facebook Lead Ads to convert their followers into email subscribers.
When you auto-share your posts on Facebook, the content provides social proof and builds authority. This increases conversion rates when you later target those same users with Lead Ads.
In other words, consistently posting great content lays the foundation for growing your email list.
4. Save Time
Let‘s face it, staying active on social media takes a lot of time. Between creating posts, responding to comments and engaging followers, it can quickly eat up your day.
By automating your WordPress publishing to Facebook, you remove this entire time sink. Once set up properly, the process happens seamlessly without any ongoing effort on your part.
This frees you up to focus on other high-value tasks like creating new content, analyzing results and refining your strategy.
Step-by-Step Guide to Auto-Post from WordPress to Facebook
Now that you understand the benefits, let‘s dive into the step-by-step process for automating your WordPress content sharing to Facebook:
Choose an Auto-Posting Plugin
There are a number of great WordPress plugins available that enable auto-posting to Facebook (and other social networks). Here are three top options to consider:
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Social Auto Poster (free) – This popular plugin has over 100,000 active installs. It allows auto-posting to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
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Social Networks Auto Poster (free) – Focused exclusively on Facebook and Twitter auto-posting. Has a user-friendly workflow for scheduling content.
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NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster (paid) – A top-rated premium plugin with advanced features like post customization and auto-scheduling.
The free plugins are great for getting started. But the premium tools like NextScripts provide more customization options and flexibility.
For this tutorial, we‘ll use NextScripts since it‘s the most robust auto-posting plugin available.
Install and Activate the Plugin
From your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New. Then search for NextScripts and click the Install Now button.
Once installation completes, click Activate.
NextScripts will now appear in your main WordPress menu.
Connect Your Facebook Account
Navigate to NextScripts > Social Networks from your WordPress dashboard.
Then click the blue Connect button for Facebook.
A popup window will open where you can enter your Facebook login credentials and authorize the connection.
Once connected, your Facebook Pages will be listed under the account details.
Configure Auto-Posting to Facebook
Scroll down until you see the Auto-Posting section. Then click on Auto-Post to Facebook Pages.
Here you can select which of your connected Facebook Pages you want to auto-post to.
NextScripts gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of which WordPress content you want to auto-share.
For this example, we‘ll configure it to share all new blog posts.
Under Auto-Post Settings, choose the following:
- Post Types to Auto-Post: Posts
- Taxonomies: Select any categories or tags if desired
- Delay: No Delay
Leave all other settings at their defaults.
As you can see, you can choose to only share posts from certain categories or tags. You can also set a delay if you don‘t want your WordPress content to post to Facebook immediately.
Under Text Format for Auto-Posts, you customize what the posts look like on Facebook.
For example, you may want the auto-generated posts to say something like:
{Post Title} – Read the full article here: {Post URL}
The plugin will automatically pull the actual post title and URL to construct the post text.
Next, decide if you also want to auto-share your featured images from WordPress by toggling the Attach Image switch ON.
Finally, click Save Settings at the bottom to save your auto-posting configuration.
Now NextScripts will automatically share any new posts to your selected Facebook Page(s). No additional action needed on your part.
Using Uncanny Automator for Auto-Posting
Another great option for auto-sharing your WordPress posts to Facebook is a premium plugin called Uncanny Automator.
Uncanny Automator has a powerful drag-and-drop workflow builder that allows you to automate almost any task in WordPress. That includes auto-posting your content to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.
Here‘s an overview of how to use it for Facebook auto-posting:
Install and Activate Uncanny Automator
If you don‘t already have Uncanny Automator, purchase a license and install the plugin on your WordPress site.
Once activated, head to Automator > Settings and enter your license key. Then click Activate License.
Connect Your Facebook Account
From the WordPress dashboard, go to Automator > Settings. Then click on App Integrations.
Next, click Connect Account below Facebook Pages.
Log in to Facebook to authorize the connection. This will allow Uncanny Automator to post to your connected Pages.
Set Up Auto-Post Workflow
Go to Automator > Add New to start creating your workflow recipe:
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Select Trigger: A user publishes a Post
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Set Action: Publish a post to a Facebook Page
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Pick which Facebook Page to auto-post to
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Enter your custom post Text
For example: {Post Title} – Read more here: {Post URL}
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Enable Attach Image to auto-share featured images
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Publish the recipe
Once you publish your auto-posting workflow, Uncanny Automator will share new posts to your selected Facebook Page automatically.
With the free version of Uncanny Automator, you‘re limited to 1,000 free credits for Facebook posting per month. To remove this limit, you‘ll need a paid Uncanny Owl subscription.
But the great thing is you can set up unlimited workflows that don‘t cost credits. For example, workflows that integrate only WordPress plugins and tools.
So the free version is still incredibly powerful for automating tasks across your site.
Auto-Posting Best Practices
Here are some tips to ensure your auto-generated posts look great and deliver results on Facebook:
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Customize post text – Don‘t just copy your WordPress titles and excerpts. Modify the message templates in NextScripts or Uncanny Automator to sound more natural for social media.
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Use relevant images – Auto-share your best featured images from blog posts. Images boost engagement on Facebook.
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Post consistently – Set your auto-posting to share all new content, not just select posts. The more consistently you share, the better the results.
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Add a delay – Don‘t auto-post immediately at publication. Build in a 1-3 hour delay to spread out your content.
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Monitor analytics – Keep an eye on metrics like Facebook clicks and engagement rate for your auto-posts. Tweak your templates over time to improve performance.
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Engage and respond – Check back regularly to like comments and respond to any questions on your auto-shared posts. This helps build relationships with readers.
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Advertise your best content – Consider running Facebook Lead or Traffic Ads pointing back to your top-performing auto-shared posts. This amplifies their reach and impact.
Wrap Up
Sharing your WordPress posts to Facebook is a great free way to expand your reach and traffic. But doing it manually takes a ton of time.
That‘s why auto-posting plugins like NextScripts and Uncanny Automator are so valuable. They save you hours of effort while still allowing you to grow your audience on the world‘s biggest social network.
Implementing a seamless auto-posting workflow from WordPress to Facebook is one of the highest-ROI tasks you can set up.
So try one of the plugins covered today and start exposing your great content to more readers who will love it!
Let me know if you have any other questions in the comments below.
