Do you use the Simple Facebook Connect (SFC) plugin suite for your self-hosted WordPress blogs? Â I do. Â And I love it! Â It’s made my work so much easier the last few months, allowing me to better integrate my WordPress blogs with my Facebook Pages (I’ll share more later).
If you administer a Facebook Page, you should have heard by now about the new Pages layout and functionality that Facebook started rolling out a couple weeks ago. Â Facebook will automatically push this new layout to all Pages on March 10th if Page administrators have not already upgraded to it by that date. Â I have already upgraded all of my Pages to the new format.
Although the API hasn’t changed, I did discover today that the new Pages format can indeed mess with the ability to publish your blog to your Facebook Page if you use the SFC – Publish plugin in the SFC plugin package.
This is due to the new Posting Preferences settings available to Facebook Page administrators. Â The same cool new feature that allows admins to use Facebook as “Your Page” instead of just as “You, an Individual Facebook User” also conversely allows Page admins to now post or comment on their Page as an individual user instead of just as “Your Page” (a feature that I really like, and will elaborate upon later).
If you, as a Page admin, go into your Page’s new Settings menu, and deselect the option to “Always comment and post on your page as [Page Name] even when using Facebook as [Facebook User]”, you will no longer be able to feed your WordPress blog to your Facebook Page via the SFC – Publish plugin.
Instead, when you attempt to publish, you will get a big angry red error message within your WordPress SFC dashboard.
I had a hunch that the modified Posting Preferences in my Facebook Page might be the problem, since I had been experimenting pretty heavily today with all the various new options. Â When I went back in to Posting Preferences and re-selected the option to always post as “My Page”, then tried to publish from my WordPress SFC Dashboard, the problem was fixed.
I have no idea if this possible glitch will continue to be something that Facebook Page administrators will just have to remain aware and cautious of, or if the plugin developer will be able to implement a permanent fix in a future release.
I hesitate to even use the word “fix” because the issue isn’t with the plugin, but rather with the new Facebook Page settings options. Â However, perhaps the developer can make note of this in the plugin documentation as a recommended setting for Facebook Page administrators.
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Ahh.. Yes, that makes sense. The button is explicitly attempting to post as the Page itself, not as “you”.
It would be possible to add another button to let you post to the Page as you specifically, if you preferred to do that. Not sure if the checkbox would affect that one too though.
Before that checkbox existed, it was actually possible to post as either, without having a setting for it. I never implemented it because nobody ever asked for it. Most people wanted to post to their pages as the page, and a lot of effort went into place figuring out how to do that.
Thanks for the quick response!
I’m not sure an extra button/option is needed. My guess is that most people just want to post their WordPress blog to their Page as a Page (not as an individual user). While there are times that I do want to be able to, or comment on, my Pages as an individual…I can simply toggle that Page setting on and off as needed. I’d recommend waiting to see if more of your plugin users request this functionality.
I just wanted other SFC/Page users to be aware of this conflict and know how to fix it.
Ahh.. Yes, that makes sense. The button is explicitly attempting to post as the Page itself, not as “you”.
It would be possible to add another button to let you post to the Page as you specifically, if you preferred to do that. Not sure if the checkbox would affect that one too though.
Before that checkbox existed, it was actually possible to post as either, without having a setting for it. I never implemented it because nobody ever asked for it. Most people wanted to post to their pages as the page, and a lot of effort went into place figuring out how to do that.
Thanks for the quick response!
I’m not sure an extra button/option is needed. My guess is that most people just want to post their WordPress blog to their Page as a Page (not as an individual user). While there are times that I do want to be able to, or comment on, my Pages as an individual…I can simply toggle that Page setting on and off as needed. I’d recommend waiting to see if more of your plugin users request this functionality.
I just wanted other SFC/Page users to be aware of this conflict and know how to fix it.
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