Story highlights
Facebook is rolling out a feature that lets you embed posts
Users can share posts on their blogs and websites
Embedding only works for public posts on the site
Facebook is following Twitter, which already allowed embedding tweets
Taking a cue from Twitter and services such as its own Instagram, Facebook on Wednesday began rolling out the ability for users to embed posts on their own blogs and websites.
“When embedded, posts can include pictures, videos, hashtags and other content,” Facebook’s Dave Capra wrote in a post on the site. “People can also Like and share the post directly from the embed.”
Embedding will only be possible with posts that were made public or posted by someone who allows nonfriend subscribers, or fans, to their page.
The feature is being rolled out Wednesday on five sites – first CNN, then Bleacher Report, Huffington Post, Mashable and People. It will be rolled out more widely in the coming weeks.
Here’s how a post from CNN’s main Facebook account looks.
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There were already ways to embed Facebook posts using third-party tools. But the built-in feature makes it easier and more accessible for a much wider base of users.
Images from posts will be visible in the embeds, such as this post from the British royal family’s Facebook page after Prince George was born last week.
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Embedding posts, which is already popular among bloggers and news sites through tools such as Storify, is a way to reference social media material automatically and an attractive method for sites such as Facebook to pull in traffic.
Once the feature is enabled for a user, that user will be able to click an “Embed Post” link from a menu in the spot currently occupied by the “Report/Mark as Spam” link.
The user then will be able to copy and paste a string of code onto their own website to share the post just as it appears on Facebook. For example, a shot of “first dog” Bo from President Barack Obama’s account.
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