Note: This guide assumes that you’re using Thesis 1.6. Also, since Facebook seems to change things around every month or so, this guide might be out of date by the time you’re done reading it. This guide is current to Facebook as of January 7th, 2010.
A Facebook Fanpage, not to be confused with a Facebook Group, can be a great place for your organization to engage with a pretty broad audience. And now you can integrate your Fanpage with your blog using a Facebook Fanpage widget. This is a step by step guide showing you how to create and embed that widget. Before you start though, you’ll need to set up a Fanpage first. Check out this screencast to learn how to setup a fanpage if you don’t already have one – Setting up a Facebook Fanpage
You’ll also need to be using the Thesis theme and have the Thesis OpenHook plugin installed. Check out these posts for more info:
Thesis Openhook Plugin
Thesis for WordPress
Creating and Installing Your Facebook Fanpage Widget
1. Go to the Profile page of your Fanpage and Select Edit Page from the left hand menu
2. Scroll down a little bit and select Promote with a Fan Box
3. Select Other from the Choose where to add the widget options
4. Copy all of the code in the Copy the code below and paste it on your website box
5. In your WordPress admin dashboard, select Appearance from the left hand menu
6. Then select Thesis OpenHook
7. In the menu in the lower right hand corner select thesis_hook_before_sidebar_1
8. Paste the code from Facebook into the Before Sidebar 1 box.
9. Select the Save Button
Your blog should now contain your Facebook fan page widget in Sidebar 1! In our case, that would be the right hand column.
In regards to ministry, check out this screencast for more info on when to use a Fanpage versus a Facebook Group – When to use a Facebook Fanpage
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