Social Tools

Publicize

This guide provides instructions for how to connect your WordPress.com site to various social networking services. Once connected to a service, you can share your posts with that service automatically. 

To connect your site to your social networks, go to My Site → Sharing in your dashboard. You’ll see various services in the Publicize section: FacebookTwitterGoogle+LinkedInTumblrPath, and Eventbrite. To connect to a service, click the Connect button and follow the prompts.

Need more information or having trouble with connecting to a particular service? Read on.

Using Publicize

Once you’ve approved a connection to any of these services, you’ll see a Publicize section in the Publish box on your post writing screen each time you write a new post.

Publicize box

When you publish your post as usual, you’ll see it show up on the services you’ve enabled. If you want to opt out of any of the Publicize services for a specific post, uncheck the boxes next to the Publicize connections you’d like to disable.

You can also customize the message that introduces your post on your services:

customize Publicize message

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Sharing your content again

If you want to share your content again, head to your existing posts in My Sites → Blog Posts and look for the post you want to promote again.
Under every post in your post list is a Share button. When you click it, a sharing menu will appear.

This feature is active for all WordPress.com paid plans: PersonalPremium and Business users.

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The default message will be your post title, but you can customize it to add a more personal touch.

By selecting among your connected Publicize accounts, you can craft your message to specific networks and audiences and use different wording for each one.

If you’re trying to share a post from another author on your site, make sure that the Publicize connections are global and valid for all users on the site. If they’re not, you will only be able to share again the posts of which you’re the author.

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Setting up Publicize

To set up Publicize on your WordPress.com site, go to My Site → Sharing in your dashboard.

My Site - Sharing

In the Publicize section, you’ll see a list of services to which you can share your posts. Click Connect next to the service you’d like to enable.

Publicize connections

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Facebook Profiles & Pages

Watch the video below for a quick overview of how it works, and read below for more examples and settings.

On the My Site → Sharing page, click the Connect button next to Facebook. A message will ask you to authorize the connection between your WordPress.com site and your Facebook account, providing access to your public profile and friend list.

info to Facebook

Click the “Okay” button, and Facebook will then ask you to allow WordPress.com to post publicly on your behalf. Click the “Okay” button to allow this, too.

permission for Facebook to post

Finally, you’ll be prompted to allow WordPress.com to manage your pages. Click “Okay” for this as well.

permission for Facebook to manage pages

You’ll be taken back to your dashboard and will see a success message. Here, you can choose if you’d like to publicize to your profile or one of your pages. Note: You can connect one personal profile and one of your pages for a total of two connections if they are on separate accounts.

Authorizing Facebook accounts - pages

After clicking Connect, you can make this connection available to all users of the site. This means that when another user creates a post, it will also publicize to this Facebook profile or page.

connection for all site admins

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Google+ Profiles and Pages

On the My Site → Sharing page, click the Connect button next to Google+. You’ll be taken to Google where you’ll be asked to approve your selected connection between your WordPress.com site and your Google+ account. Click Allow.

Info to Google

On the next screen, you’ll see a message asking you to confirm the account you’d like to authorize. Click Connect.

Confirm Google+ connection

You’ll see a message indicating you’ve successfully connected. In the dialog box, you have the option to connect to a different account. You can also check the box to make this connection available to all site admins. This means that when another user creates a post, it will also publicize to this Google+ profile or page.

Note: All posts shared by Publicize to a Google+ Profile or Page will be public. While it was previously possible to change the visibility of your posts, Google+ no longer offers this option.

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Twitter

Watch the video below for a quick overview of how it works, and read below for more examples and settings.

On the My Site → Sharing page, click the Connect button next to Twitter. You’ll be taken to Twitter where you’ll be asked to approve the connection between your WordPress.com site and your Twitter account. Click Authorize app.

Authorize Twitter

After, confirm the account you’d like to authorize, then click Connect.

Authorize Twitter account

You’ll see a message indicating you’ve successfully connected. In the dialog box, you have the option to connect to a different account. You can also check the box to make this connection available to all site admins. This means that when another user creates a post, it will also publicize to this Twitter profile.

Twitter connection settings

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LinkedIn

On the My Site → Sharing page, click the Connect button next to LinkedIn. You’ll be taken to LinkedIn where you’ll be asked to approve the connection between your WordPress.com site and your LinkedIn account. Click Allow Access.

Screen Shot 2014-02-14 at 2.21.35 PM

After, confirm the account you’d like to authorize, then click Connect. You’ll see a message indicating you’ve successfully connected. In the dialog box, you have the option to connect to a different account. You can also check the box to make this connection available to all site admins. This means that when another user creates a post, it will also publicize to this LinkedIn profile.

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Tumblr

On the My Site → Sharing page, click the Connect button next to Tumblr. You’ll be taken to Tumblr where you’ll be asked to approve the connection between your WordPress.com site and your Tumblr account. Click Allow.

Allow Tumblr access

If you have more than one Tumblr site, you’ll be prompted to choose which one to connect:

Select Tumblr account to connect

After you confirm the account you’d like to authorize, you’ll see a message indicating you’ve successfully connected. In the dialog box, you have the option to connect to a different account. You can also check the box to make this connection available to all site admins. This means that when another user creates a post, it will also publicize to this Tumblr account.

