Jetpack 6.3.3 is now available for download. This point fix addresses an important change to our Publicize feature, which will limit your ability to share content to a Facebook Profile.
We’ve broken this post down into a few sections to help you understand the change, how it may impact your site, and how you can share your feedback with Facebook, so please read carefully.
What’s new in 6.3.3
Starting August 1, 2018, a change to Facebook’s API means that third-party tools can no longer share posts automatically to Facebook Profiles. This includes Publicize, our feature that connects your site to major social media platforms like Facebook.
As a result, this release includes both the change to the Publicize feature, and a notice that is designed to help you with next steps:
- The update first: we have removed the ability to select Facebook Profile connections in the Publicize UI. Facebook Page connections are not affected by this change (see below for more information).
- Second, Jetpack will now show you a notice regarding your existing connections to a Facebook Profile, if you have any. This will allow you to quickly understand what has changed and which connections you will be losing as a result of the update to 6.3.3. Publicize will also allow you to add new connections to Facebook Pages in the place of Profile connections, if you prefer.
We understand that you probably have some questions about this update, so here’s a little more information that will help you after you navigate this change easily.
Will this affect my ability to share content on Facebook?
It depends. If you’ve connected a Facebook Profile to your site, then yes: Publicize will no longer be able to share your posts to Facebook.
On the other hand, nothing will change if you keep a Facebook Page connected to your site — all your content should still appear directly on Facebook via Publicize.
If you’re not sure what the difference is between a Page and a Profile, here’s Facebook’s explanation.
How can I share my new posts to Facebook now?
If you still want your Facebook followers to see your new posts from your Jetpack-connected site, you have two options:
- Go the manual route: once you publish a new post, copy its URL and share the link in a new Facebook post.
- The other option, which isn’t for everyone, but works if your site focuses on a business, organization, or brand: convert your Facebook Profile to a Page. Facebook has some information on this process right here.
Why did Facebook do this? How do I let them know I don’t like the change?
Facebook says that they’re updating their API to improve their platform and prevent the misuse of personal profiles. But we know that this might cause a disruption in the way you schedule and promote content, especially if you schedule promotions of your content on Facebook far in advance.
If you’d like to share your concerns on this change with Facebook, you can head to their Help Community and let them know your thoughts.
Final notes on 6.3.3
If you’re having trouble managing your connections to a Facebook Profile or Page after updating to 6.3.3, our experts are always available to answer questions and troubleshoot Publicize connections with you via our support channels. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if we can lend a hand.
If you’re looking for more details on this update, as always, the full changelog has what you need.
Thanks for your understanding, and please let us know if there are any further questions we can answer for you about this release, Publicize, or changes to the Facebook API.
How to increase your blog’s traffic with Jetpack
Jetpack comes with a set of features specifically designed to help you increase your site’s traffic and grow your audience. That is after all the reason we build websites and blogs and write content – for people to see them, read them and enjoy them 🙂
Jetpack helps you tackle this along two fronts: attracting new visitors to our sites and encouraging the existing ones to keep coming back.
Getting more traffic
Its worth mentioning what countless people have said before: writing well-written, useful and targeted content is eighty percent of the job. Neither Jetpack nor any other plugin, is a silver bullet that can ever be a substitute for that. However, if you’ve got that nailed, these features will help you with the other twenty percent:
The Sharing feature, when enabled, places share buttons at the bottom of your blog posts. This allows (and encourages!) your readers to share your content with their own networks giving you broader reach. Currently we support Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg, LinkedIn, Google +1, Print, and Email. Additionally you can define your own custom services.
Verifying your website with external services like Google, Bing and Pinterest. This means you will be rated as “safe” by these services (e.g. by getting a “Verified” badge) and gives you to access advanced features (e.g. Webmaster tools).
At WordPress.com we have a service called “Firehose” which is a stream of the public data (public posts, comments, etc.) that flow through WordPress.com as well as Jetpack blogs that enable Enhanced Distribution. The firehose in turn is used by companies and people to display your content at which point they are required to link back to your blog. This means that you get both traffic back to your site as well as building up quality back-links.
Keep them coming back
The other side of the coin is staying in touch with the visitors who’ve seen and read your content so that they don’t forget about you and come back to see what else you have to say. You may not necessarily want to use all of these of course as it depends a lot on the kind of site or blog you’re running. But because Jetpack makes it easy to turn these on and off some of our users opt to try things one at a time to test out their effect.
RSS is used by millions of people to keep track of blogs they like. When you enable Extra Sidebar Widgets in Jetpack you can show widget that allows you to add links to your blog’s RSS feeds in your sidebar. This makes it easy for your readers to stay updated when you post new content or receive new comments.
Easily allow any visitor to subscribe to all of your posts via email through a widget in your blog’s sidebar. Every time you publish a new post, WordPress.com will send a notification to all your subscribers. Depending on their preferences this notification will either show up on their WordPress bar (top right) or they will receive an email directly in their inbox.
Example of a comment Push Notification from the WordPress for iOS app
Finally, this last one is for you, the site owner. With Notifications enabled you will be instantly notified when somebody comments on any of your posts or previous comments. This means that you can instantly comment back making your interaction with your readers feel more personal and in real-time.
And of course, Jetpack also gives you great stats so that you can see the effect of your work! If you’ve not used Jetpack before, read our step-by-step installation guide here to try it out for yourself.
If you are a Jetpack user already please tell us what you think in the comments and, if you’d like to get involved by writing a guest post about Jetpack get in touch!