Customer engagement is one of the main driving forces behind any successful marketing strategy. However, publishing highly compelling posts regularly is a lot of work. Learning how to aggregate social media feeds on a website could help you address this problem.
Curating social media posts from multiple platforms is an excellent way to boost engagement on your site. It can also help you build your social media following and make your website a little more exciting without overloading your server.
In this article, we’ll talk about the benefits of aggregating social media feeds on your site and share four WordPress plugins that can help you do so. Let’s go!
Understanding Social Media Aggregation and Why You Might Want to Use It
In a nutshell, social media aggregation is a way to curate content from several sources and display it in one place. This way, you can centralize all your social media posts on your website and keep your visitors engaged while they browse your pages.
Embedding social media feeds on your site can help you build a social media following because members can easily find all your accounts. However, that’s not the only advantage of featuring your latest tweets and posts. Doing so can also:
- Enhance your site visually with customizable grids and dynamic feeds
- Increase your brand’s reach as visitors share your posts with their networks
- Keep your website fresh and up to date, even if you don’t post original blog content very often
- Boost engagement on your site thanks to clickable links as well as Like and Load More buttons
Finally, embedding your social media feeds is a smart way to feature photos and videos on your pages without overloading your site, especially if the tool you’re using to aggregate them supports caching.
How to Aggregate Social Media Feeds on Your Website (4 Top Plugins)
Now that we’ve explained what social media aggregation entails and how it can benefit your site, let’s look at four top plugins that can help you get the job done.
1. Smash Balloon
Our first recommendation is Smash Balloon, a responsive tool that enables you to feature multiple social media feeds on your site. What stands out about this plugin is that you can include several Instagram accounts, while most comparable plugins only support one profile.
Smash Balloon makes embedding your Instagram feed easy. You can generate one or several shortcodes and include them anywhere on your site. Smash Balloon also enables you to combine all your feeds into one, customize its colors, add a Load More button, and more.
Besides that, you can aggregate content from other social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. Plus, the plugin won’t overload your site as Smash Balloon supports backup caching.
It also includes other features, such as:
- Mobile-friendly design
- Customizable bio and header
- Chronological or random order displays
- Adjustable grids
Pricing: Smash Balloon does have a free version. However, the Pro version also includes advanced customization options such as multiple layouts, the ability to highlight your posts based on hashtags, shoppable feeds, and more. Pricing starts at $49 per year for use on one site.
2. Feed Them Social
Feed Them Social is another excellent option for easy social media aggregation on your site. Like Smash Balloon, it lets you generate unlimited shortcodes, which you can embed anywhere you want your social feeds to appear.
You can combine all your feeds into one if you want to save space, or display them separately. Apart from Instagram, you can also feature Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube content.
This plugin also gives you basic customization options, such as adjustable font colors. Plus, you can display details such as post comments or descriptions.
Additionally, it includes features such as:
- Mobile-friendly design
- Load More, Like, and Follow buttons
- Social sharing
- Ability to feature Facebook photos and album covers
Pricing: You can use Feed Them Social for free. The premium version also enables you to create carousels and add various extensions such as Combined Streams or Facebook Reviews. It costs $50 for a single site license.
3. Spotlight Social Media Feeds
Next up is Spotlight Social Media Feeds, an excellent alternative if your promotional activities concentrate mostly on Instagram. This sleek plugin enables you to design your feed with a point-and-click, responsive visual customizer.
Like Smash Balloon, this tool enables you to feature multiple Instagram accounts, which is useful if you wish to differentiate your content on this platform. You can also generate near-unlimited shortcodes to embed anywhere on your site or use a handy Instagram widget instead.
Besides that, Spotlight comes with plenty of customization options so that you have full control over the look and feel of your feed. You can even use the lightbox feature and display your images in full size.
Furthermore, Spotlight Social Media Feeds provides:
- Dynamic caching
- Custom bio and profile image
- Follow and Load More buttons
- Adjustable grid layout
- Display options (random, chronological, or popular posts)
Pricing: You can use the limited version of Spotlight for free or upgrade for advanced customization options starting at $49 per year for one website. Spotlight Pro enables you to create shoppable feeds, too.
4. Custom Twitter Feeds
Our final recommendation is an excellent solution for avid Twitter users. Custom Twitter Feeds is a tool developed by the Smash Balloon team, so rest assured your feed will be responsive and blend in seamlessly with your theme.
This plugin can help you boost your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts as your feed content will be crawlable. This way, you can use the keyword-rich nature of Twitter to your advantage while enhancing engagement on your site. Plus, you can display other users’ feeds if they’re relevant, too.
On top of that, you can customize the feed to fully match your website, choose from multiple grid layouts, and even display photos in a pop-up media lightbox.
Plus, you’ll enjoy dozens of other features, including:
- Mobile-friendly design
- Post caching
- Load More button
- Translatable text
- Header display
Pricing: The Custom Twitter Feeds plugin is available for free. You can also upgrade to avail of advanced options such as customizable carousels and slideshows, visual Twitter cards, and more. Pricing starts at $49 per year for use on one site.
Conclusion
Embedding social media content on your site can be an excellent way to revive an otherwise static page. Rather than overloading your WordPress site with images and videos, it’s easier to curate your social feeds by aggregating and embedding them.
In this article, we’ve shown you how to aggregate social media feeds on your website. To recap, you can easily feature several Instagram accounts with Smash Balloon and include other platforms if you wish. However, all the other plugins from our list can help you incorporate posts from your social media channels and display content in various ways, too.
Do you have any questions about aggregating social media feeds on your website? Let us know in the comments section below!
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