How to Cross-Post WordPress to a Facebook Fan Page
Automated cross-posting is a great way to promote your blog posts. However, some platforms are easier to automate than others. For example, on a typical WordPress blog connected to a Twitter and Facebook account, I like to use the TweetSuite plugin and the Twitter Facebook App. It’s not the most scalable solution, but it’s easy to implement and works well for those specific needs.
Not all setups are so simple. Let’s say you want to cross post to a Facebook fan page rather than a profile. Sounds easy, right? After all, it’s fairly trivial to post to a profile.
Far from it. As it turns out, the path to Facebook fan page integration is a bit more complex. Here’s what we used for Bold.
- Install the Shorten2ping plugin. Download, install, and activate the plugin as normal. In the settings, set “Send Notification to:” to Ping.fm. Keep the page open; you’ll need to add more information in a minute.
- Setup your Ping.fm account. If you don’t already have an account, you’ll have to sign up for one. Once you’re signed in, copy your API key and paste it into “Ping.fm API Key” field in the Shorten2ping settings in WordPress.
- Connect your Facebook fan page. This is where things get complicated. Thankfully, Ping.fm has a handy guide to the whole process. I won’t repeat it here since it’s likely to be updated in the future. A word of caution: Follow the entire process carefully. It’s easy to slip up and miss something important which can render the whole setup worthless.
- Sign up with Bit.ly or Tr.im. Shorten2ping integrates wtih URL shorteners, but you’ll need to get an account with one first. It takes five minutes and is pretty indispensible in the 140-character world of tweets if you should choose to integrate Twitter as well.
That’s it. You’re done. Submit a test post and watch it propagate effortlessly into your Facebook fan page. If you don’t see it show up, it’s probably a problem with the Ping.fm Facebook app setup. Double check the guide.
It’s worth noting that integration with Ping.fm makes this setup able to scale to multiple platforms beyond Facebook. If you really wanted to be masochistic, you could set up your Ping.fm account to push your posts to all 40-odd Ping.fm-supported platforms. Excessive, perhaps, but who are we to judge your pathological narcissism social media strategy. 
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Hi, will the posts’s images show up on my fan page with this method?
Thanks for this post. I was using ping.fm (with WPing.fm pluging) but wasn’t happy with the way images were being treated. Seems like there’s no control over that piece. Now I’ve reverted to blog import via Facebook Notes, which now supports images.
Are you still using the approach above? Thoughts?
Great post – although your step 3 is easy now that ping.fm uses the new Facebook Connect method. Works well, thanks for sharing!