How to Build a Social Media Feed Plugin for WordPress

Posted on 20th June 2023

If you’re a WordPress developer, then you know that one of the most common requests from clients is for a social media feed plugin. And while there are a few plugins out there that allow you to do this, some are better than others.

In this article, we’re going to show you how to build a social media feed plugin for WordPress that is both easy to use and highly customizable.

First, you’ll need to create a new plugin file and name it social-media-feed.php. Next, you’ll need to add the following code to the top of the file:

includes();
}

/**
* Include required files
*
* @since 1.0
*/
private function includes() {
// Include settings file
require_once plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) . ‘includes/class-social-media-feed-settings.php’;

// Include widget file
require_once plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) . ‘includes/class-social-media-feed-widget.php’;
}
}

new Social_Media_Feed();
?>

Now that you have the basic plugin file created, it’s time to start adding some features. The first thing you’ll need to do is create a settings page for your plugin. This will allow users to enter their social media username and other options.

To do this, you’ll first need to create a new file and name it class-social-media-feed-settings.php. Next, you’ll need to add the following code to the top of the file:

<input type="text" name="social_media_feed_settings[social_media_username]" id="social_media_username" value="” class=”regular-text”>

Now that you have the plugin file and the settings page created, it’s time to start adding some features. The first thing you’ll need to do is create a new file and name it class-social-media-feed-widget.php.

Next, you’ll need to add the following code to the top of the file:

‘social_media_feed_widget’,
‘description’ => __( ‘A social media feed widget for WordPress’, ‘social-media-feed’ )
);

// Widget settings
$widget_settings = array (
‘width’ => 300,
‘height’ => 350,
‘id_base’ => ‘social_media_feed_widget’
);

// Create the widget
parent::__construct( ‘social_media_feed_widget’, __( ‘Social Media Feed’, ‘social-media-feed’ ), $widget_options, $widget_settings );
}

/**
* Widget function
*
* @since 1.0
*
* @param array $args
* @param array $instance
*/
public function widget( $args, $instance ) {
// Get widget settings
$title = apply_filters( ‘widget_title’, $instance[‘title’] );
$social_media_username = $instance[‘social_media_username’];

// Before widget
echo $args[‘before_widget’];

// Display widget title
if ( $title ) {
echo $args[‘before_title’] . $title . $args[‘after_title’];
}

// Display social media feed
echo ‘

‘;

// After widget
echo $args[‘after_widget’];
}

/**
* Update widget function
*
* @since 1.0
*
* @

Building a social media feed plugin for WordPress is a great way to display content from your various social media accounts in one place on your website.

There are a few things you’ll need to consider before getting started:

1. What social media platforms will you be using?

2. What information do you want to display in your feed?

3. How often do you want the feed to update?

4. How do you want the feed to look?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can start building your plugin.

There are a few different ways to go about this, but we’ll use the most popular social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – as an example.

The first thing you’ll need to do is create a new plugin or add the code to an existing one. We’ll name our plugin “Social Media Feed”.

Next, you’ll need to create a function that will retrieve the data from each social media platform. For our example, we’ll use the Facebook Graph API, the Twitter API, and the Instagram API.

Once you have the data, you’ll need to format it and display it in your feed. You can do this however you’d like, but we’ll use a simple HTML list for our example.

Lastly, you’ll need to set up a schedule for your feed to update. For our example, we’ll update the feed every hour.

And that’s it! Once you’ve published your plugin, your social media content will start appearing in your feed.

In order to make your social media feed plugin show up in the WordPress plugin repository, you will need to submit it there. To do this, you will need to create a readme.txt file that contains a description of your plugin and how to install it. You will also need to submit your plugin as a .zip file.

Once you have submitted your plugin, it will undergo a review process. Once it is approved, it will appear in the WordPress plugin repository and people will be able to search for and download it.