Jean O'Brien: Web and Graphic Design
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11 Jun How to import a blog into a Facebook fan page

In a few simple steps, here’s how you can import your blog (using the RSS feed) into a Facebook page (rather than profile).

How is it done?

  1. Go to your Facebook page (or create a new one here)
  2. Click on the Notes tab in the top left hand corner (you  may have to click on the plus sign to display it)
  3. Select ‘Write a new note’
  4. Once you’re in this window, you can access the Notes settings.
    facebook-edit-notes
  5. On the right-hand side of the Notes area, you can choose to import a blog.
    facebook-import-blog
  6. Copy and paste the location of your blog’s RSS feed.
  7. The page will then import your blog.  After you have posted to your blog, the post will show up a little later in your Facebook page.

Updated – Dec 2009

Facebook changed this option slightly after I wrote this post, and many commenters ran into problems with their feed appearing on their personal page instead of on their fan page.  Big thanks to commenter Leela Robinson who identified the correct way to do this. In short – use the Notes tab at the top of the page, not the one at the bottom right.

Facebook page?

A Facebook page is different to a Facebook profile: a profile is a personal account and must be linked to an identifiable individual, whereas a page can be set up by an individual to promote a brand, product or service.   The advantage of a page is that people can become fans of that page and can be contacted en masse, sent updates, use discussion boards, upload photos, etc.  Updates to your page will then appear on their Facebook homepage.

Why import a feed?

If you are creating a Facebook page to promote your blog, importing the blog to the page means that all your blog posts will automatically appear on your Facebook page.

What’s difficult about it?

Facebook is strangely user-unfriendly when it comes to setting up and editing pages, groups, etc.  The process is a bit counter-intuitive, as you can see above.

Lots of blogs give pointers on how to import a feed into your profile, but I had trouble finding one that gave instructions specifically for a fan page.  So I noted down the instructions here in a rare fit of helpfulness.

Some of my Facebook pages:

Tags: How To

81 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Shipwire Order Fulfillment // Jun 25, 2009 at 9:30 pm

    Thank you very much for this post. It really helped me push our blog to our corp Fan page.

    Cheers,

    Nate G

  • 2 Sommer C. // Jun 28, 2009 at 9:25 pm

    Thanks, worked great for my fan page!

  • 3 Mark Freidin // Jun 29, 2009 at 9:37 am

    How do you get the RSS feed to link back to the website the feed came back from, instead of linking to the Facebook page?

  • 4 jean // Jun 29, 2009 at 10:18 am

    Hi Mark

    I’m not sure if you can – the way it’s always worked for me is that the posts show up on the Facebook page, and clicking on the post brings you to a secondary Facebook page, where you can then click back to the actual blog. I’m not aware of any way of cutting out the second step.

  • 5 Didgeroo Ltd // Jun 30, 2009 at 5:42 pm

    I couldn’t find the import option until reading your excellent post. Thank you very much!!

  • 6 Lance Knobel // Jul 9, 2009 at 11:42 pm

    When I do this, it keeps sending the feed to my personal profile, not the fan page. What am I doing wrong?

    Thanks.

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  • 8 jean // Jul 13, 2009 at 11:27 am

    Hi Lance – you need to make sure that you’re an admin for the page, and that you start from the page rather than from your own profile.

  • 9 BenOC // Jul 14, 2009 at 4:26 pm

    Thanks for this ! Was hard to find in the Google !

  • 10 Walter S // Jul 15, 2009 at 4:37 am

    When I copy and paste my direction:

    http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=99183384358#/topic.php?uid=99183384358&topic=10992

    to the import option, it can be imported and says this:

    Import Failed

    We couldn’t find a feed using the URL you provided

  • 11 jean // Jul 17, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    Hi Walter

    It looks like you’re trying to import a Facebook group into a page, which isn’t possible. The instructions I give above are for importing an RSS feed only. An RSS feed comes from an external blog or website.

    http://www.whatisrss.com/
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

  • 12 Shannon // Jul 23, 2009 at 12:22 am

    excellent tutorial, worked beautifully! Thank you very much for sharing =o)

  • 13 Marta // Jul 24, 2009 at 4:22 am

    Thank you! I knew it had to be something simple like this and using the RSS feed applications has given me nothing but a headache. This worked so much better. Great tip.