Tumblr connection settings

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Path

On the My Site → Sharing page, click the Connect button next to Path. You’ll be taken to Path where you’ll be asked to approve the connection between your WordPress.com site and your Path account. Click Allow.

connection_screen

After you confirm the account you’d like to authorize, you’ll see a message indicating you’ve successfully connected. In the dialog box, you have the option to connect to a different account. You can also check the box to make this connection available to all site admins. This means that when another user creates a post, it will also publicize to this Path account.

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Images in Publicize

Facebook Publicize typically selects images that are at least 480 x 480 pixels in the following order:

  1. Featured image
  2. The first image of a Slideshow within the post
  3. The first image of a Gallery within the post
  4. An image attached to the post and inserted
  5. Any other image in the post (not attached but perhaps linked)

Twitter requires you to first validate your site to use Twitter Cards in order to share images through Publicize. You do this by submitting a post to their Card Validator. This will need to be done for each Card Type by submitting a post example for each. For example if your post has a gallery, Twitter will share it as a Gallery Card, this Card Type would need to be validated.

Tumblr Publicize will display an image if your post is an image post format or if there is an image embedded within the first 256 characters of the post.

Note that these social services sometimes change things on their end and display a different image than expected. In general, however, it should work as described. To exert the most control over which image is shown, set a featured image for each post.

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Additional Information

Multiple connections to the same account: You can connect multiple social service accounts from the same WordPress.com account. This means you can connect five Twitter accounts, for example, and your posts will publish to all of them. If you are a blog administrator, you can also “share” any connection, so that all your authors can publicize to the same account without each author having to set up their own connection separately. Plus, other WordPress.com Administrators, Editors, or Authors on the blog can also have their own Publicize connections in addition to yours. Please note that you can only connect a personal Facebook account once. It is not possible to simultaneously connect to both a personal Facebook account and a Facebook page created by that account.

Setting Up Non-Administrator Users: The above steps are described for Administrator, Editor, or Author user roles. If you’re an Contributor for a blog, you cannot use Publicize. Only Administrators can share their connections with other users.

A note about Terms of Service: Sharing your post to another online service, via Publicize, may subject your shared content that other service’s terms of use. Many other online services have terms of use or content guidelines that differ from our WordPress.com Terms of Service. Often, these terms give the service rights in user published content that are greater than the rights we (Automattic) have in content published to WordPress.com.

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Reconnecting Services

Sometimes the connection between one of your social networking services and WordPress.com might get disconnected. Not to worry, the following steps should get you up and running again quickly:

Reconnecting Facebook

  1. Log into your WordPress.com site. Go to My Site → Sharing in your dashboard and click Disconnect next to the link to the Facebook profile or page you wish to disconnect.
  2. Reload the page and confirm the link now says Connect, but don’t click that link yet.
  3. Log into your Facebook account. Then go to your Facebook Account Settings Apps page by clicking this App Settings link.
  4. Remove the WordPress.com app by clicking the X in its row. (If there is no WordPress.com row, don’t worry, just skip this step). If you see a popup asking for confirmation, click the “Remove” button.
  5. Do not check the box to delete content created by WordPress.com. This will remove all previously publicized posts and there is no way to recover them.
  6. Log back into your WordPress.com site. Go to My Site → Sharing in your dashboard and follow these steps to reconnect.

Reconnecting Google+

  1. Log into your WordPress.com site. Go to My Site → Sharing in your dashboard and click Disconnect next to the link to the Google+ profile or page you wish to disconnect.
  2. Reload the page and confirm the link now says Connect, but don’t click that link yet.
  3. Log into your Google+ account. Then go to your Google+ Settings page by clicking this Settings link.
  4. Click Security on the left-hand side of the page.
  5. Scroll down to the Connected applications and sites section and click the Review permissions link.
  6. Under Connected Sites, Apps, and Services, click the Revoke Access button next to WordPress.
  7. Log back into your WordPress.com site. Go to My Site → Sharing in your dashboard and follow these steps to reconnect.

Reconnecting Twitter

  1. Log into your WordPress.com site. Go to My Site → Sharing in your dashboard and click Disconnect next to the link to the Twitter account you wish to disconnect.
  2. Reload the page and confirm the link now says Connect.
  3. Clear your browser’s cookies (this clears some cookies that Twitter sets which are often part of the problem).
  4. Log back into your WordPress.com site. Go to My Site → Sharing in your dashboard and follow these steps to reconnect.

Reconnecting LinkedIn

  1. Log into your WordPress.com site. Go to My Site → Sharing in your dashboard and click Disconnect next to the link to the LinkedIn account you wish to disconnect.
  2. Reload the page and confirm the link now says Connect.
  3. Clear your browser’s cookies (this clears some cookies that LinkedIn sets which are likely part of the problem).
  4. Log back into your WordPress.com site. Go to My Site → Sharing in your dashboard and follow these steps to reconnect.

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Common Reasons Why a Post Failed to Publicize

  • If you schedule a post, it will not be publicized until it is actually published.
  • Saving a post as a draft will not publicize it.
  • Static pages will not be publicized.
  • If you have trouble with your posts not being sent to a specific service, disconnecting/reconnecting will often help fix it. See the instructions above for how reconnect for each different Publicize service. After connecting/reconnecting the services, you need to publish a new post to test if Publicize is reconnected.
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