  • 14 Veronica // Jul 24, 2009 at 8:00 am

    Thanks for the great instructions on how to import a blog to a fan page!! It sure helped me out a lot. :)

  • 15 Elizabeth Chamberlain // Jul 26, 2009 at 10:17 pm

    Thank you so much! This was very helpful.

  • 16 Pazar Cuccok // Jul 26, 2009 at 10:55 pm

    Thanky you for the tip! However after I import my blog’s RSS to my fan page, the first 4-5 lines of the posts are displayed on the wall (which is great) but when I click more I can read the full text of the post on facebook instead of driving traffic to my blog. I wish the more link would lead to my blog. This way people will not visit my blog because they read the posts on facebook. Is there a solution to this?

  • 17 AK // Jul 28, 2009 at 2:11 am

    Thanks for the information – very helpful.

    How do you create a thumbnail icon to be associated with each entry? See my fan page here:http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages#/pages/ProjectPosts/109352642870

    I would like to create a new thumbnail for each entry.

  • 18 Carla // Jul 29, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    Thanks. I searched and searched to figure out where the settings for the notes were to allow importing a blog to my FAN page. Your post was the absolute best! Thanks for being “helpful.”

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  • 20 Mark Waterfield // Aug 5, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    Thank you so much for this………………….. It was very helpful and after tooooo much time wasted got there.

    Can I suggest that in your instructions are added you will find the notes tab on the bottom left of the facebook page and if you can not find it then you have to click on applications first and there you will find the dreaded notes tab.

    It is certainly not an intuitive system but perserverance can win out.

  • 21 Celes | The Personal Excellence Blog // Aug 6, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    Extremely useful! Thanks so much – I was trying to hunt for this option up and down on my facebook fanpage (http://www.facebook.com/personalexcellence). Can’t believe they made the option so obscure!

    I have another question – can we import notes as excerpts or one-liners? I don’t know if I want to add the full blog posts, especially since I might want to edit afterward.

  • 22 jean // Aug 11, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    Hi folks, you’re welcome!

    In response to the questions:

    Pazar and Celes – you need to set your RSS feed to only contain the first few lines of each post. This is all that Facebook will display, and the user will need to click through to your site to read the full post. You do this in the RSS settings on your blog – in Wordpress, it’s in Settings > Reading. Choose ’summary’ instead of ‘full text’ for the feed options. This does mean, of course, that only the first few lines will appear in RSS readers as well.

    AK – I’m not aware of any way to show thumbnails in Facebook. I have thumbnails for each post on this blog, but they don’t show up when the posts are imported to my Facebook page. Sorry I can’t be of more help here.

  • 23 Lucky Balaraman // Aug 14, 2009 at 4:19 am

    Hi Jean,

    Thanks for this wonderful post. I have a question.

    I find that ‘Notes’ only shows the first few lines of my Wordpress post (although my blog is set for ‘full text’ in its feeds). How can I make Notes display the full text of the post?

    Thanks in advance, Jean —

    Regards,

    Lucky

  • 24 Sean // Aug 21, 2009 at 9:05 pm

    When I import the RSS feed to my facebook fan page, it is also importing to my personal facebook profile. Can I make it so it just posts on my fan page?

  • 25 Adam Bean // Aug 25, 2009 at 1:11 pm

    Thanks very much Jean. I have been looking for this info every where. But this is the firrst time it has been explained clearly, and it actually works.
    Cheers Adam Bean

  • 26 Don Smith // Aug 26, 2009 at 9:33 pm

    I did as the instructions said, but it only importing to my profile page, and not the FAN page. I started in the fan page, and went to note, write a note, but when the note comes up, there is no setting option. The only time I see a setting option, is before I click Write A Note, and it says “Import a Blog”. Please help, this is drivin me nuts.

  • 27 Ms. Freeman // Aug 31, 2009 at 4:26 pm

    You are absolutely the most awesome human being on the face of the planet. I have been searching high and low for just this bit of info. It is easy and obvious to do on a personal page, but is somewhat hidden on the fan page.

    Thanks you so much for being that great person to share this info.

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  • 29 Joshua Guffey | SanDiegoMassageandBodywork.com // Sep 9, 2009 at 8:30 am

    Thanks Jean!

    I got my feed importing into my facebook page. You rock!

  • 30 Brittany // Sep 14, 2009 at 9:38 pm

    Thanks for this resource. For some reason, when I linked my new blog to my facebook fan page, it is also now linked to my personal profile page. I can’t find any settings on my personal page on how to stop the importing. Any thoughts?
    Thanks!

  • 31 Sima Dahl // Sep 25, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    I spent far too long looking for exactly this information – this was perfect. Thanks for spelling it out for me so clearly!

  • 32 Andrew Maxwell // Oct 1, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    Jean – thanks for this.

    I like to think I’m pretty tech savvy – but i’m frankly amazed at the interface on Facebook – I’d managed to import notes to my own profile – but I was having no luck at all getting them on the fan page.

    Next problem to solve – lots of my embedded content isn’t showing up in the notes.

    Many Thanks,

    Andrew Maxwell

  • 33 Camilla Saulsbury // Oct 2, 2009 at 4:57 am

    Hi Jean,

    I was so happy to see someone post about this issue. But I was wondering if you could help, becasue I am still having problems.

    The beginning issue: my blog feed posts to my profile on facebook, but not to my fan page.

    I tried to follow your directions, but I am not getting the information on the pages that you have in the directions above.

    When I click on “write a new note”, I do not get anything that looks like what you have above in steps 4 and 5.

    When I clik notes )from aplications, initially), I get an option to import a blog; that’s what I had done before, and it is posting to my profile page, not my fan page for my book fan page, the ultimate shortcut cookie book.

    If I click on “write a new note” as you have in step three, I get a page where I cannot find anything that resembles the line in step 4, and there is no new place to import a blog.
    It simple says “write a note” at the top, with a blank space for “title:”, then space below with “Body” and on option to upload photos.

    I am desperate for help.

  • 34 Denise // Oct 5, 2009 at 5:40 am

    Hi Jean ~ Thanks for these wonderful instructions. I used them a few weeks ago and they worked like a charm.

    In the meantime I’ve been asked how I did it and referred them here…So thanks again!

    Denise

  • 35 brent // Oct 10, 2009 at 10:56 am

    yep you’re right, it was the only how-to I found for how to do this with a ‘page’ instead of a personal profile… I was about to give up :D

  • 36 Marie // Oct 12, 2009 at 12:52 pm

    Thanks a million Jean, that was really helpful!

  • 37 amanda emmanuel // Oct 18, 2009 at 4:18 am

    Thank you so, so very much! wasted countless time on this simple task, I should have just come to your blog post first! thanks again :)

  • 38 Tree // Oct 24, 2009 at 3:03 am

    Thank you!! Great instructions…works perfectly!

  • 39 Facebook Fan Pages // Nov 2, 2009 at 10:59 am

    Thanks very much Jean. This is the first time it has been explained clearly, and it actually works.

  • 40 ariele // Nov 3, 2009 at 3:16 am

    Hi thanks so much for this…..here’s my question: when I update my blog (and my facebook fan page gets updated), a wall post on my personal page appears with a snippet of the blog, but with MY personal profile, not the facebook fan page profile. I hope this makes sense. driving me insane!!! thank you in advance……Ariele

  • 41 Serra // Nov 4, 2009 at 10:16 pm

    Thanks so much! I was looking all over and all I could find was how to do this for a profile, this was really useful, and so easy!

  • 42 Jenifer // Nov 5, 2009 at 7:54 pm

    At step 5 (Once you’re in this window, you can access the Notes settings.) I can see the “Write a new” button, but not the “Import blog” bit. I am on my fan page (http://www.facebook.com/TheDonkeySanctuary) and am the administrator.

    Any ideas? Spent about an hour so far looking for clues! Not finding Facebook particularly user-friendly :-(

    When I am on the fan page, I see Notes available down at the bottom lefthand side. When I click in here, it says I am already importing. But that lists the rss feed for my personal profile page – confused!

  • 43 Joy // Nov 9, 2009 at 10:55 am

    Thanks so much! You’re a savior!

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  • 45 kylia // Nov 11, 2009 at 8:23 pm

    thanks..very useful tip..ive been trying to do this for so long!

  • 46 Jerry // Nov 14, 2009 at 4:25 pm

    Thank you so much! Was easy once I had the steps – but without your post, I doubt I would ever have figured it out.

  • 47 marc // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:17 pm

    oh.
    my.
    god.

    hours of headbanging and twitterfeeding later… I find this post. THANK YOU!

  • 48 Ines Garcia // Nov 22, 2009 at 3:50 pm

    Thanks!!!! After spending hour trying to figure it out your post helped me set it up in one minute!

  • 49 Lisa // Nov 23, 2009 at 8:19 pm

    Hi,
    Thanks for the instructions. When I try to put the feed on the Fan page, the feed only shows up on the main profile page. I opened up the Fan page, selected Notes, imported the blog feed, but the feed still doesn’t show up on the Fan page. Any advice?

  • 50 Alec // Nov 26, 2009 at 5:43 pm

    You’re a god. Thank you so much for this

  • 51 Rick B // Dec 4, 2009 at 1:44 am

    I’m having the same problem as several others. Not only does my blog appear on my fan page, but ALSO ON MY PROFILE PAGE. Not to mention that it shows up twice on each page. It’s driving me crazy and I’m about to just scrap the whole idea. What seems to be a great idea, is just not very effective.

    Any assistance you might be able to offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

  • 52 Leela Robinson // Dec 21, 2009 at 2:55 am

    I too was struggling with the blog feed posting to my personal profile, rather than my fan page. This was happening when I tried to access notes from the bottom left. But I figured it out! and now my blog posts to my fan page

    go to your fan page
    click on notes tab near top
    click on the “write a new note” button on upper right
    then click on the notes icon that appears in the row of icons in upper right
    then you will see an option on the right that tells you that you are or are not importing notes from an external blog
    click through and post your blog url

    hopefully this works for you too!

  • 53 Blogging Tips // Dec 29, 2009 at 1:59 pm

    Great and easy way.I just now successfully imported my blog posts into facebook fan page

  • 54 Zoë Robinson // Jan 4, 2010 at 2:42 am

    Thanks ever so much for this. It’s great to finally have my comics appearing on their Facebook fan pages as a reminder about updates. Less work for me, more interactivity for fans. It’s win-win! :D Thanks again!

  • 55 Ravin Chand // Jan 4, 2010 at 8:18 pm

    Jean… THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!! You don’t know how many freakin’ hours I wasted trying to get my Tumblr to post in to my facebook page properly. This was a HUGE help. Again, thank you!

  • 56 Lee // Jan 13, 2010 at 2:29 am

    Thanks for the instructions, and the December 2009 updated.

    For our Facebook Fan page, we want to import the guest post we wrote for another blog. How can we add just one blog post to the Facebook Fan Page?

  • 57 Alfred // Jan 16, 2010 at 2:19 pm

    Hey,

    Many thanks for your help on this. I was going crazzy figuring out how to do it but thanks to you I have done it in 5 minutes… well, after I had spent an hour yesterday with no luck!

    Once again, many thanks.

    Visit us any time on Facebook – FilmAmora

  • 58 Betsy from Belly Feathers // Jan 16, 2010 at 9:17 pm

    Thanks, this is so helpful!

  • 59 grosir // Jan 20, 2010 at 1:29 pm

    is there anyway to import rss directly to the wall instead of notes?

  • 60 Emily H. // Jan 20, 2010 at 9:18 pm

    Thank you! This was super helpful!

  • 61 Tony // Jan 26, 2010 at 4:36 am

    Thanks for the info! Worked great.

  • 62 Bryan // Jan 29, 2010 at 10:25 pm

    Thanks for the info and comments… Good stuff!

  • 63 Visahwjeet // Feb 9, 2010 at 5:15 pm

    Thanks dear…

  • 64 Jeyaganesh // Feb 10, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    i am getting this error message

    Import Failed
    We couldn’t find a feed using the URL you provided.

    url:http://cybergyaan.blogspot.com/

    plz rectify my prob

  • 65 AnneMarieZ // Feb 11, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    my blog used to import to my fanpage http://www.facebook.com/pages/Colleyville-TX/amwz-photography/128866028833?ref=search&sid=1372692867.4257423195..1
    but it has stopped. What can I do to help this? thanks for the advice.

  • 66 Michael // Feb 11, 2010 at 6:43 pm

    Thanks for the help.

  • 67 carolann barton // Feb 11, 2010 at 8:32 pm

    Thanks this was really useful for me and easy to set up.

  • 68 Sonia Coleman // Feb 16, 2010 at 12:49 am

    Jean, Thanks so much for the clear instructions on how to import my blog onto my business Facebook fan page. This was much better than any help I found on Facebook!

  • 69 Brad // Feb 16, 2010 at 4:47 pm

    Many thanks. You should be writing documentation for Facebook. Better yet, redesign their lousy interface, then write the documentation. Thanks again!

  • 70 Ryan Graves // Feb 16, 2010 at 9:17 pm

    Thanks. Good SEO paid off!

  • 71 Ted Hessing // Feb 21, 2010 at 9:01 pm

    Got it going on the first try! Thanks for the help!

  • 72 Corinne // Feb 23, 2010 at 7:47 am

    Thank you very much. I found this most helpful.

  • 73 Jennifer Tankersley // Feb 25, 2010 at 9:24 pm

    Thank you for this very informative post. My fan page has been idle for so long. Now I know that it will be updated at least whenever I post to my blog. Thanks!

  • 74 Debra // Feb 26, 2010 at 7:13 pm

    I used the instructions and it works, but it takes up to 48 hours for the post to go from my blog to the facebook page. Is this normal?

    Thanks
    Debra

  • 75 editorjackie // Feb 27, 2010 at 1:01 am

    ohhh yeah! this worked great! TY T

  • 76 Sheri // Mar 8, 2010 at 8:18 pm

    Hello, do you happen to know why it takes so long for my blog feed to show up on my fan page?

    BTW…your instructions for importing were terrific! Thanks.

  • 77 Ian Partington // Mar 11, 2010 at 9:37 pm

    This info was heaven sent, you are a life saver :)

  • 78 Amy (Saving with Amy) // Mar 14, 2010 at 9:03 am

    YAY! Thank you SOOO much! Been trying to figure this out for months! Only wish I had seen it sooner! :)

  • 79 Matt Baume // Mar 18, 2010 at 5:11 am

    OMG thank you so much. This is so helpful. I’ve been trying like crazy to import the RSS for my marriage equality blog at http://stop8.org and I would NEVER have found it on my own.

    Yay!

  • 80 Lazy Pineapple // Mar 18, 2010 at 10:38 am

    Oh thanks so much for this….it works superbly…thanks for being so thoughtful and putting these instructions…you rock

  • 81 jean // Mar 18, 2010 at 2:21 pm

    Thanks for all the kind words and praise folks! I blush. :)

    Jeyaganesh – you need the url of your blog’s rss feed, not the blog homepage. I just looked at your blog, and the correct url is: http://cybergyaan.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

    Sheri – my posts are also often slow to show up in Facebook, I don’t know if there’s any way around it. Check the settings of your RSS to see if there’s a delay – for example, I have coded a 10 min delay into my CheapEats.ie blog, so I have time to correct or take down a post before it appears in the feed.

    Matt Baume – go Marriage Equality! :)

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